Freddy vs. Jason (film)

Article

For other projects of the same name, see Freddy vs. Jason (disambiguation).

Freddy vs. Jason is a 2003 horror-action film directed by Ronny Yu. It features the return of not only Freddy Krueger but also Jason Voorhees, the main antagonist of the Friday the 13th film series. As the film is a canonical cross-over sequel to Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare and Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Freddy vs. Jason, as a result, is equally a part of both A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, making it the final film for the two film series as a whole.

While it received mixed reviews from critics, the film is a box office success, having grossed a total of $116.6 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in both of the two aforementioned film series. While a sequel was planned but was scrapped in the end, it was switched to a cross-over comic-series called Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, which now includes Ash Williams, the protagonist of the Evil Dead franchise. Freddy vs. Jason marks Robert Englund's final portrayal as Freddy Krueger.

Plot

Introduction segment

D52E6B97-171E-41EC-9DCA-3F7E3EA61107 1 201 a — Freddy about to murder a little girl

The segment begins in the Boiler Room, where Freddy Krueger opens a furnace and tosses in a doll while a little girl is shown. As a narrator, Freddy explains that the fear from children (here apparently meaning anyone younger than 20) is what gives him his power. Freddy, after sharpening one of the blades from his glove, proceeds to murder the girl as she screams. Freddy recalls that his reign of terror was legendary and that dozens of children had fallen to his blades. His pre-death self, while smoking, is shown adding a photo to a scrapbook, which contains the pictures of the children he killed and several news clippings regarding his killing spree.

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A group of vengeful parents are suddenly shown throwing Molotov cocktails into Freddy's lair, setting the whole place on fire, which he states that they took justice into their own hands. After his death, he reveals that he became something that he considers much worse: the thing nightmares are made of. While scenes from the previous A Nightmare on Elm Street films were being shown, Freddy states that children still feared him which gave him the power to invade their dreams, which he claims is where the real fun begins, until someone figured out a way to make him forgotten, to erase him completely. Though he didn't mind being dead, as he thinks it to not be a problem, he believes that being forgotten is a "bitch".

Freddy angrily rants that since he is now forgotten, he is unable to return. After being stuck in the deepest parts of Hell, he managed to find Jason who would make the people of Springwood remember him again, and Freddy finishes that fear is his to return "home".

Present day

Disguised as Pamela Voorhees, Jason's mother, Freddy brings the latter back to life and sends him to Elm Street to punish "the children" for misbehaving. Freddy hopes that the people of Springwood will assume that he is responsible for Jason's carnage, thereby giving him enough fear and an opening to reenter their dreams.

In Springwood, Ohio, teenagers Kia Waterson and Gibb Smith are over at the house of their friend Lori Campbell. Gibb's boyfriend Trey Cooper and his best friend, Blake Mueller arrive with beers. Trey and Gibb leave to have sex while Lori tries to fend off Blake's advances. Lori rebukes Blake, because she’s still in love with her ex-boyfriend Will Rollins who left her 4 years earlier without even a goodbye letter. Also, at that time, Lori's mother died, apparently in a car accident.

While Blake is away getting some beer, Jason enters the house and murders Trey by stabbing him and folding, breaking Trey's back. The remaining teenagers run outdoors and find a cop. Because Lori lives in the same house that Nancy Thompson did, one cop assumes the killer was Freddy and says his name before being silenced by his chief. The police chief maintains that they must keep Freddy "contained."

At the police station, Lori is confused at the interrogation. Deputy Stubbs, the police officer who was first on the scene, tells Lori that he has only been in town for a month, indicating that he does not know about Freddy's history. Instead, he assumes that it’s a copycat of Jason Vorhees, which he knows well. While waiting for her father, Lori remembers Freddy's name and falls asleep. After wandering around, she finds an obviously not teenage girl who has her eyes cut out. She tells Lori about Freddy and that everyone should know about him and they should all be afraid. This is obviously strongly implying that the girl is actually Freddy in one of his alternate forms.

Blake's father, Mr. Mueller yells at his son for being over at Lori's, but Blake angrily asks for some privacy. After promising to avenge Trey, Blake falls asleep and dreams of Freddy. Unfortunately, Freddy is not strong enough to kill Blake yet. In order to instill more fear, Freddy allows Jason to continue his killing spree. When Blake wakes up, he and his father are murdered by Jason.

All the kids who have made contact with Freddy, including Lori's boyfriend, Will Rollins, and his friend, Mark Davis, are forcibly locked up in Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, so they wouldn't "infect" anyone else. They're then given Hypnocil to keep them from dreaming, so Freddy can't get them. Will then sees the murder report on TV and resolves to escape to see if Lori's all right. Will insists that he saw Lori's dad kill her mom and he has to get out to protect her from her father. Will and Mark then manage to break out of the facility.

