Freddy vs Jason ***

By the mid-90's the Nightmare on Elm Street series was dead. They had killed off Freddy in the horrible Freddy's Dead and then tried to bring him back in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. With New Nightmare failing at the box office, it seemed that New Line was giving up on their staple franchise. Then in 2003, they gave us Freddy vs Jason, a showdown that had been eagerly anticipated ever since Freddy snatched Jason's mask and took it to hell in Jason Goes to Hell.

The story here is actually a pretty decent story. The kids of Springwood have forgotten Freddy and this makes him mad. Without the kids remembering him he has no power, therefore he can not haunt their dreams and kill them. Freddy's idea is to resurrect Jason and trick him into killing people so that the people of Springwood will think that it is Freddy, thus giving him the power to haunt dreams and kill again. But Jason doesn't want to go along with the plan and starts stealing kills from Freddy. Freddy is evantualy brought into the real world, where he faces Jason face to face.

The writers of this movie really know their stuff when it comes to the world of A Nightmare on Elm Street. They reference the previous NoES movies a lot, but when it comes to the Friday movies, they only know the basics. This hampers the movie a little, making it more of a Nightmare movie than a Friday movie. I'm sure that some of this is intentional, being that New Line is "the house that Freddy built", but it also shows that the writers don't know very much about Jason. But this is a petty complaint, seeing as Jason gets all the really good kills.

But the story really doesn't matter, afterall the movie is called Freddy vs Jason, and people came to see the horror icons face off. They do come to blows a few times in the movie, but it is the final fight that people are craving and boy is it a good one. Freddy and Jason face off at Crystal Lake and it is literally a fight to the death.

My only real complaint with the final showdown is that it plays like a kung fu movie. Jason throws Freddy all around Crystal Lake, which is to be expected. What I didn't expect was for Freddy to bust out some martial arts skills. It is kind of a funny sight seeing Freddy kick, jump, and spin around like he was studying martial arts in his down time. I guess this is to be expected, since the movie was directed by Ronny Yu, who has directed a lot Hong Kong movies.

In the end, Freddy vs Jason is a very good movie, blending scares, comedy, and gore into a nice overall package. Robert Englund hs said that he has hung up the glove and will not play Freddy again. I wish he would so we can have a sequel to this movie. I guess its a pipe dream now, but one can hope.