It's A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 8 served with a side of Jason Voorhees. So unless the audience suffers from delusions as to the quality of the franchises this movie spawns from, you'll be pretty happy. It is not a masterpiece of cinema; it is not a masterpiece of horror . . . look at all the F13 and NOES. You have 17 examples of what this movie is going to be like.
Take your typical crappy Elm Street plot and cast your typical crappy Friday the 13th cast, and you have your typical crappy horror movie. Am I criticizing this movie? Not really since that crap-factor is a staple to the F13 franchise and the NOES sequels. Does anyone really care? I hope not. The whole reason anyone should see this movie comes down to the three words in the title "Freddy versus Jason." If those three words do not interest you, don't even screw with FvsJ. I mean, I don't think in film history has the title been more descriptive of the point of the movie.
While it actually takes awhile to get to the slasher deathmatch, you know it's coming . . . everyone knows there's going to be a fight to remember, so Ronny Yu opts to prolong it as far as he can and just jam packs the ending with Slasher celebrities ripping into each other . . . because, seriously, 90 minutes of Jason and Freddy hacking at each other would get downright boring. At least there's some variety and nods to old school F13 and NOES, some typical nods to the stereotyped horror formula which isn't scary but seems to be a requirement. Boobs, booze, blood . . . you know the routine. A high point of the film - I've been dying to see Voorhees crash a party and just cut through teens ala Krueger style in Elm Street 2, and I finally got to see it . . . just enough "other elements" to keep entertaining unless you're an oldschool fan and tired of hearing the mythology over and over again in every sequel.
Cut through the "good guys" whom nobody really cares about since Freddy and Jason have been the stars since forever now, get through the human's boring backstory which will be forgotten in the FvsJ2 and wait for the inevitable moment when our "heroes" run from Voorhees where Freddy turns to the nearest kid and says, "Let me handle this, bitch." Now, ladies and gentlemen, it has begun . . . now it's on. Now we rumble . . . now we see why horny teens had such a hard time killing these bad boys. Freddy makes more fatal blows against Voorhees than he did to the cast of all 8 Freddy films combined . .. and Voorhees keeps getting up. For the first time we see Freddy treated like a rag doll and tossed around/cut up like another camp crystal lake sex-addict--Voorhees makes no distinction.
So who wins? Everyone . . . unless, of course, you're under the false impression that you're going to see Welles quality cinema, in which case why are you even reading about FvsJ?
I could go through and detail the plot, characters, acting, etc like other amateur and pro critics alike, but quite frankly, I don't see the point. I mean, this is still Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. I will say that it's a better Elm Street sequel, and it is the best film featuring Jason.
I enjoyed the hell out of this movie, and I'm barely an Elm Street fan and am definitely not a fan of F13 . . . take that for what it's worth.
