Harry here, and I just have to say that the negative points that Quint raises in this look... are not shared by me, and the next time I talk with him we'll have a good... 2 hours of verbal fencing where I will kill that bastard with every sentence. BUT... I won't debate him here... So take a gander folks... and I'll see what you think.. There are far more spoilers in this look than any other...
Ahoy, constant readers, AICN's resident crusty ol' seaman here once again, this time with my views on the current draft of the Freddy Vs. Jason script written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. No, not that awful script that ends with a boxing match. No not that other awful script that involves the surviving human characters from Jason Goes To Hell and Nightmare On Elm Street 5. The script I read is better by leaps and bounds.
First off, I'll tell you my stance on these two characters and the genre which they inhabit. I love the horror genre and most of its subgenres: slasher, cannibal, zombie, etc. Hell, my favorite movie is Jaws which is categorized by most as horror, even though I see it as more of an adventure movie. My house is decorated with many horror/hard sci-fi 1-sheets (Cujo, Firestarter, Aliens, The Terminator, H20, The Mangler, From Dusk 'Till Dawn, Jaws, Jaws 3-D (I know, it's shit, but the poster is cool), of course A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th and a really cool Jason Goes To Hell video poster that has the video box cover on one side and a bad-ass picture of Jason holding a machete on the other), horror standees (Cryptkeeper, Pumpkinhead and Freddy) and action figures (those incredible McFarlene toys of Freddy, Jason and Leatherface.)
Anyway, as I'm sure you could tell, I'm a big fan of both the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street series of films. Tom Joad put it beautifully when he said in his report that there are Jason people and there are Freddy people. Joad is a Jason person, so were many of the people in talkback. I respect that, I understand their position. Jason is a cool character and I really dig him...BUT... I personally am a Freddy person. There was many a Halloween where I'd go out dressed as Freddy (mask, plastic glove, red and green sweater) and kill... uh... I mean ask next-door neighbors for candy. Me being a Freddy person is kinda hard to explain. Try explaining to somebody why you pick Elvis over The Beatles or vice-versa. I don't mean pointing out what one did that the other didn't, I mean explaining why you like one more than the other. It's not easy. So this report comes from a Freddy person's POV.
I'm sure most of the people reading this have already taken a gander at both Tom Joad's and Head Geek's write-ups, so you at least have a vague idea what the plotline is. I'll do a little more detailed sum-up for you guys: A pretty teenage girl is attacked by Dominic Necros, a copycat killer mimicking Freddy Krueger. Needless to say, people die in the attack, Lizzie survives, but it traumatized by the incident. She starts having nightmares about the "real" Freddy. Throughout her waking hours, she can only find comfort through her boyfriend, Jason (no, not that one). So, during her nightmares, she materializes that comfort in the form of another monster to protect her, Jason (yes, that one). Keep in mind, that's just her dream. The real Jason does show up later on, in the "real world." Lizzie's friends end up taking her away from her troubles (news crews, bloodstained house, etc.) and they end up going to a lake, the logic being that she runs to Camp Crystal Lake in her dream for safety, so she'll fell safer staying at a lake. Well, that's where I'll leave it. Just know that all the coolest stuff, including the climactic fight between the two horror superstars.
While the script was a mammoth step in the right direction, it is nowhere near perfect. I tried to find out the exact status of this pic, but I just ended up with conflicting answers. Some places say it's not shooting yet. Some say it is. Internet Movie Database says it is currently in production, but has summaries of previous drafts of the script and people cast in the Alice character and the pretty cool guy who hunted Jason in Jason Goes to Hell. In a way, I hope it's not shooting yet because there are some serious problems that I wish they would first recognize, then fix.
One: it has a pretty weak opening. Neither one of the title characters appear in the pre-title scene. I don't know about you guys out there, but if they're gonna bother to do a pre-title scene, then I know I want a bad-ass appearance by either Freddy or Jason (preferably both!).