The following day, Mr. Campbell, Lori's father, tries to keep her from going to school, and even tries to give her orange juice with Hypnocil in it, but Lori refuses it. Upon arriving at school, Kia tells Lori that the police blame everything on Blake, saying he committed suicide after murdering Trey. As the authorities do not want to give Springwood any reason to remember Freddy, they proceeded to cover up any traces of his rampage.

Because of the murders, the student body decides to hold a rave in a corn field and all of the girls decided to go. While describing Freddy to Gibb and Kia, Mark and Will approached Lori, who passes out. When the cops show up, the duo were forced to run away to avoid being seen. They research on what is going on and found out that Springwood, to prevent Freddy's return, has been trying to have him quarantined, like he was a disease. Once they discover that fear is what gave Freddy his power, Mark realizes he had screwed up the town's plan and allows Will to take his van to find Lori.

At the rave, Gibb gets angry at a Springwood teenager named Bill Freeburg for being insensitive about Trey's murder before becoming incredibly drunk, causing her to wander off into the cornfield. While in the cornfield, she sees a broken up Trey she follows him into an old farm building. Inside, everything looks like a boiler room. When she suddenly saw the shadow of Freddy, she immediately ran away as Freddy stalks her. It's then revealed that Gibb is in the dream world, as a raver found her asleep back in the physical world. As Gibb tries to find a way to escape before Freddy can murder her, the latter blocks her way and began approaching her. As she backs away, Gibb loses her balance and falls from a balcony, landing on a series of lockers before crashing to the floor.

Meanwhile, back in the physical world, as the raver tries to have sex with the sleeping Gibb, he failed to sense Jason, who is nearby. Returning to the Dream World, Gibb was unable to get up, because of the fall. Opening one of the lockers, she drags herself inside before closing the locker she is in, in an attempt to hide from Freddy. As she looks around for a few seconds, and, thinking that the coast is clear, she cracks the locker door open, only for Freddy to suddenly find her. Before he could murder Gibb, however, Jason unexpectedly murdered her first, in which he stabbed her and the raver with a spear, much to Freddy's anger, as Jason's killing spree is now denying him victims.

Jason then came across two students, a tall one and round one, who are smoking with a single cigarette they are sharing. When the two noticed him, they proceeded to bully Jason, completely oblivious of who he really is. As the taller teenager continues to mock him, he carelessly steps too close to Jason, who then roughly snaps the teenager's neck, killing him. Shocked by this, the rounder and shorter teenager unsuccessfully tried to kill him by splashing alcohol at him before setting the silent killer on fire. When Jason unsheathes his machete, the teenager, now filled with terror, immediately fled back to the rave as Jason slowly stalks him. As he goes after the teenager in the cornfield, he leaves behind a trail of burning corn stalks, which were set alight by Jason's burning body. Unfortunately, though the teenager successfully reached the rave, Jason threw his burning machete at him, which went through the teen's chest, much to the horror of the students. As Jason came into the rave, mayhem and chaos ensued as all the partygoers tried to flee. Jason murders several students he lay eyes on, but Lori, her friend Charlie Linderman, Will, Kia, and Bill Freeburg, managed to escape.

When they get to Lori's home, Will tells Lori the truth about her father killing her mother, which is why he was placed in Westin Hills. Lori didn't know what to believe until she got into an arguement with her father. Lori storms into the house and wanted to know the truth about her mother's death. She finds out that her dad works at Westin Hills and therefore knew where Will was all of this time. Her father tells her not to worry and pushes for her to take some pills to help her sleep. Later, Lori sneaks out the house and finds Will.

Meanwhile, Mark falls asleep and has an encounter with Freddy. Freddy is willing to let him live, but only if he passes along a message. When Mark refused, Freddy proceeded to set him on fire. When Will and Lori arrive, they find Mark being burned to death and the message "Freddy's Back" burning on his back.

At his office, the sheriff expressed displeasure while looking through pictures from the rave until Deputy Stubbs comes in and tells him the story of Jason, believing that a copycat may be committing the murders, but the sheriff, however already suspects that Freddy is responsible. When Stubbs wants to know on why they wouldn't tell him about Freddy, the sheriff dismisses him, reminding Stubbs that they shouldn't say Freddy's name out loud. This causes Stubbs to leave in frustration.

At Mark's house, Lori and the others try to form a plan when Stubbs comes in and tells them about Jason's life. Lori falls asleep and meets Freddy in her dream. She manages to grab a piece of Freddy before waking up and realizes she can pull him into the physical world. By placing the clues together, they find out the truth: there are two killers. Although Stubbs believes that Jason is just a copycat and not the real Jason, the teenagers agree that there are enough weird things going on that it has to be the real Jason.

