Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5984 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-01-26
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 93 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
After 11 years in development hell and screenplay drafts by 13 different writers, the long-awaited smackdown of Freddy vs Jason finally arrived in cinemas in 2003. After making their respective debuts in Friday the 13th (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), the hockey-masked killer Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger, replacing long-time Jason performer Kane Hodder) and razor-gloved Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) square off in a slasher-franchise combo-deal that only their most devoted fans will appreciate; it turns out this is a lightweight match in which nobody wins.

It's an average entry in the histories of these horror icons, comparable to half of their previous sequels, and Bride of Chucky director Ronny Yu satisfies purists with plenty of gushing blood and mayhem when Freddy recruits Jason to slice 'n' dice the ill-fated teens who've forgotten Freddy's once-formidable reign of terror. While it logically connects the gruesome legacies of Nightmare's Elm Street and Friday's Camp Crystal Lake, this horror hybrid is shockingly uninspired. It briefly peaks when Freddy gives the unconscious Jason a dream-world pummelling, but ultimately, their showdown's a letdown --Jeff Shannon

DVD Description
Get ready for the ultimate showdown! It’s been nearly ten years since Freddy, from the Nightmare On Elm Street series, invaded people’s dreams to exact his deadly form of revenge and murder. But now, his memory has been systematically erased by a town determined to put an end to Freddy once and for all. Until, that it, Freddy resurrects Jason, the equally iconic madman from the Friday The 13th series. Jason is the perfect means for Freddy to once again instill fear on Elm Street and start a new reign of terror. But as the bodies begin to pile up, he discovers that Jason isn’t willing to cease his murderous ways and step aside so easily. Now, with a terrified town in the middle, the two titans of terror enter into a horrifying showdown of epic proportions.

Synopsis
Veteran slashers Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees join forces in this combination sequel to the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and FRIDAY THE 13TH series. The film begins with a quick recap of both Freddy and Jason's "lives," underscoring their respective motivations to kill and their distinct weaknesses. Freddy (Robert Englund) explains that the present children of Elm St. (including Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kathrine Isabelle, and Kelly Rowland of Destiny's Child) have no memory of him, and if they don't know he exists, he can't enter their dreams to kill them. Ingeniously, he reaches out to Jason (Ken Kirzinger), the brutish death machine from Camp Crystal Lake, to go on an Elm Street killing spree, hoping a lot of gory murder will jog the town's memory.
Jason is up to the task, quickly dispensing with teenager after teenager in suburban homes, cornfields, medical labs and, of course, the forest. Freddy grows jealous over Jason's body count, and so must intervene, setting off a battle royale between the two highly adored slasher heroes across dreamworlds and realities. In another post-modern twist, a character seemingly modelled after Jay from Kevin Smith's films appears in the movie, adding both a comedic element and another level of reality vs. fiction. FREDDY VS. JASON employs a variety of special effects to update these undying series, not the least of which is uniting their once disparate stories.

Customer Reviews

Well worth the excruciatingly long wait
The youngest generation of Freddy and Jason fans have no idea how long we, the original fans of the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises, waited for this movie to become a reality. We dared to dream of this monster match-up back in the mid-1980s, years before development actually began; that development, as we all know, went through all manner of scripts and writers and producers and directors and basically but the kitchen sink over the course of eleven years. When New Line took over the Friday the 13th franchise, the first sparks of belief were born from the fiery ashes of hope, and the ending of Jason Goes to Hell sent us into tremors of excitement. We waited, and waited some more. New Line also waited - waited for a script that would join these two distinctive storylines in a way acceptable to both the studios and, most importantly, the fans. Freddy vs. Jason, in my opinion, was more than worth the wait, and I thank New Line for caring enough about the characters and their fans to wait until they had a script we could all buy into and respect.

