Freddy vs. Jason: One More Time

As a kid I had always been obsessed with Freddy Krueger and to me he was the definitive serial killer because he had a face and he wasn’t just an unstoppable physical force but rather a “demon” that kills you when you at your most vulnerable. Jason, on the other hand, was nothing special but I enjoyed the first three of his movies. Later, I would see his movie again and I came to the conclusion that I was never a big Jason or Friday the 13^th fan because it was all about body count and not the characters. Surprisingly, I saw more character development in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies then any other slasher. Perhaps I am missing the point but that’s one of my main arguments as to why I love the Elm Street movies.

When I first saw the previews for Freddy vs. Jason, I loved every minute of it because my favorite horror movie villain was going to be up against my least favorite horror movie villain. I was on Team Freddy from the very get go. I never saw it in theaters so I had to wait for it to come out on DVD and so I rented it from the library when it was released to home video. Upon my first viewing of Freddy vs. Jason, I hated it. There were only a few things that I liked but that didn’t outweigh the bad and so since 2003 I had never picked it up again. When asked by my friends why I hated it, I gave a number of reasons why and I feel as though I should try to summarize them and restrain myself from ranting and breaking off into a tangent.

The biggest problem I had was that I didn’t like any of the “human” characters. They were dry, stale, cardboard cutouts of typical Hollywood teenagers, they were nothing but slasher fodder and very expendable. I didn’t care about their problems and I wanted to see all of them dead because they were pests. I always commended Nightmare on Elm Street for giving me characters that I can relate to or characters that I feel sorry for but to see unlikeable characters on Elm Street seemed out of place and stupid. They felt like they would be more at home in Crystal Lake then Elm Street. I didn’t like the stoner and I didn’t like seeing Freddy take the form of a pot-smoking caterpillar. I felt like it was insulting him and I felt the same way when he became a witch or a comic book villain. I especially hated the fact that Freddy was afraid of fire and Jason was afraid of the water because if I remember correctly, Freddy used fire in many of his nightmares and never was afraid of it then. Also, I remember Jason being fine with water and never shying away from it. Additionally, I felt like the ending was a cop out because I thought they would end both franchises simultaneously but instead they show Jason walking away with a winking dismembered Freddy head. I felt like it was the last corny nail on the cheese coffin.

With all that said, I decided to see the movie again because most people I talk to say it wasn’t bad and for a “versus” movie, it’s pretty decent. I thought about it for a while and I realized that it’s going back to the old “meets” movies that Universal would produce. The movie Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man came up as being the first mainstream movie that pits two horror icons together. So, I buckled down and decided to give Freddy vs. Jason another go… this time looking at it from a fresh new standpoint since I hardly remember what happens. Now, after analyzing horror movies and broadening my horror taste, I felt like I was prepared for this movie. I’m older and not nearly as bias as I once was. My general consensus of Freddy vs. Jason after seeing it for the first time: I liked it. It wasn’t bad, pretty decent, and it has some charms that nod the original franchises.

Since I’m not a big fan of the Friday the 13^th movies and since there isn’t really anything to them other than a body count and Jason, I think I should talk about the Nightmare on Street portion of the movie as there is more to them. One of the biggest things I was dreading was that they wouldn’t properly transition from the real world to the dream world; the original Elm Street movie seamlessly brought you into the dream without you knowing. As for this movie, specifically the scene where the group was thinking about sacrificing the main heroine, half the time I couldn’t differentiate between the real world and the dream world. The dreams, although surreal like they should be, doesn’t offer booby traps within the “real” home. What I mean is this: in the first movie Nancy is running up the stairs when suddenly the stairs turn into goopy liquid or when the basement slowly turns into the boiler room. Much of that is missing but that does not mean it’s bad. I’m real glad they kept the boiler room.

What I liked more than anything, and this is what made me hate the film originally, was that the movie dived into the characters of Jason and Freddy. I understand why Freddy is afraid of fire because he was burned from it and Jason drowned so he’s afraid of water. I like this aspect despite the fact that both villains encountered each element before in their own respectable franchises. I feel like giving the villains a fear of something de-mystifies them and brings them down to a mortal level; it makes them more human, which is something that really turns the tables on things but it goes deeper into that. When Freddy encircles Jason with water we see Jason backing up, Freddy smiles, then we see a trembling, half-naked boy on the floor with a hokey mask. It’s such a good yet sad scene because it shows us that inside the undead, hulking exterior of Jason lays a frightened little boy who was emotionally and mentally scarred. Freddy, in almost a childish bully sort of way, goes on to mock Jason saying that his face is something only a mother could love. Then, we flash back to Camp Crystal Lake where Jason was picked on. It shows you that Jason was once a normal person and could have led a somewhat normal life despite his deformity, but it’s because of the severe bullying that he becomes the murderous psycho that he is. But this also shows just how merciless and cruel Freddy is and that he was born a monster, whereas Jason was made into a monster.

