Of Chris Snellgrove
| Published
The other day I decided to look again Freddy Vs. Jasonthe so-cheesy-it’s-good grudge match between the most famous faces in horror. Normally I’m a digital guy, but to watch the fight (which was infinitely more entertaining than the Mike Tyson vs. Logan Paul fight) I had to make Tommy Jarvis and start digging. I dug up physical media rather than Jason’s corpse for a very surprising reason: as of this writing, Freddy Vs. Jason is nowhere to be found on streaming.
Part of what makes this so remarkable is that Freddy Vs. Jason was arguably the most hyped film in horror history, one that the respective studios had been trying to make since the 80s. Before it came out, fans spent decades imagining how the fight between these two killers would play out. It was the horror equivalent of geeks debating whether Kirk or Picard was better Star Trek captain. Now horror’s most entertaining fight is nowhere to be streamed, and that’s a shame because the film is the perfect embodiment of creepy fun.
It’s not clear exactly why Freddy vs. Jason isn’t streaming right now…it was available on Max about a month ago, and it may simply be unavailable while the rights holders figure out where to shop it next. Also, it may have had a timed window to stream on Max for October before disappearing back into our dreams after the spooky month was over. Regardless of the exact reason, it’s a shame this movie isn’t on streaming because it has a lot of great qualities, including a killer cast.
The crew of Freddy Vs. Jason kills, especially Nightmare On Elm Street veteran Robert Englund reprises his role as Freddy Krueger. Ken Kirzinger plays Jason Voorhees, and while I miss Kane Hodder’s portrayal of the world’s most violent goalie, Kirzinger gives the character some nicely brooding gravitas to counterbalance Englund’s off-kilter humor. The cast of victims is equally entertaining and includes surprisingly big names like Kelly Rowland (best known for being part of Destiny’s Child) and Katherine Isabelle (best known to horror fans as scream the queen’s star Ginger Snaps).
Freddy Vs. Jason similarly killed at the box office, earning $116.6 million against a budget of just $30 million. That’s a much better return than New Line Cinema saw Wes Craven’s new nightmare (which grossed $19.8 million against an $8 million budget) or Jason X (which grossed US$17.1 million against a budget of US$11-14 million). Critically, it was more of a dud, receiving an abysmal critical rating of 41 percent, with critics generally noting that the film is enjoyable for fans of those respective franchises, but not as much for general audiences.
This is a fair criticism, but I can’t help but wonder who appears on a film called Freddy Vs. Jason without caring about the titular fighters. It would be like watching Batman v. Superman without caring about superheroes or setting Godzilla against Kong without having an interest in kaiju combat. And assuming, like me, you’ve spent decades enjoying both of these characters, you’ll find a lot to love in Freddy Vs. Jasona film that is simply better than most of the later entries in each franchise.
For example, the story of Freddy using Jason as a catspaw to make the children of Springwood remember him is surprisingly clever. This revolves around another clever plot where Springwood isolates everyone who has been exposed to Freddy and gives them a drug to keep them from sleeping. Personally, I crave big reveals about how much the public is aware of a mysterious killer like Freddy, and it’s rewarding to see them take practical steps to effectively quarantine him from his dreamscape home turf.
As long as you don’t mind the shaky camerawork (like what you’d see in an early music video), the final battle between Freddy and Jason is pretty entertaining. Not content to rely solely on each other’s cutting tools, the two make clever use of the environment even as the teenagers use their respective fears (the film introduces an admittedly baffling idea that Jason has a phobia of water and Freddy has a phobia of Fire). It’s a knockdown, drawn-out fight that delivers everything you want from a horror showdown decades in the making, and you’re sure to be rocking a big grin right through the credits.
Freddy Vs. Jason is an imperfect film, but that doesn’t stop it from providing perfect entertainment if you’re in the mood for the ultimate love letter to 80s horror. It is not available on streaming anywhere, but I highly recommend tracking down the physical media. Of course, you can always wait and watch it all in your dreams, but be warned: after this boring year, Freddy has many more nightmares to haunt before he comes for yours.