They realize they have to get Freddy out from the dream world and into the physical world, in order to do so they plan to sneak into Westin Hills to get Hypnocil. At Westin Hills, they split up as a guard is murdered by Jason, who followed them. Meanwhile, Freeburg is smoking pot and begins to see Freddy, who turned into a caterpillar. Freddy then immediately possessed Freedburg's body and pours the Hypnocil down the sink. Linderman and Stubbs find him, but Jason arrives and electrocutes the latter.

Freddy and Jason in the Dream World — Freddy using the fear of water on Jason

Linderman then goes to find the rest of the group. The others find the empty bottles of Hypnocil and continue searching until Jason sees them and throws the dead Stubbs through the door. A Freddy-possessed Freedburg is able to tranqualize Jason at the cost of his own life. In a dream, Freddy unsuccessfully tries to defeat and murder Jason, even through different means. Finally, Freddy discovers what Jason is afraid of. Using this to his advantage, he unleashes a downpour of water on Jason which caused him to begin shaking in fear and even turned into his younger self. Seeing Jason suffer, Freddy proceeded to torment him.

Meanwhile, Lori, Will, Kia, and Linderman take Jason to Camp Crystal Lake so he can fight Freddy, as they figure that he will have "home-field" advantage. They figure that if Jason wins, he would have no reason to go back to Elm Street and they will all be safe. Lori is then injected with a tranquilizer so she can pull Freddy out of the dream world. Freddy nearly drowns Jason, and as Kia is about to give him a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Jason suddenly wakes up.

In a cabin at Camp Crystal Lake, Jason attacks Will, Kia, and Linderman, knocking Linderman onto the sharp edge of a shelf, fatally wounding him. After learning that it was Freddy who murdered her mother, Lori was eventually able to pull Freddy out of the dream world and into the physical world where he is confronted by Jason. Freddy and Jason then engaged in an epic, bloody battle which resulted in the cabin getting destroyed by fire while Will and Lori escapes. Recovering, Freddy managed to catch them. Before he could even kill them, however, he gets distracted by Kia, which allowed Will and Lori to escape. As Kia sardonically mocks Freddy, she also began to mock Jason, causing Freddy to instantly let her know that he is behind her. Kia turns around and sees Jason, who slashed her with enough force to send her flying into a tree, killing her, much to Lori's horror.

While Freddy and Jason resumed their fight, Will attempts to get Lori to escape with him on a motorboat, but she refuses and reveals to him that Freddy had murdered her mother and that her father had covered it up for her own safety. After further revealing that Freddy had taken everything and had ruined both her and her father's past, a vengeful Lori declares, And I am not leaving until I see [him] die.

Freddy and Jason's battle continues with the latter suffering beatings at the hands of Freddy until he threw him into a pile of air canisters. Using this to his advantage, Freddy launches several canisters at Jason, but he easily dodges them until he is struck in the stomach by at least one more, sending him flying into a construction site. There, Freddy began using several supplies and objects there to inflict severe injuries on Jason. As the fight rages on, the two undead killers were then knocked into the docks by a cart full of soil. Because the cart had struck him with such powerful force, Freddy was left weakened, leaving him unable to get up. This allows Jason to regain the upper-hand and began inflicting several wounds on Freddy.

While the two killers were preoccupied with their fighting, Lori and Will proceeded to douse the docks with gasoline. Before Jason could finish Freddy off, after knocking him back to the ground, the latter cuts off his fingers, allowing Freddy to claim Jason's machete. Now armed with both the weapon and his bladed-glove, Freddy retaliates by giving Jason brutal slashes until he knocks him to the ground while Lori and Will continue spraying gasoline on the docks. After a few more slashes, Freddy uses his glove to gouge out Jason's eyes before stabbing him in the stomach. Lori then arrives from the destroyed cabin from earlier with two burning pieces of wood in her hands, and she yells at Freddy to go to Hell before throwing one of the burning wooden pieces at the docks, setting it alight, causing a streak of flames to start heading towards Freddy.

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While Freddy was distracted, Jason takes the opportunity to brutally punch him with his fingerless hand, deep into Freddy's torso, while Lori throws the other wooden piece into a big gas tank along with other smaller propane tanks before fleeing to safety with Will. Meanwhile, Jason rips off Freddy's gloved arm, causing him to retaliate by plunging Jason's machete into his chest, causing him to remove his fingerless hand from Freddy's torso. As Lori and Will fled, the tanks blew up and the two dove into Crystal Lake to avoid danger. The streak of fire on the docks then reaches both Freddy and Jason, setting both of them on fire before the ensuing explosion sends them flying into the lake.