Then there are the battles between Freddy and Jason, which were pretty damn good. There are some wonderful massacre scenes, particularly Jason breaking somebody’s back by squishing them in half by the bed. There’s also a fantastic scene where Freddy controls one of the characters by making him doze off from smoking pot. It’s a fantastic scene because, for one, I thought it was pretty cool seeing somebody attack Jason wielding two syringes of sedatives. Also, for me at least, it was the most memorable scene where Freddy controls somebody since Nightmare on Elm Street 2. I don’t really count Dream Warriors because it was too campy, whereas Elm Street 2 was sort of playing on a “duel personality” level.

I should start wrapping this up before I trial off like I so often do. I’ll admit that for a while I was acting stubborn but I think Freddy vs. Jason is growing on me because it’s not a bad slasher and I really like the ‘versus’ plot. I’m glad that Robert Englund was in it and that earned it extra points in my book, it was gory, it had some great dream sequences and Freddy seemed to be a badass. I know I am really fixated on the Nightmare on Elm Street portions but that’s because those were the scenes I was worried about the most. It was fun seeing Jason hack and slash again and it was fun seeing Freddy take advantage of his traumatizing childhood because it added personality to Jason. Seeing Freddy, and Jason, afraid of fire and water elements brought them down to our mortal level and that’s something that was risky but played off perfectly. I think now I have a new take on this movie and it holds up. Then again, this wasn’t the first time I hated a movie at first but grew to like it. Hell, just ask Jack Frost or Uncle Sam. They’ll tell you.

Camp Crystal Lake vs Camp Blackfoot

It has been a while since I’ve seen The Burning and though it never really stuck into my head, I always looked back on it as just another slasher film. A few weeks ago I re-watched it so that I can get a good sense of it again and I realized that this movie was way better than I ever gave it credit for. Is it a generic slasher movie? Yes, it is. Was it a cheap knock-off to Friday the 13^th? Yes it was. Was it only made to bank off of camp-related horror movies? Of course. However, when comparing it to the Friday the 13^th movies, I have to say that The Burning is a far superior film. I was never really a F13 fan from the start and I believe that’s due to the fact that the film(s) lacked character and was made as an excuse to have a body count. With The Burning, there are three main reasons why I find it better than any of the F13 movies.

The Characters

As I already mentioned before, I felt like all the Friday films lacked something that I really look for in movies and that’s characterization. Sure, if the film is campy I don’t look for it that much but there still should be something that makes me feel ‘connected’ to the character. In The Burning we are introduced to a wide variety of teenage camp counselors who, sad to say, are actually funnier than any of the counselors at Crystal Lake and in some cases… more natural as teenagers. There are a few love stories that The Burning has that feel real and when somebody gets rejected you’re left saying, “well that kinda sucks!” The head counselor, one of the people who played the prank on Cropsy, isn’t just some dumb teen but rather someone who learned his lesson and tries to enforce ‘respect’ to his fellow workers and campers. It’s an interesting approach to such a cliché role.

The Weapon

The weapon makes the killer. It sort of embodies who the killer is or at least ‘fits’ with the killer’s style and or character. In the first Friday film, the killer uses whatever he or she finds at the campground and it varies from knives to sharp-tipped arrows. That’s fine but I found a pair of rusty old hedge clippers to be far more frightening if not worse, in some cases, than an arrow or knife. Also, it goes well with a dirty, grungy, revenge drunk psychopath. If you really want to look into, I’ll go further into saying that Cropsy is better than Jason in some cases.

The Suspense

I always found the F13 movies lacking in suspense, at least the ones following the first one and even with the first film there are just a few scenes of it. The movies usually banked on creating jump-scares but every time it happened it would usually involve somebody getting killed and I would usually shrug and say, “oh look another person is killed.” Jump-scares are fine but after a while it just gets bland, especially when there is no substance to the movie. In The Burning, there are several points where the film builds up a strong sense of tension and foreboding peril and for the most part it ends in nothing happening but there is a method to this; since the film had a few cop outs, when a voyeuristic shot of someone stalking someone appears back on screen you’re left to think it’s somebody goofing around. That is until the hedge clippers rise in the air and you knocked off your seat.

