Freddy vs. Jason -- 2003 -- R

Ah, the circle is complete. I watched the entire Nightmare series several years ago, and when this came out, I decided I should watch the Friday the 13th films before watching it to fully understand it. I'm honestly glad I did. While there is no continuity between this film and the films of either series, there's a certain sensability to each franchise and knowing those sensabilities added to the enjoyment of this movie...and I found it very enjoyable.

The plot is what ties the two franchises together. It takes a situation and ties the rules of both sides together creating the rift between the star villains here. Freddy is forgotten in the town of Springwood where everyone under 18 is hyped up on Hypnocil, a drug introduced in Nightmare 3 that suppresses dreams. Everyone who knows anything about Freddy has been removed and isolated from the teen populace. Every record of Freddy from his arrest to every obituary he contributed to has been blacked out or erased. For all intents and purposes, Freddy doesn't exist. This pisses him off. Without fear of him, he has no power, which ties back to the first Nightmare film. So he reaches into the depths of Hell where to find Jason (who is intro'd in classic Friday fashion) where he essentially ended up at the end of Friday 9 and convinces him to go into Springwood and start doing his thing of hacking people up. Since Freddy uses the guise of Jason's mother, Jason willingly complies.

We get a brief intro of slasher fodder and the hacking begins. Springwood immediately assumes Freddy has returned, which is what Freddy wants, and with the introduction of some people who know of him, Freddy's strength grows. What Freddy doesn't count on is Jason continuing to do his thing, eventually interfering with Freddy's plight to kill off the teens and capture their souls. Yadda-yadda-yadda, and there's a big multi-area showdown at the end between the two using the rules of both franchises. Who wins? Who cares?

This is quite simply a studio endorsed fan movie. All of the best elements from both franchises are present in this one from skinny-dipping in Crystal Lake to the Elm Street house to Freddy's dream control to facing off with Jason at Camp Crystal Lake. Having watched every film of both franchises, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. While moving through its surprisingly clever plot, it gave us moments that made each franchise what it was. The Nightmare side gave us those acid-induced dream sequences that defy reality and are a trip to watch. The Friday side gave us...well...creative and exploitative death sequences with lots of blood. We even got a moment that brought us back to Nightmare 2, which was kind of cool since the Nightmare series had forgotten that movie after it was over. Each of the villains got their go against the other on their own home turfs, and even more surprising, each of them were decent characters. Jason got more development in this movie than all the other Friday films put together. It was actually very impressive. Freddy had personality beyond personality showing that Robert Englund was very, very comfortable in his portrayal of this role despite the nearly 10 year gap since the last new Nightmare film...ironically titled "New Nightmare."

The weakness are going to be downright obvious. First, we have slasher fodder which we've come to expect from both franchises. Interestingly, the characters don't commit the same dumb moves that they usually do. There isn't much is the way of random name call-outs. No one enters a place they shouldn't go...well, they do, but not in the classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre way (God, I hate that movie). They are thinly developed for the most part, though our leads do get more than the norm of character. We do get a moment from Freddy where the plot apparently dictated he had the upper hand for too long, so something relatively dumb happened to put him in harm's way. We get lots of obligatory exposition about both sides of the fence for those unfortunate few who didn't watch one franchise or the other (and for some reason came in to see this film; they'll hate it). We have the obligatory teen party where lots of people are hacked up (but I suspect that was to satisfy the Friday ide of things).

I've covered the basic plot of the star villains, but there is actually another sub plot that is really well done and helps to drive the movie forward for the heroine of the story. It grates on the relationship between her and her father regarding how her mother died. This line runs through the entire story, and is actually really well done and helps to give the heroine more character than she would have had otherwise, and gives her father something to do as well filling out another piece of her life. It is refreshing to see everything in a film tie together as well as this one does, which is no small task considering they're tying together two different story sensabilities.

Overall, I was very pleased with the outcome of this film. To fully enjoy it, it helps to suffer through all 7 Nightmare films and all 10 Friday films before watching it. To do so gives you a solid foundation of where this film is coming from and why certain things happen the way they do. There is little continuity between this and the other films other than how the villains behave, but watching the franchises essentially spoof themselves made for a very enjoyable film. I do not recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen the 17 films before it, but totally recommend to those who have. It's easily better than most of the Friday the 13th films and tops the latter Nightmare films (not 7, though; that one was cool).