I love this movie. It has everything I would have asked for: gratuitous nudity (well, I might have added a little more of it); an acceptable number of kills and the blood and gore to go with them; insights into the "births" of both Jason and Freddy; a return to basics for Freddy himself, veering him away from his stand-up comedy career of later Elm Street films yet retaining his wickedly sarcastic wit; an interesting cast of characters I enjoyed seeing die one by one; and of course both a home and away match for our two star attractions. It also has plenty of an oftentimes wet Monica Keena, and the fact that she remained clothed throughout the film only made her that much sexier. You've got plenty of action at Crystal Lake as well as Freddy's boiler room turf, and the premise of the film works very well. How to bring Jason and Freddy together? That was always the crux of the matter, and the assorted scriptwriters who worked on the story over the years came up with some ridiculous ideas that would never have worked. Damion Shannon and Mark Swift deserve kudos for discarding all the old ideas that continued to cling to the project and giving us a darn good script. We all know that Freddy draws his power from the fear of his victims, but he has suddenly been forgotten. The adults of Springwood have erased Freddy and his activities from the collective history of the town, and those kids who know Freddy and fear him have all been shipped to an asylum and deprived of the ability to dream via drug therapy. Freddy has been made too weak to come back, and so he selects Jason Voorhees to go to Elm Street and spread fear anew. His plan works, as the authorities let Freddy's name slip out, and with each of Jason's kills, Freddy grows stronger. This leads us to the second critical aspect of the plot: why would Jason and Freddy fight one another? Once Freddy's back, he doesn't take kindly to Jason claiming all of his own would-be victims - obviously, the guy in the hockey mask needs to learn who the boss really is. And so the rumble begins, a fight brought over into the real world thanks to the kids of Elm Street who work things out and intentionally place Jason in Freddy's path.

I thought all of the young actors did a great job, even though a couple of characters were not fleshed out as much as they might have been. Freddy is his old self again, witty but downright vicious, and Jason is his single-minded murdering self. I had a hard time deciding who to pull for, though. I love Freddy because he takes the time to enjoy tormenting his victims before killing them, but you have to admire the one-man killing machine that is Jason Voorhees. I think there was plenty of fighting between the two at the end, and I approved of the ending. You can argue about the victor of the fight, but clearly (whether or not a rematch ever occurs) the fight ain't exactly over just yet.

The DVD is fantastic, filled with all sorts of goodies. I actually started wondering when the featurettes on the making of the film would ever end - there is an amazing amount of material here. Another wonderful addition was the two-part Fangoria article detailing the wild history of this long-awaited film; I could not believe some of the ridiculous ideas espoused by earlier script writers; had New Line made this film earlier than they did, they would very likely have doomed both the Jason and Freddy franchises. The Ill Nino video for "How Can I Live" is fun to watch, although I was disappointed it did not feature any movie clips (and thus no Monica Keena). Best of all, though, you get a number of deleted/alternate scenes as well as an audio commentary of the film by director Ronny Yu, Robert Englund (Freddy), and Ken Kirzinger (Jason) - England sort of dominates the conversation, but his excitement about the film is palpable. Yu was an interesting choice as director, but I think he did a fine job; I was especially fascinated to learn how much of an impact early screenings of the film with test audiences affected the final cut - Yu knew that the fans were more knowledgeable than he was on the subject at hand and rightly deferred to their opinions when they made plain the fact that certain elements of the first cut just would not fly.

Entertaining; if not scary.
It’s not often that you see a supposedly defunct genre resurrected to such great effect, but horror has certainly enjoyed a renaissance over the last few years. The postmodernist take used to such good effect in the first Scream film is finally beginning to wear a bit thin though and it was with a huge sense of relief that I noted Freddy Vs Jason had wisely sidestepped it in favour of a retro 80s style slasher flick – with a ‘Horror’s Greatest Villain’ title bout thrown in to boot.

The premise of Freddy Vs Jason is actually quite reasonable – Freddy; long since forgotten by the children of Elm Street, is languishing in hell – powerless to enter the dreams of his potential victims without their fear to feed him. To return – he uses Jason to wreak havoc upon the children – hoping that in doing so, the locals will think he’s returned, thus providing him with his fear, thus providing him with his strength. All goes reasonably well (for Freddy and Jason at least) until Freddy realises that Jason isn’t about to stop and thus the battle (for territory) ensues.

On face value – F vs J is wildly entertaining – all of the staple horror clichés are present and correct (gratuitous gore and violence, large breasted and sexually active victims, the stoner, the female heroine etc.), but don’t watch it expecting to be scared. Whilst the film carrys on as if Scream never happened – there’s a wonderful tongue-in-cheek air about the whole thing (the clichés are quite obviously knowing), but it detracts from the overall idea of it being a horror movie. Freddy is his usual wise-cracking self – all gusto and glove, but no longer menacing or scary - and Ronny Yu’s direction unwisely portrays Jason in a sympathetic light. With one villain a demonic chat show host and the other emasculated – it’s difficult to find either a terror on the screen anymore.

