Freddy vs. Jason - Erster Review

FREDDY VS. JASON (d. Ronny Yu, w. David S. Goyer, Damian Shannon, Mark Swift)
In the wake of Neill Cumpston’s media coming out party (for those of you who missed it, our Ritalin-deprived pride and joy got quoted by Howard Stern and Peter Travers last week), I feel inadequate to review this film. Now, don’t get me wrong here; I’m no elitist. I love the FRIDAY THE 13TH and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series with fairly equal ardor, though I must admit, by merit of its maiden installment – a genuine horror classic – Craven’s franchise has the prestige edge, especially since the best Jason movie, THE FINAL CHAPTER, is most noteworthy for Tom Savini’s go-for-broke gore f/x and Crispin Glover dancing to imitation 80’s synth-pop. But to fully convey the success or failure of the slasher film equivalent of KING KONG VS. GODZILLA (sans the culturally sensitive alternate endings), I feel almost required to bellow out a full-throated “This movie breaks into your bedroom and shits in your sock drawer while you’re passed out from a Cuervo-and-pussy binge with two diseased Haitian whores who carved Utah’s state motto onto your testicles with rusted pinking shears.”

That is, I would if the film deserved it.

Now, now... calm down. The movie’s fine. It’s exactly what we should expect from a film entitled FREDDY VS. JASON, and it’s actually much better than most of the sequels in each respective franchise. It’s quick, brutal and pretty tongue-in-cheek, and it doesn’t skimp on the promised serial killer throwdown. Yes, New Line finally stuck their ELM STREET chocolate in their FRIDAY THE 13TH peanut butter, and damn if it ain’t a taste delight with nearly every bite so long as the boys are hacking and slashing at one another. But there’s a sense that they could’ve done better. It seems that this project has been churning in the development digestive system since AICN’s ID4-background infancy (stories on FREDDY VS. JASON reach back all the way to November 1997). There’ve been reports both good and bad on the various scripts and treatments, the feeling always being that New Line was waiting for that perfect match of script and director to nail whatever quirky sensibility this pop-cultural mélange of murderous mayhem needed. After his modest success with BRIDE OF CHUCKY, Ronny Yu (a Hong Kong fan favorite for THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR) was deemed the project’s ringmaster, and, at long last, the film went before cameras. And while I fully expect the picture to be embraced by the fanboy faithful, the question will remain: was this *really* the best script they had?

The film kicks off with Freddy bringing us up to speed on his sorry situation. It seems folks on Elm Street have forgotten about him, and his banishment from their sub-conscious has put him out of business, leaving the poor child murderer kicking around the depths of Hell without a proper gig. But if these films have taught us anything, it’s that where there’s an undying psychopathic will, there’s a wholly implausible way, and Freddy finds it in the apparently immortal killing machine of Jason Vorhees, whom he transplants to his old Elm Street stomping grounds for some delinquent teen slayin’ fun. Sure enough, as soon as the first corpse turns up – a bravura kill that shall heretofore be known as the Craftmatic Adjustable Death – the name Freddy Krueger is uttered again. Problem is it’s spoken by Tim (James Callahan), a guest at the local Chez Gaga, who happens to be heavily medicated buddies with Will (Jason Ritter), the ex-junior high sweetheart of Lori (Monica Keena).

When Will sees a body bag being rolled out of Lori’s house on the local news, he busts out of the nut house with Tim to go warn his prepubescent flame of the Krueger legend, which has been thoroughly written out of the town’s history. In other words, Will is inadvertently playing right into Freddy’s steel-clawed hand. Pretty soon, Freddy’s revitalized and ready to make his big slasher comeback, but there’s a catch: Jason is still making homicidal hay on his turf. So before Freddy can get down to business, he’s got to eliminate the masked one, which, as we know, is a tall order that even the formidable likes of Corey Feldman couldn’t fill. Call up Michael Buffer and, “Let’s get ready to rumble!!!”

Probably the biggest controversy surrounding this project has been New Line’s decision to sack the Olivier of Jason Vorhees portrayers, Kane Hodder, in favor of another, less-flashily-monikered stunt man, Ken Kirzinger. The studio’s alleged rationale was that Kane lacked the emotive reserves crucial to making Jason the kind of maniacal mongoloid that could elicit the audiences’ sympathies. (Where’s David Warner when you need him?) So while Jason is definitely the underdog in this brawl (if only because he’s in the other guy’s arena for most of the film), with the script making more references to his tragic drowning as a child than we’ve seen since the early installments in the series (including an appearance from his mother, who, apparently, is *not* played by Betsy Palmer this time out, but Paula Shaw), the difference in Kirzinger’s performance from Hodder’s seems negligible. Take that as you will.

The biggest problem with FREDDY VS. JASON is in its puzzling decision to cram so much listless backstory into what should be a fairly simple genre package. Do we really care about Lori and her sinister father, who may have had Will committed to cover-up the murder of his wife? It’s not enough to have two insanely prolific mass murderers prowling the neighborhood; we have to add in a case of potential uxoricide? C’mon! This isn’t Agatha Christie; it’s FREDDY VS. JASON! Why clog up the works with superfluous plotting that serves only to delay the massacre? This thing should be nothing but jump-scares and buckets of blood, with plenty of laughs scattered throughout. It certainly seems as if that’s what they had in mind when they cast the film. After all, why bring on such solid comedic performers like Lochlyn Munro or Monica Keena (who, I think, really found her calling on UNDECLARED) if you’re going to have them play against their strengths? With this kind of uninspired writing, they might as well have cast a group of girls less likely to insist on a no-nudity clause.

But when you get right down to it, FREDDY VS. JASON does deliver on the basic genre requirements. Gratuitous gore? Check. Tits? Check. One or two inventive kills that draw rapturous, bloodthirsty applause from the audience? Check (there’s a nice homage to the mid-coital spearing from PART II). Do I wish they would’ve put a little more thought into the script? Yes, but that extra effort wouldn’t have paid off at the box office. There are more than enough trailer-friendly shots in this film with which the marketing folks at New Line will be able to whip the target audience into a drooling frenzy by the time August 15th rolls around. As for once they’re in the theater… sure, the imbecilic subplots will leave ‘em groaning derisively for the first two-thirds, but when the final showdown at Camp Crystal Lake arrives, all will be forgiven. It’s a goddamn bloody mess. (BTW, dig that STREET TRASH bit with the gas tank.)

So keep your expectations tempered, if you’re at all capable of that, and I think you’ll have a good time. For all my high falutin’ grievances, I must admit that I, more or less, got what I came for. Perhaps the highest compliment I can bestow on FREDDY VS. JASON is that, when Neill Cumpston sees it, he’s going to befoul the theater like it’s a circa-1980 Times Square grindhouse unspooling a Russ Meyer double feature. On the off-chance you might find yourself in the cinema that day, I suggest you wear a sturdy pair of hip waders and swab a hefty dollop of VapoRub under your nose. It’s gonna get ugly.

Freddy 1+2 waren gut und Nightmare 1+2 auch