Written by Damien Shannon And Mark Swift
Directed by Ronny Yu
Freddy: "I've been away from my children for far too long."
Well, it was nine years since the events of the not canon but still utterly amazing Wes Craven's New Nightmare. For this specific franchise, that was some distance. However not content with the previous movie going all meta for a first, this eighth installment also had another first.
Crossing over with the Friday The 13th franchise, Freddy Krueger (Robert England) has found himself forgotten about by the kids of Springwood and he refuses to accept that fate whatsoever. In order to get them remembering and scared, he's decided to enlist some help.
Taking a trip to Crystal Lake, Freddy enlists the help of one Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) by using the image of Pamela (Paula Shaw) in order to complete his goal but of course, it doesn't go to plan. Jason isn't content with being an errand boy for Freddy, he wanted his own slice of the action and this was where the movie mostly lived up to its title.
Anyways with Freddy and Jason both vying to come out on top in the killer stakes, this movie needed some teenagers to bump off and there's a fair chunk of them here. First of all though, let's meet our final girl, Lori Campbell (Monica Keena).
As a final girl, Lori seems to fall in the "in between" category as most of the ones do in this franchise. She's got a traumatic backstory involving her mother being a victim of Freddy's as well as a father more keen on drugging her to repress her memories than deal with them in a healthier manner. Not to mention a love interest named Will (Jason Ritter), who's had his own mental health issues.
Character wise, both are okay in a group mostly made of cannon fodder. Fodder that included Lori's mean spirited best friend, Kia (Kelly Rowland), chain smoking Gibb (Katharine Isabelle), nerdy Charlie (Chris Marquette) as well Will's fellow inmate Mark (Brendan Fletcher) and the one not entirely useless cop, Scott (Lochlyn Munro). Some of them work a bit better than others but they're largely just there to be killed off by both title baddies.
As the movie stumbled towards its final act and most of the cast were dead, only Lori and Will were enough to take on Freddy but do very little to stop Jason. Truthfully, it's the latter killer that emerged as the real victor of the movie although the former still was hinted to be alive by the end of it all.
- Like Freddy's Dead, there were clips and flashbacks to previous movies.
- This movie represented the end of both franchises, until they both got reboot movies a year apart from one another.
- Standout music: Without a doubt, it's the most heavy metal soundtrack of the franchise. Most of the songs just fade into each other.
- Chronology: I'm assuming 2003, given the year of it's release.
Freddy Vs. Jason has these two horror icons meeting in a movie that should've been a damn sight better than what we got here. While it doesn't quite hit the nadir that either franchise has had with their own later sequels, nor can it be said that it's a personal best for either. With some largely characters, questionable dialogue choices and so on, the results are more of a mixed bag.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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