The supporting cast are competent enough, but Monica Keena’s character of Lori never evokes the sympathy audiences felt for Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm St, nor does she present a convincing heroine. The rest of the cast are quite simply divided up into Jason and Freddy’s potential victims – none are massively likeable and it’s quite obvious that the stars of the film are the villains – after all, the audience really has one question on their minds – if Jason and Freddy had a fight – who’d win? Ultimately, if you can see past the obvious plot holes – you’ll find an enjoyable film that falls squarely in the eye-candy / action genre – just don’t expect it to either win any Oscars or scare you.

As for the DVD – the extras are certainly better than average. Robert Englunds commentary is vastly entertaining, the deleted scenes (whilst brief and fairly un-important) are diverting enough and the alternate ending will certainly appeal to some – although it’s quite obvious as to why the producers went with the original. The making of sections are also worth a watch – specifically the fight scene.

Overall the film is a must for the fans of either series (Friday 13th or NOES) and most likely an entertaining piece for newcomers – it’ll be interesting to see what they do with the sequels…

Freddy 1, Jason 0
I must admit that I was slightly apprehensive about this film, but as Freddy is in it, there was always a chance that it would be worth seeing. the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie is still one of my favorite horror films (alongside Evil Dead 2 and the original version of Ring), but I think much of the series since then (with the exception of the third one) was pretty mediocre, and the few Friday the 13th Films that i have seen have tended to be rubbish! It still amazes me that there are so many of them, as there seems to be little change from one to the next.

But the idea of two horror legends battling it out with one another was undeniably an interesting one, so I thought I ought to give it a go.

Considering how apprehensive I was, Freddy v Jason pleasantly surprised me in the end. The plot was well considered, and didn't have too many "what's going on" moments, which is always a good sign. It suddenly made sense as to why it has taken so long to finalise the script- evidently the writers actually put a bit of thought into it! The idea that Freddy had gone because the children forgot about him, and everyone who remembered was locked away was surprisingly ingenious.

One of the drawbacks of the film is that it shows the inevitable disparity between Freddy and Jason as horror icons. there are a number of major plus points to Freddy's character which Jason can't emulate.

Firstly, he can talk, and even has amusing stuff to say. This inevitably makes him much more compelling. Jason has always struck me as a poor man's Michael Myers, roaming around silently and looking slightly sinister.

Secondly, his face isn't hidden behind a mask. Much like the Green Goblin in the recent Spiderman film, a mask tends to reduce the impact of a villain. Willem Defoe was much more terrifying without the mask (which made him look like an extra from a power rangers episode!). Freddy has a very, very disturbing leer!

Thirdly, as Freddy kills through dreams, and has a more diverse arsenal than a big knife and whatever he finds lieing around, the scenes which he has are much more interesting than those featuring Jason. there is something quite unnerving about the moment when characters realise that they are actually asleep, and trapped in Freddy's world. this film doesn't make as much use of this fact as one would hope, and it surprises me how unimaginative script-writers tend to be when given the opportunity to write a film based around Freddy. how I wish that Tim Burton had a chance to do a Krueger film- imagine what a great director and writer team could do with the dream killer premise!

as far as the film itself goes, I think it got better as it went on. the first half hour or so is very standard, dull stuff, and I was half-tempted to turn it off and do something more interesting instead. there was nothing new or interesting or even well done about the early scenes. the teenage characters in the early stages really are awful! but as Freddy becomes more involved, and some new characters are introduced, things definitely improve.

and the battle between the two characters at the end is undeniably impressive, if slightly baffling. I found myself rooting for the confused Jason, and seeing the moments of him as a child were quite poignant!

most of the other "characters" are very basic and serve as little more than cannon fodder for Jason and Freddy to hack to pieces. although I was quite impressed with the assistant escapee from the asylum (Brendan Fletcher) and the geek-made-good guy. and Monica Keena was also a pleasant surprise, in that as well as being very pretty, she was more talented than the standard leads in such films.

so all in all, this film was better than I expected, and considerably better than Jason X, but its a shame that more effort didn't go into tidying up the initial scenes and creating slightly more worthwhile, developed characters. I know a lot of people just want to see pretty teenagers getting hacked to pieces, but so many elements of this film were well done that it seems a shame that the production crew didn't make that extra effort to make it truly memorable.

I sense a sequel might be on the horizon though...