Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
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Freddy has been forgotten about by his old neighborhood and after thinking about this for the last 12 years (1991), he decides he needs to make his old neighborhood remember. So he finds a darker soul in hell than himself and in finding Jason Voorhees, resurrects him to go to Elm St. and wreck havoc. But Freddy wasn’t too clear on what he wanted and soon the two are battling for supremacy and "there can be only one."
Overall: It has been a long-time coming for this film and I guess I’m a tinge disappointed in the result. I’ll definitely have to catch any deleted scenes because that is where a better film lies right now. It’s not a crisp and clean film as it could have been. Freddy wanted Jason to stop but only tells the audience, never Jason. He never says “Jason, don’t kill anymore.” He just starts into revenge. Plus, we never see any recap of Jason’s “death” and where and how he is resurrected - just a quick look at the old house where he “died.” But the reference to why he can’t die was actually addressed in “Jason X” and they grabbed that (which hasn’t happened yet in “real time”) and went with it. And as for the ending to the film (and you know what I mean - exactly how was he holding onto the sword, again), this is so “Jason X.” However, the movie really is a “Nightmare on Elm St” movie with a teeny bit of "Friday the 13th" thrown in for production/marketing value. The whole pinball scene just disgusted me. The film should have treated these 2 as both monsters and Gods too - instead, the scenes treated them like little video game puppets - if I wanna see that, I can see that playing “Crash Bandicoot.” I felt the film did copy a bunch of other movies: "Children of the Corn" and "Halloween." There are references to "Halloween" in the character of “Lori” and the whole cornfield scene is nothing more than kids versus adults...sound familiar????? Or maybe a bit of “Scream” with high school kids dying, having curfews no one respects and parties to celebrate? There was a lot of “Freddy” info throughout the film and the usual “Alice in Wonderland” references but the old info on Jason started and ended with the “ruck sack” and the water baby scenes. So overall it was nice to see the audience embracing the film and the film getting made but it could have been better. (02/05/04) Finally caught the film on dvd and was paying particular attention to the deleted scenes. Let’s just say first of all that just because you advertise you have 18 deleted scenes doesn’t mean that a 2 second clip constitutes a “scene.” Much of the deleted stuff is literally like 5 seconds long. What is interesting is the possible endings. One original ending which test audiences hated was that you have Tori and Will in bed together after everything happens and then Will’s hand turns into “the glove” and he slashes Tori as it flashes into the credits. People hated it because no Jason and no shot of Freddy, just the glove. That ending is then a fairly typical “horror” ending and is basically how it actually ended in that just when you think it is over you realize it isn’t. However the fact you do a film about the 2 characters and then not end the film with the 2 characters shows that Ronny Lu still “didn’t get it.” But there is one more ending (hidden on the dvd) which was talked about and a storyboard drawn up for, but never got very far...the ending of a giant hand coming through Crystal lake grabbing both Freddy & Jason and bringing them down into hell where they will battle it out like gladiators for eternity as demons watch on. Well actually I prefer that idea to the way the film ends but I do agree, as they talked about how expensive it would be for the hand to rise up & grab both and not make it look super cheesy. However a better idea (mine) for that would have been just that the hand comes up and grabs them, pulls them down and that’s it, credits roll. Then audience is left with the idea that Satan either wants them back home because they’ve embarrassed him or that he simply thinks they’ve done enough upstairs and gotta come home. Yet another possible version (mine) was that the two get sucked back into hell where they continue their final fight and then chains come out of the darkness grabbing both of them as Pinhead shows up and says “What seems to be the problem?” Now that would have been awesome!!!! No question a nice idea but I guess the rights to get "Pinhead" would have cost too much also. Bottom line, endings make movies memorable and had either “The Hand” or “Pinhead” endings been adopted, this film definitely could have down in history! My Title: Friday the 13th Part 11: Jason is Freddy’s Bitch. |
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