Movie Review: Freddy vs Jason

Freddy vs Jason (2003) 

Directed by Ronny Yu 

Written by Damian Shannon, Mark Swift

Starring Monica Keena, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter, Lochlyn Munro, Robert Englund, Evangeline Lilly 

Release Date August 15th, 2003 

Published August 14th, 2003 

The few people who stayed to the end of the god-awful Friday the 13th: Jason Goes To Hell were treated to a finale which saw Jason’s hockey mask pulled into the ground by Freddy’s glove. It was exactly what horror fans had been hoping for especially since Jason Goes To Hell was the first time Jason Voorhees had worked under the banner of New Line, also home to Freddy Krueger. Now ten years later the horror fan's wet dream is finally realized onscreen and under the direction of Ronny Yu, its everything a horror fan could have ever wanted.

It’s been a couple years since the people of Springwood have been terrorized by child-murderer Freddy Krueger who, thanks to tight-lipped parents and dream suppressing drugs, has been banished from memory. Never one to give up, Freddy searched the bowels of Hell and found a way to get back his children. The plan is to send the Crystal Lake killer Jason Voorhees to Elm Street to kill in a way that reminds everyone of Freddy.

Back on Elm Street, yet another hapless family has been talked into buying the house that Freddy has committed so much mayhem. It’s current residents are the Campbell family, daughter Lori (Monica Keena) and her Dad, Mom it seems died a mysterious death. This weekend Dad is out of town and Lori has her friends Kia (Kelli Rowland) and Gibb (Katherine Isabelle) over. Of course there is one or more unexpected guests as well, Gibb’s boyfriend and his buddy as well as a certain hockey mask wearing weirdo. This being the film’s first kill, it had to be memorable and a scene that many have called the craftmatic adjustable teen certainly fits the bill.

From there, the bodies begin to pile up, most of them at the macheted hand of Jason, something that really ticks off Freddy who desperately wants in on the bloodshed. Bloodshed is indeed the main component of this film and there are buckets of blood all over the place. Beheadings, crushings, heads twisted off bodies, all in good fun. Freddy and Jason also spill each other's blood which for a pair of dead guys they have a lot of blood.

The film’s special effects have improved greatly over each of the series previous outings thanks to the work of production designer John Willett and art director Ross Dempster as well as an excellent team of effects artists. Of course, the best effects are Freddy and Jason themselves. Robert Englund’s Freddy is as witty and quick as ever and newcomer Ken Kirzinger, who took over the role of Jason from Kane Hodder, is everything that Jason is supposed to be. It was said that Kirzinger was hired because of his sympathetic eyes, which is curious because Jason has only one eye.

Director Ronny Yu, considered by some to be Hong Kong’s top horror director because of his cult classic The Bride With White Hair, delivers not just another slasher flick but a stylish horror classic that combines the worst of both film series with a directorial flourish the raises the creative bar beyond anything either series has done before. And Yu has done it without sacrificing history, without losing what made people follow these to characters through some awful sequels.

Forget the bad acting from the film’s twenty something cast of victims, forget the numerous plot holes, Freddy vs. Jason is pure visceral fun and excitement that, at least for fans of the genre, is an absolute masterpiece. Blood soaked fun that delivers on it’s promise and hints at a future for this crossover series.

Movie Review Friday the 13th (Remake)

Friday the 13th (2009) 

Directed by Marcus Nispel 

Written by Damian Shannon, Michael Swift 

Starring Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Aaron Yoo

Release Date February 13th, 2009 

Published February 13th, 2009 

I get why horror movies are popular. Who doesn't love a good scare. The horror masters of the 70's and 80's used gore and nudity to tantalize our lower brain and piled a little suspense on top to keep us completely engaged. The mixture created an era in the genre that cannot be matched and is long over. The modern horror film has devolved from the standards of the classics. The modern obsession with torture and 'realism' has turned a lowbrow genre into a frightening reflection of a devolving society. If the latest addition to the torture porn genre, Friday the 13th the remake, is what modern horror audiences want, god help us all.

The latest 're-imagining' from the ugly sad minds of producer Michael Bay and director Marcus Nispel, the new Friday the 13th takes gory pleasure in creating characters so loathsome that they challenge one not to root for the maniac murderer. Some might call that daring, I just call it disturbing. A group of College kids take off into the woods surrounding Camp Crystal lake in search of a large crop of marijuana. Once they set camp for the night they engage in behaviors that invite the oddly puritanical psychopath Jason Voorhees.

Though ostensibly Jason kills because of his mommy issues, she was killed by camp counselors after she killed a number of them, evidence seems to indicate that Jason kills out of some misguided moralistic crusade against sexual promiscuity and illicit drug and alcohol consumption. Jason's first victim here is a pothead. The next two victims are in the midst of a sexual encounter. The next two? Thinking about sex and slightly inebriated. Once this first group is dispatched another group arrives at a lake side cabin not far from Ol' camp Crystal Lake.

Once again, drugs, alcohol and sex are prominent. On top of the illicit activities, each of these characters are supreme jackasses. Obnoxious, overbearing jerks, especially their douche-bag host played by Travis Van Winkle. Van Winkle's Trent is king douche-bag and not rooting for Jason to take his head right off his douche-bag shoulders is a herculean effort. Thus we get Jason Voorhees' moral crusader. Righting the wrongs of the heedless, consumptive and hedonistic youth. It's a bizarro land of right and wrong, good and evil, that delights in torture and murder while attempting to justify the killing in a wildly odd moralistic fashion.

Like a crazed bible thumper, Jason seeks eye for eye vengeance for the death of his mother and, though he never seems to know it, the film makers drive him to go all old testament on his sinning victims. Jason as a vengeful god is a truly bizarre conceit. The same instinct that drives Jason to punish is the same that seems to draw an audience to witness the slaughter. There is a distinct "Christians and lions" feel to modern horror. As the Romans merely witnessed bloody slaughters we are invited to do so with a slightly more dramatic distance. Actors being killed with special effects is a far cry from real people being slaughtered, but the instinct to enjoy it is the same and almost as disturbing.

Indeed, the modern horror maker does want you to enjoy the slaughter, lingering as they do on the faux suffering and imitated degradation. And therein lies my issue, dear reader. Just what could drive someone to enjoy even the demonstration of degradation, torture and humiliation? Horror, back in the day, crafted super human cartoons who were always killable and always the bad guy, no matter how charismatic or iconic they became. You may have gone to the theater because of Michael Myers or Jason or Freddy but the rooting interest was always in seeing them overcome by their victims.

Today, I cannot figure out what the appeal or purpose of modern horror is. For the life of me, why anyone would want to watch the loathsome characters of Friday the 13th or their ugly disturbing deaths is beyond me. There is simply nothing appealing here and the compromising of good and evil, the seeming attempts to make Jason, ugh, sympathetic, are stomach turning. Friday the 13th exists in a moral vacuum. There is no good or evil, just the demonstration of death and some faux twisted puritanism masquerading as ironic aside. Of couse, these aren't real moral crusaders their are naked breasts and soft-core porn quality sex on display in this very R-rated movie. Thus, Jason's unlikely moral crusade is without a doubt expected to be humorous.

It's not humorous. There is nothing humorous and nothing even remotely appealing about this ugly, stupid, vile little movie.