Freddy Vs. Jason Review

Jason X failed to spark new interest to the series. The series appeared to be deader than ever before. The next entry surprised every fan of the series. For the first time Jason from our beloved Friday the 13th series and Freddy from the Nightmare on Elm Street series were going to duke it out in a spectacular extravaganza! What resulted was an impressive life saving jolt that rejuvenated the franchise.

As always, we begin with the trailer. The trailer alluded to both franchise's history. They gave year call backs sporting 1980 with our beloved original and 1984 for Craven's classic. It was a GREAT way to advertise the movie. Now, I gotta be honest with you guys...I've always preferred Freddy. I LOVE Friday, that should be obvious to you guys by now, but watching this movie I'm a little biased. The tagline I felt was misleading: Winner Kills All. The winner doesn't kill all, but we'll get to that later.

As far as the movie goes, I think the film's spectacular. Considering how downhill the Friday franchise had gotten this entry is incredibly impressive. I do feel this movie works a lot better with the Friday franchise than the Nightmare franchise. I don't consider this a part of the Nightmare franchise. New Nightmare ended that series so perfectly. There didn't need to be another Nightmare movie and this really isn't one. Jason kills a TON more people than Freddy in this movie. I wouldn't call this movie scary...this is an event movie and that's what was delivered in spades.

Lori, our final girl is a step down in character from the previous Friday's. She has a LOT less to offer. Lori's mother was killed by Freddy. She has a personal vendetta against him by the end of the movie. She's not all that smart of resourceful. She's been in love with Will ever since she was 14. She drinks and parties. She doesn't do a lot of running for fighting Jason directly. She does 'kill' Freddy at the end, but that's about it. Lori is much more like a Nightmare girl than a Friday girl. Lori, when compared to the Nightmare girls, aside from 2 and 6 would be the weakest of that bunch.

The basic premise of Freddy posing as Jason's mother to get him to kill for Freddy I thought was genius! The ending too...WOW! That's all I can say. That final battle is extraordinary. It was worth the 10 year wait. I LOVE this movie!

Now, every Friday has it's fair share of controversies and this one is no different. Let's start with the recasting of Jason. Kane Hodder was an amazing choice who stayed with the franchise in it's darkest times. Kane made the worst films bearable and for that I'll always respect and love the man. However, FVJ is immensely better than all of the Friday's that Kane was a part of. If I wasn't pleased with the final product I'd probably be a lot more upset, but as it stands, I don't really mind the recasting because the film is spectacular.

Who wins? A lot of people like to say that it's a draw. There's also a camp that says Jason won because he's the one standing at the end. However, from recent interviews it is clear that the winner is Freddy. Ronny Yu has flat out said that in an interview for the documentary on the Nightmare series. I think also the original ending, which can be seen on the DVD release, it's clear that the intention was always to have Freddy win at the end. Sorry, guys, but it's obvious that that was always the filmmakers intent.

Jason being afraid of water. Jason's not afraid of water, he's afraid of drowning. We know this because he walked straight into water in Jason Lives. However, for the purposes of this movie, I like that they changed it. Freddy being afraid of fire and Jason of water was a great juxtaposition. I really have nothing bad to say about the movie.

Freddy Vs. Jason premiered on August 15, 2003. New Line pulled out all the stops for this movie. This was the biggest budget Friday film up to that point in time. On a budget of $25 million, the movie grossed an impressive $113 million worldwide. Freddy Vs. Jason was not only a financial success, but it was an artistic success as well. Where would the series go after such an impressive and gargantuan revival? Could a sequel to Freddy Vs. Jason be made and whatever happened to that random shot of the Book of the Dead from the Evil Dead trilogy? Well...we'll discuss that next time.