Movie Review: Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

The movies stars Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter and Kelly Rowland.

It's been a few years since I've sat down to watch this movie in its entirety. And, after a long weekend of being at one daughter's ice show performances and the other daughter's dance competition, it just seemed like a good way to unwind yesterday evening. After seeing it again, I still find myself counting it among my list of favorite horror films.

I think the thing I like best about this movie is the way it starts out essentially as another A Nightmare on Elm Street film, with Krueger (Englund) looking to continue his revenge on Springwood. Yes, he ends up using Jason (Kirzinger) as part of that plan. But, given the extreme measures the adults in Springwood took to essentially snuff out Krueger and his powers, it wasn't a premise I would consider overly far fetched, especially in a movie from this genre.

I also thought the movie did a fairly decent job introducing us to the victims that are essentially caught in the middle of a feud between the two horror movie super villains. We learn enough about each of them to care whether they lived or die without the movie becoming bogged down with their backstories. In other words, even though the two villains don't actually start fighting each other until toward the end of the movie, I didn't find myself getting bored.

The final battle itself was also both clever and memorable, with Jason facing Krueger in the dream world before the two villains finally duke it out in the real world. I think the thing that really impressed me about that was, even though Krueger was supposed to be at a significant disadvantage by being pulled from the dream world, he actually held his own against Voorhees. This kept the outcome of the battle from becoming too predictable and had me interested from start to finish.

It's a bit gory and a few scenes are a little on the weird side. But, overall, I enjoyed this film and would recommend taking the time to watch it if you haven't seen it yet.

My Grade: A