I was asked by Horro’s Reviews if Tom Savini was right in declining the makeup work for one of the Friday films and instead working on The Burning. I standby with his decision not because The Burning had mind-blowing effects, but because it gave him diversity in his career. As somebody already pointed out, The Burning is more effective than Friday the 13^th in almost every way but there is just one thing that it doesn’t have: Jason. He’s right. The film didn’t take off like the Friday films and I’m sort of glad it didn’t because it would have been butchered and obscured. Right now, it stands as a small indie horror film that accomplishes everything that Friday the 13^th doesn’t and that’s the way I like it.

Horror... IN SPACE!

The term ‘jump the shark’ referrers to an episode on Happy Days when Fonzie attempted a jump over a shark after a challenge against his bravery. The term often describes when a TV show has reached a point where the story spins off into absurd story lines, adding new and weird characters or twisted the story. It often marks when a TV show reached its prime and the show continues despite low ratings and viewership. It often marks when a TV show is nearing the end of its run. The same can be said for horror movies too… when a franchise has reached it’s prime but the greedy studios want to dish out even more to keep the franchise thriving. I found that the ‘jump the shark’ moment in most horror movies is when the franchise goes to space.

The more infamous franchise that has gone to space was the Friday the 13th franchise when Jason is frozen at Crystal Lake Research Facility and makes his way to space and slays everybody aboard. Why is this movie ‘jumping the shark?’ Because Jason went from a psychopathic killer at a camp in the middle of nowhere to goddamn “Uber Jason” in space! Plus, one of the corniest moments is when one of the people aboard the ship states, “What is this hockey?” C’mon! Now that is stupid. The story is pushed to space, which doesn’t make sense, and then they change the look and the character of the killer… two indications of when a franchise is dying out. However, the series was jumping the shark in Friday the 13th Part V and so on.

I can’t really say much for Critters 4 because I haven’t seen it in a while but it’s not really complain worthy because they did start off in space. The only thing that is ‘jump’ worthy is the idea that they returned back to space. The movie was great because it took place in a small town but in a dramatic turn of events they end up back in space. They couldn’t just leave it alone after taking over New York.

Another notorious franchise that went to space was the Leprechaun series. Now, the second and third and fourth one were all pretty bad and cheesy but to see the Leprechaun running around in a space station was just comedic and not even horror. It was nice to see Davis reprise is role as Leprechaun but this movie swerves into the world of DNA, mutations and computers… three things that never needed to be in the Leprechaun movies at all. However, they didn’t stop there… they went ahead and jumped the megalodon with Leprechaun: In The Hood.

It seems as though space is the final frontier in horror, when the series has become boring in landscape and more and more ridiculous in plot… so they move to space because there is so much to play with in space and a chance of landscape. What they don’t understand is that space is probably one of the cheesiest place for a killer to wind up. How can you explain a killer, who originated in Podunk, Iowa, end up in space without creating an absurd plot turn? You can’t! When a franchise goes to space, it normally means that they are running out of ideas and can’t keep the franchise alive that long.

What we can expect for future films? Well, thank God Nightmare on Elm Street, Phantasm and Texas Chainsaw have not gone to space but I am sure we can expect Saw eventually leading to space. It honestly won’t surprise me. However, I think the Power Glove scene in Nightmare on Elm Street was the jump the shark moment.

I still hang on the idea that they should make A Nightmare on Elm Street 8: Nightmares In Space; when Freddy goes to space in the Bernal Sphere Space Colony where Elm Street has moved. Then he kills all the teenagers of the people who work on the space colony because their ancestors were the kids of the kids of the kids of the kids of Elm Street. That is cinematic gold!!

Note: I think the Freddy In Space image is actually from the Freddy In Space blog.

HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH

Since it is Friday the 13th, I decided to share a couple of videos that I found yesterday that I really enjoyed. One of them is a great tribute video to Jason Voohees and the Friday the 13th films. The other is actually a Friday the 13th video game review from one of my greatest inspirations... The Angry Video Game Nerd. So, I hope you enjoy them!!



And here is that awesome video game review that I love so much!!