FREDDY VS. JASON

'''Freddy vs. Jason''' is an American slasher film that was released in 2003 by New Line Cinema. The film was directed by Ronny Yu. The plot pits Jason Voorhees (of the ''Friday the 13th'' series of films) and Freddy Krueger (of the ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' series of films) against each other.

Contents

Plot

Cast

Box office

Reception

Trivia

Possible sequel

References

See also

External links

Plot

Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is stuck in Hell. He is not able to get out of this situation as long as no one remembers him or his crimes. Therefore, he tricks the undead serial killer Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger), who is capable of acting in the real world, into rising from his grave again. In the disguise of Jason's mother (Pamela Voorhees, the one person to whom Jason will listen, and never kill), Freddy convinces Jason to kill teenagers living on Elm Street to make the residents of Springwood, Ohio think that Freddy is back.
Jason commits a few murders which are blamed on Freddy, which causes him to regain his powers little by little. Freddy finds he is once again able to enter people's dreams, however, when he attempts to kill somebody, he finds he's not strong enough, when his shadow's blades pass through a person, but don't even cut his skin, and instead, just come out the other side. A small group of youths - including Lori Campbell (Monica Keena), her boyfriend Will Rollins (Jason Ritter), Kia (Kelly Rowland), Charlie Linderman (Chris Marquette) and a sheriff's deputy (Lochlyn Munro) - notice that it was not Freddy who had committed the murders. When they realize this fact, it is already too late and the population's fear has made Freddy strong enough to come back from Hell; however, when Freddy finally gets ready to commit his first kill out of Hell, Jason kills Freddy's victim, angering Freddy. Freddy realizes that while his plan to escape from Hell had worked, what he hadn't counted on was that Jason would just keep on killing now that he was alive as well. The group goes back to Westin Hills Asylum where Will Rollins was sent to find Hypnocil (a medicine to keep them from dreaming) so Freddy cannot kill them. While there Officer Stubbs is killed when Jason throws him into a broken control board and is electrocuted. Bill Freeburg, their marijuana smoking friend, gets high and is possessed by Freddy who then uses his body to dump all of the hypnocil into the drain, and take two full syringes of tranquilizers and pump them into Jason's neck to put him to sleep so Freddy can kill him. Jason kills Freeburg at this point, and then falls to the ground, asleep. The group loads him into the van.
In his dreams, Jason is confronted by what appears to be his mother. Pamela scolds him for still killing, even though he is no longer useful to Freddy. At that point, Pamela transforms, having been Freddy in disguise the whole entire time. At that point, the battle between Freddy & Jason begins. After some clashing, Freddy manages to drop a huge boiler on top of Jason. However, to Freddy's shock, Jason has survived and continues to attack Freddy. After several unsuccessful attempts at killing Jason, an outraged Freddy asks, "Why won't you die?!" and breaks a water pipe on Jason, which has an effect on him, causing him to recoil in fear. Because Jason had drowned in 1957 and then come back to life he has developed a fear of drowning, which Freddy decides to use against him.
The group takes Jason back to Camp ''Crystal Lake'' to give Jason the "home field advantage" against Freddy. Lori volunteers to be put to sleep as well to pull Freddy out of her dream so Jason can fight him. While sleeping she appears in Jason's nightmare of when he was drowned; she attempts to save Jason but Freddy pulls him under. Kia gives Jason CPR, but as she begins, Jason wakes up and the van crashes near the gate to Camp Crystal Lake. They pull Lori to a cabin and try to wake her up. Meanwhile Lori is stuck in a dream where Freddy takes her in front of her house at the time of her mother's death. It is revealed that Freddy killed her mother, and Freddy traps Lori and scratches her near her breasts saying "Welcome to my world, bitch. I should warn you princess, the first time tends to get a little...messy" as he pulls up her skirt in an attempt to rape her. Meanwhile, Jason finds the group in the cabin and knocks over an oil lamp causing a fire as well as impaling Linderman on a pole. Meanwhile, in Lori's dream the fire wakes her up and she pulls Freddy into the real world, as Freddy is about to kill her.
Thus, a bloody fight begins between Jason and Freddy in which Kia is killed by Jason. Freddy has the upper hand at this point, having stole Jason's machete and using it simultaneously with his claw glove. The film ends with Lori spraying the propane tanks and the dock that they're fighting on with gasoline, and then lighting it causing an explosion. Freddy than appears wielding Jason's machete and his right arm chopped off about to kill Lori and Will. Then at the last minute Jason jumps from the water impaling Freddy with his own severed arm. Lori then decapitates him, and both Freddy and Jason fall into the lake, disappearing beneath the surface. The final scene ends with Jason walking out of Crystal Lake holding Krueger's decapitated head, which winks to the audience followed by Freddy's laughter. ^[1]

