FREDDY VS JASON review

I can’t give you a normal review of FREDDY VS. JASON. I have no idea how the film plays in a regular theater. However, with an audience over a thousand hardcore horror fans strong… beneath the open sky with Mars blazing brightly as clouds quilt a mostly full moon… as alcohol fueled rabid Fangoria-raised minds and with the underlying knowledge that Freddy and Jason were in the woods in which we sat… FREDDY VS JASON played like the greatest movie of all time.

Every kill was cheered, every quip anointed with laughter. As the fight between the titans of terror raged on, the audience was divided, cheering for Freddy and Jason equally to win! And as the final moment of the film played out, the audience rose to its feet and cheered up to the heavens about these spawn of hell. It was a film experience I have been dreaming of conjuring ever since I heard the first mention of FREDDY VS JASON.

I didn’t want to see this film with critics in a sterile environment. I didn’t want to see this as I see other films. I grew up with these characters. I was a Fat Freddy Krueger and even had the orange furred cat to prove it at more than one High School event. Jason’s theme has been on the edge of my lips since I was 8 years old. 23 years later, I’m still a fan. I’m a fan that can admit that most of the Jason films are not very good. A fan that loves dearly NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS dearly above all others. I also hate and despise FREDDY’S DEAD and even 3D didn’t help it a bit. I have always been a Freddy fan first, but have loved the back and forth geek discussions about who would win in a fight. And I’ve always wanted to see them go at one another.

Essentially this is a film that is all about Neo vs Mr. Smith. Freddy is the master of dreams and Jason is the unstoppable killing machine. Freddy understands that in the land of dreams he is all-powerful. Why? Cuz he understands the fabric of dreams, the imagination of creation. He delights in wanton lasciviousness and debauched psychotic revelry in torturing mentally and physically his victims before taking their soul. It isn’t enough to just kill them… he must strip them of all sanity and leave them a shell. Freddy would so own in THE MATRIX. Freddy is THE ONE and he’d kick hell out of the agents. There’s a moment in this film where Freddy just beats the living hell out of Jason, treating him like the proverbial pinball that he is… and all I could think was… THIS RULES! The audience was in a frenzy and we were all watching something we’d never seen before… Freddy opening up such an insane can of whupass on a character that no matter what… he just can’t kill. COMPLETE PSYCHOTIC GLEE! It’s like… punching a boxing bag or throwing a cat off a roof… no matter what you do, you can’t hurt it… It’ll always bounce back. But it feels so damn good to do that you just keep throwing those punches and felines till you ain’t got no more to throw.

Is this film a great film?

For rabid horror geeks like me, it sure as fuck is a great piece of entertainment!! I love the wanton destruction and careless disregard for life that Ronny Yu infuses in this film.

Does the film have problem areas?

Oh god yes. The teenagers all suck, their dialogue sucks, their plotlines and character relationships suck… In fact, I wouldn’t even call them characters, I’d call them Parsley. Sprigs of parsley to be diced up and laid about the plate around the meat and potatoes that are Freddy and Jason. Those insignificant annoying decorative bland tasteless so-called spice that’s placed there purely for cosmetic reasons.

What’s nice though, is unlike your dinner plate, here… you don’t have to remove the parsley because the Meat and Potatoes are going to clean the plate up of that bullshit and then go at each other. And that’s just dandy!

There was only one film in the history of either series that had interesting and compelling teens that I liked and that was NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: THE DREAM WARRIORS. In that film, I really liked Kristen, Kincaid, Joey and Taryn. I didn’t want them to die, and that’s why I love that film so much.

I understand the concept of the American Slasher film though, they don’t want the deaths to really hurt you. This isn’t about real fear, real homicidal incidents… You’re not supposed to care about the victims in these films, you’re there to root for the killers and see the sinners punished. It’s a formula. It’s why HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER is a masterpiece and all the Freddy and Jason movies exist in the realm of B-cinema. We’re not supposed to weep for the dead in these films, but cheer… It’s Gladiatorial Entertainment… Are you not entertained? Well, it may have led to the disintegration of an Empire, but as a film… seeing these “Christians” tossed to the lions… well, at Camp Hacknslash, the mob ruled and so did this film!

I’ve seen a lot of critics decry these films and this one in particular for having a lack of any real social significance, and frankly… they’re missing the point, the significance socially speaking of these movies is not on the screen, but in the audience. It’s the need to find violence and death that you can laugh at and see with friends and not be afraid of. That actually says quite a bit about the world we live in. After all, who does the media give the most coverage to… the 3000 + people in the WTC or OSAMA?

However, over analyzing these films is part of the fun of them. Hatching and giving meaning to them… well, in a funny sort of way, that’s exactly what art is supposed to be. It means what you make of it, and to me, FREDDY VS JASON means a damn good time at the movies with an audience of like minded lovers of hack n slash cinema drenched in the bloody goodness!