Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Freddy vs. Jason’

Written by Scott Edwards

Good vs. Evil. It seems like a story that has been told from the beginning of time, and yet we can never get enough of it. Always having a villain to place the blame on and sometimes not being able to entirely defeat them at first, we know that good will always prevail…at least in movies. But we rarely have Evil vs. Evil in movies for a few reasons. If there is another evil person who is running around, they are usually associated with the team of good and when they get killed off, we could care less simply because they’re evil, and they also hardly ever put up a fight. But the good news is, horror fans got what they wanted with two agents of pure evil facing off in the 2003 film, Freddy vs. Jason.
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Being dormant for a couple of years, Freddy Krueger is ready to make a comeback and visit his children once again. Being able to infect Jason Voorhees’ dreams as the powerful killer’s mother, Freddy gives the order for him to go and invade Elm Street. Knowing that the deaths that Jason will afflict will spark the fear of him once again that he needs to feed off of, Freddy has no idea what he has unleashed. But that is not even a worry in his mind, since he needs to be remembered once again and not even the depths of hell can keep him from making a comeback for the ages.

Hanging out with her friends, Lori is trying to keep her mind clear about what happened in her house a couple years ago. With her best friend Kia wanting to get her hooked up with a cute boy, Lori is still hung up on her boyfriend Will who has moved away. Trying to convince Lori to move on, Kia has a plan to get some loving in her life when Gibb’s boyfriend Trey and his friend Blake come over to the parentless house for some good old-fashioned fun. While a storm is in full effect and the power goes out in the house, Gibb and Trey finish up in the bedroom and after Gibb gets out of the shower she discovers that there is someone else in the house that is looking to make their lives a living hell.

While being questioned at the police station about what happened, Lori is clueless and only knows that Trey has been hacked to bits in the house. With strange questions being asked about her dreams, Lori is trying to put together what it all means and comes up with the name Freddy Krueger who was mentioned outside of her house by the police. Falling asleep and having a disturbing nightmare that features the burnt old killer, she does not want anything other than to spend time with her friends. Getting to school and hearing that Blake and his father were killed as well, she and her friends have no idea what lies in store for them, especially when their nightmares come to life.

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​Being locked up in the Westin Hills Sanitarium for the past couple of years, Will and Mark know that they do not belong, but have one good thing to report, they are no longer having dreams involving Freddy. While getting his dose of Hypnocil, Will sees Lori’s house on the news with reports of another killing taking place there. Needing to make sure that Lori is all right, the two are able to escape the ward and make their way to the high school to check on her. After being chased off by the police, the two head off to the records office and find that Freddy Krueger has been erased from Springwood’s town history, along with uncovering the harsh truth that the deaths of his victims have been covered up. Needing to protect Lori from the torment that she is about to incur from Freddy, Will makes his way to the rave in the corn field, but has no idea who he is going to encounter.
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Getting their party on at the high school’s rave party, Gibb steps away from the crowd and passes out in the cornfield. Seeing her dead boyfriend as she remembers him, she becomes introduced to Freddy Krueger who is looking to become soulmates in a different way. But before Freddy is able to collect his next soul, he is shocked to see that Jason has taken the young woman before him. Needing his power back to kill in dreams once again, Freddy moves on to those who know his name, but as his children are the target of Jason as well, he must find a way to stop the killing machine from fulfilling what he was recruited for. Trying to flee for their lives, Lori and her friends need to come up with a plan of attack against both of the killers, but after seeing that Lori can bring things back from the dream world, they all make the decision to travel to Camp Crystal Lake and have Freddy and Jason duke it out once and for all.

There is one thing that I remember seeing consistently on the early horror movie message boards and that was everyone wanted to see a face-off between two of the greatest horror icons, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. While I was not huge into these series at the time and only seeing the later movies in the series, I was able to figure out why. With all of the killing, torture, survival games and blood that the face-off would bring, it is everything that a horror fan would want to see. This movie did not disappoint when it came to those aspects and even gave us both types of their trademark frights while the story played on. 

With the same group trying to battle off sleep and the monstrous Jason at the same time, it is a wonder that both of the killers were able to be featured as much as they were. Not getting too out of control with the storyline seemed to be key in this movie and while I would have liked to see a little bit more of what happened in dreamland, I was pleased with the Jason Voorhees dream sequence that turned into a battle for the ages. With teenagers fearing for their lives, a razor-blade hand, a machete, drinking, smoking, fires, nasty dreams, dismembered bodies and plenty of blood flowing. Overall, this is just a fun movie to get lost in for a while. There is just something about the battle for dominance in this movie that makes me enjoy this a little more than I should, that and the final showdown that everyone has been waiting for. Stay Scared.

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