Shortly after Lori and Will resurfaced on the docks, in which some of the flames had already extinguished, Freddy, still wielding Jason's machete, emerges from Crystal Lake, having survived the explosion, and he moves in to murder Lori and Will, but before he could even kill them, Jason suddenly stabs Freddy from behind with his own severed bladed-arm before falling back into the lake. This also caused Freddy to drop Jason's machete, allowing Lori to pick it up and decapitate Freddy with it, causing his head to come clean off before it fell into the water, followed by his now-headless body. Lori and Jason then looked at each other for a few seconds before he loses consciousness from exhaustion and sinking back into Crystal Lake. After throwing his machete into the water, Lori walks away with Will.

Afterwards, the next morning, Jason emerges from Crystal Lake, carrying Freddy's severed head, which lets out a wink, leaving the winner ambiguous.

Cast

Sequel

The only official movie sequel is one that was released before the film, though it takes place years after: Jason X, the final chronological film in the Friday the 13th series that sees the end of Jason. A sequel for Freddy vs. Jason was originally planned. However, it was ultimately scrapped and is switched to a limited comic book series entitled Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash.

Reception

The movie received an approval rating of 42% based on 162 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 4.98/10. The critical consensus states "Fans of the two horror franchises will enjoy this showdown. But for everyone else, it's the same old slice and dice". Audiences gave the film an average grade of B+ on an A+-to F scale.

By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 37 out of 100 based on 29 reviews, which indicates "generally unfavorable reviews.

Box Office

On its opening weekend, Freddy vs. Jason grossed over $36.4 million in 3,014 American theaters, topping the box office. By November 9, 2003, the film grossed $82,556,855 million in North America and $32,286,175 in foreign sales.

Trivia

The local news station is Krgr channel 6. (Krgr is Krueger without any vowels.)
With a total of 2 victims, this is Freddy Krueger's lowest kill count in any film yet.
Jason kills over 14 people in the first 45 minutes of the movie.
This was the final film from either the A Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th franchises that followed the original plot before the reboot films.
Although the resulting victor is ambiguous, director Ronny Yu insists that he felt it was clear that Freddy was the victor.^[1]
Fans were outraged that Kane Hodder did not reprise his role as Jason as it was him who help set up Freddy vs. Jason years ago.
The tagline for this film is, "Winner kills all".
Production on Freddy vs. Jason began on September 9, 2002 and concluded on November 26th, 2002.
The recap at the beginning of the film includes scenes taken from A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, and Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Characters seen in the recap include:
- Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)-Freddy's Dead)
- Nancy Thompson (A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) & A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors)
- Tina Gray (A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984))
- Glen Lantz (A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984))
- Jesse Walsh (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge)
- Kristen Parker (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors)
- Phillip Anderson (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors)
- Jennifer Caulfield (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors)
- Alice Johnson (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master)
- Doc (Freddy's Dead)
Ken Kirzinger is the tallest actor to play the role of Jason Voorhees to date. He is 6'5" tall while Robert Englund, who plays Freddy Krueger, is 5'9".
Producer Robert Shaye makes a cameo appearance in the film as Principal Shaye. He is credited under the pseudonym L.E. Moko.
Oscar Gutiérrez, who makes an uncredited appearance as a jumper, is better known by his stage name Rey Mysterio, a professional wrestler for World Wrestling Entertainment who has made appearances on the WWE's Monday Night Raw and Friday Night Smackdown brands.
Mark Patton is given a special thanks screen credit in this film. Patton played the role of Jesse Walshin A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge.
The first murder victim featured in this film is a camp counselor named Heather, although this was only an aspect of a dream that Jason Voorhees is having.
One of the newspapers that chronicled the murders of the human Freddy Krueger was the Springfield Voice.
Producer Robert Shaye makes am unspeaking cameo appearance in the film as Principal Shaye. In a cut scene in the film, he actually has a little bit of dialogue. This is Bob Shaye's fourth appearance in A Nightmare on Elm Street film. Credited as L.E. Moko, he also played a bartender in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, a lecturer in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Masterand a ticket seller in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Additionally, Robert Shaye also played a fictionalized version of himself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Coincidentally, Robert Shaye's wife, Lin Shaye, played a teacher at Springwood High School in the first A Nightmare on Elm Street.
On the Freddy vs. Jason DVD commentary, actor Robert Englund praised Kelly Rowland's energy in the role of Kia Waterson, citing that she was the "perfect ingredient" to the cast.
Actress Kelly Rowland is best known as a former member of the pop group Destiny's Child.
Actress Betsy Palmer, who portrayed Jason's mother, Pamela Voorhees, originally agree to reprise her role as the character, but she eventually rejected it due to salary disputes, in which she was offered a small salary.
Freddy vs. Jason marks the last time Robert Englund resumed his role as Freddy Krueger, as the series would be remade into a 2010 remake version of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street film with Jackie Earle Haley taking Englund's role.
Freddy vs. Jason also marks the first film since Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood to not feature Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees.

Sources

↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8182MEC32E

◄ Freddy's Dead

Freddy vs. Jason ►

[1] ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8182MEC32E

[1]