Another problem I had (one that I share with Joad) was the copycat killer Dominic Necros. Joad said he "represented" Freddy... well not really. He's more like a henchman. You know, like Renfield was to Dracula, this guy is to Freddy. Dracula couldn't stand daylight, so he got Renfield to do his daytime dastardly deed. Freddy can't exist in the awake world, so he has Necros. See the connection? The problem I had with Necros was that he's in the script a lot more than Freddy is. The only possible way the filmmakers could pull him off, to make me and all the Freddy fans around the world happy, would be to cast Robert Englund sans make-up in the part, even though Necros is described in the script as being a young guy. Who knows, maybe they can make him work, but c'mon! People don't go to see a movie called Freddy Vs. Jason to see a guy named Dominic Necros! They're there for Freddy and/or Jason!
I think my main problem with the script is the setting: the real world. I very strongly believe it should take place in the same world that the Freddy and Jason movies took place in: the movie world. The movie world where a conversation would be: "I had a dream that Freddy Krueger was trying to kill me!" "That couldn't happen, Freddy is just an urban legend!" "What about those murders up in Springwood?" Instead, the conversation is more like: "I had a dream that Freddy Krueger was trying to kill me." "That guy from Friday the 13th? No, wait, that was Jason. Freddy was from A Nightmare on Elm Street!" What made Bride of Chucky better than average was that the sequel did take place in the same world that all the other Chucky movies took place in. The way it is now in the Freddy Vs. Jason script, it's about two fictional characters in the real world, instead of two mythical characters in a fictional world.
All right. The last negative comment I have about the script is the slight tinkering with both Freddy and Jason's back stories. I'm not gonna go into the details because it is a climactic point in the story and I don't want to be the one to spoil it. Rest assured that it's not nearly as bad as in the previous script where they made Jason an Elm Street kid. Just because it's not as bad as that, doesn't mean it's a good thing. I think it's gonna piss off a lot of fans. Strike that, I know they are gonna piss people off especially because they almost make Jason a good guy, not just in this film, but in all the Friday's!!! Not only that, but Jason FUCKING TALKS!!!! They give Jason a line! What!!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Granted, I'm extremely curious as to what he's gonna sound like (an evil James Earl Jones or a baritone Juliette Lewis in The Other Sister mode), but giving Jason a line is like dry-humping a life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary, then going and pissing all over the Vatican while shitting into the pope's big hat, then wiping you ass with pages from he bible. In other words, blasphemy.
Now on to the good parts of the script. 90% of the stuff between Jason and Freddy is just fucking awesome. There is the possibility of at least three or four classic scenes during their battle. I had some awesome images of this fight in my head as I was reading. I just wish they would spread that kind of stuff out very thickly over the entire script. Again, it is called Freddy Vs. Jason, not 6 teens Vs. Beer and Drugs (the teens lose).
Another awesome moment is the decapitation of one of the main characters. Jason proves he's one of the biggest bad-asses of all time with this scene. I won't say anymore about this scene, but if the filmmakers (and special effects people)! come even close to pulling this scene off, it'll be worth paying full price just to see this scene. Out of the whole script, this was the only scene to have a touch of Evil Dead to it. Shut up! I said I'd shut up! I must say no more!
OK, I'm better now. As my report starts winding down, I'll just make a few more comments. I want it to be clear that this isn't a negative review. If the script I've read is the exact word for word shooting script, I'd go see the movie and be happy with it. But I wouldn't geek out enough to soil myself three times over. It's the potential for a really good movie, but, unfortunately, not a really great movie. Now, I'm not looking for Freddy Vs. Jason to be the Casablanca of the horror genre, I just want it to be as fun as it can possibly be. this script is leaps and bounds better than the shit that came before it and a gigantic step in the right direction. The pro's far outweigh the con's. I guess I'm like Veruka Salt and just want more than what I got. Maybe I want the impossible. Who knows? I feel the script was very good, but not the jaw-dropping, geekastic thing I was hoping for.
Well, I'm off to get Brody to drop another chum marker. I mean, we've got five good miles on it, why waste it? Fairwell and adieu, constant readers. aicnquint@aol.com