Cast

Actors/Actresses	Role
Robert Englund	Freddy Krueger
Ken Kirzinger	Jason Voorhees
Monica Keena	Lori Campbell
Jason Ritter	Will Rollins
Kelly Rowland	Kia Waterson
Chris Marquette	Charlie Linderman
Brendan Fletcher	Mark Davis
Katharine Isabelle	Gibb
Lochlyn Munro	Deputy Scott Stubbs
Kyle Labine	Bill Freeburg
Tom Butler	Dr. Campbell
Gary Chalk	Sheriff Williams
David Kopp	Blake
Odessa Munroe	Heather
Jesse Hutch	Trey
Paula Shaw	Mrs. Pamela Voorhees
Chris Gauthier	Shack

Box office

Opening in 3,014 theaters, it took in $36.4 million its opening weekend.
The domestic gross was $82.6 million. The worldwide gross is $114.9 million with a $30 million budget, making it the highest grossing movie featuring Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees.

Reception

While a box office success ($82.1 million), the film received mixed reviews among critics, gaining a score of only 40% at RottenTomatoes.com. The plot is often cited as adding no more to the genre, and the characters being standard slasher stock characters. While these elements are argued to be expected in the genre, some critics have expressed the desire for something different in a film that they believe it to be grander than both sets of predecessors and other slasher films.

Trivia

★ Due to the movie's excessive number of violent scenes, ''Freddy vs. Jason'' was banned in Malaysia.

★ One draft of the film, as revealed in ''Crystal Lake Memories'', involved Pinhead appearing at the end of the film, where he stops a fight between the two title characters: "Now, gentlemen, what seems to be the problem?"

★ The film Killer Movie, a spoof of blaxploitation and horror films, parodies Freddy vs. Jason.

★ Wrestler Rey Mysterio has an uncredited role as Freddy's stunt-Double.

★ Fangoria magazine has had several interviews with Robert Englund and Kane Hodder (the former Jason), asking many times who they thought would win a Freddy vs Jason showdown. There even was an interview involving Englund, Hodder, Angus Scrimm (the Tall Man from Phantasm), and Andrew Divoff (the Djinn from Wishmaster) and asked them who out of all of them would win. The prevailing answer was "it would depend on where they were fighting," and no other answer.

★ During an interview with the cast, they were asked who they thought was better, Freddy or Jason. Most of the cast thought Jason was the better choice.

★ A press conference was held at Bally's Casino in Las Vegas for the official weigh in on July 15th, 2003. The official odds were Freddy at 7/5 & Jason at 2/3

★ Since this is the latest entry to the Friday the 13th franchise, Jason Voorhees' body count comes to a total of 146 people killed throughout the 11 installments.

Possible sequel

Several ideas for a sequel to the film have been proposed. Many of these involve additional characters from other horror franchises. The use of Bruce Campbell's Ash Williams character from the ''Evil Dead'' franchise had been considered, but this idea was halted when ''Evil Dead'' creator and director, Sam Raimi, decided against it. In the special features of the '' game, however, Bruce Campbell himself says that the rumors are "partially true" and he would be willing to do the movie should it come about. According to an interview with Englund from March of 2006, New Line Cinema had participated in talks with John Carpenter concerning the use of Michael Myers in a sequel.
The story will be appearing as a comic book limited series, ''Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash'', from DC/Dynamite Entertainment.^[2]

References

1. ''Freddy vs. Jason'' scriptwriter Mark Swift indicated that various endings were written for the film, with the final ending being thought of by Robert Shaye, New Line's CEO. It's Swift's opinion that Jason indeed won the battle, though he mentions, "We certainly didn't want a draw, but we wanted it to end up that both sides could claim some sort of victory."[1]
2. WW: Chicago - ''Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash'' Coming in November, 12 August, 2007, Newsarama

See also

★ Freddy and Jason universe timeline

★ List of film sequels that merge autonomous films

★ ''Freddy vs. Jason'' (soundtrack)

★ ''Freddy vs. Jason'' (score)

External links

★ Official site

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★ Freddy vs. Jason at The Nightmare On Elm Street Companion