Longtime readers of YNTE Horror Night have been looking forward to this one for a while, and it’s finally here: the ill-advised crossover between Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy vs. Jason.
For some background, before you read this you may want to read my reviews for Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X and Nightmare on Elm Street.
As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned!
Remember all the plot points of Jason X? Forget them. Pretend they never happened. That whole movie either got retconned or at the very least, the events of it took place after this film, so we can just pretend it never happened. And since after this film, both franchises were rebooted, we can basically pretend it never will.
Now remember back to Jason Goes To Hell. Really, all you need to remember from that film is the title. “Oh yeah, Jason went to Hell, never to return!”. However, I’m going to ask that you remember that he was an Evil Demon Worm, for no other reason than I wanted to use the phrase “Evil Demon Worm” again.
As for Freddy, other than a basic knowledge of who he is, you really need to know nothing about what happened before, since the events this movie are following were never shown in a movie. It really feels like a sequel, but as far as I can tell none of the events the characters refer to as having happened were actually shown.
Basically, in the denouement of the pretend, previous film, the citizens of Elm Street realized that Freddy only has power from the fear of children, and can only attack through nightmares. So they lock all the children who encountered Freddy up in a mental institution where they would have no contact with the outside world, and gave them a drug where they wouldn’t be able to dream. Then all records of Freddy Krueger were wiped from the outside world, and he was never spoken of again. Not only did they kill him, they took away his power as well.
This would be an awesome way to end a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, it kills the bad guy, and for good, in a way that totally makes sense within the established mythology of the series. Unfortunately, I think the last film actually ended with them blowing Freddy up with a pipe bomb.
Lets just pretend there was a “Nightmare on Elm St. 7: Forgetting Freddy”, and this film takes place after that.
The film starts out in Hell, which looks an awful lot like Crystal Lake. I thought Hell was supposed to be all about punishment, not sending you to your favorite place to do your favorite thing.
We run into Odessa Munroe, who you may remember from Final Destination 2 as “Girl who has no role in the movie other than to show her tits”. She’s reprising her role here! She runs around with her boobs hanging out and then gets murdered by Jason. I wonder why her career never advanced beyond this point. If I were a studio executive, I’d have given her a leading role by now: Odessa Munroe in “I can’t act, but look at my boobies!”
Pamela Voorhees shows up and congratulates him on all his killing, then tells him he’s not dead, just sleeping, and the naughty children on Elm Street need to be punished. As he walks away, the face shifts from Pamela Voorhees to Freddy Kreuger.
Jason’s body, which has been just laying in the woods decomposing suddenly comes to life and he walks off. Wait, wasn’t his body pulled underground? I take it back, you can forget everything from Jason goes to Hell, too. This movie exists in a vacuum.
We then meet the sinful teenagers we’ll be following this movie: Lori (Monica Keena, who you may remember from the tv show Undeclared), who lives in the house where Nancy from the original Nightmare on Elm Street lives; Kia (Kelly Rowland, who you may remember as Not Beyonce), who wants a nosejob; and Gibb (somebody I’ve never heard of, who you probably don’t remember from anything), who smokes and drinks and has sex and has NO CHANCE of surviving this film.
Also showing up to the party, are Trey, an asshole dating Gibb, and Blake. Kia tries to convince Lori that she should forget about her former boyfriend Will and date Blake, who reinforces this point by scratching his balls.
Infodump over for now, but believe it or not, there’s still a lot more characters to introduce.
Jason shows up and stabs Trey repeatedly, then folds the bed in half with his body still inside. Looks like we’ve moved on from the “introducing characters” phase into the “killing them” phase.
One of the cops forgets the “Never ever say anything about Freddy Krueger, especially in front of children” rule. He says specifically “Derp derp, this was Freddy Krueger, right? derp derp, hi child in earshot!” or something to that effect. Lori of course overhears and immediately has a nightmare, complete with creepy jumprope song.
Blake falls asleep and is attacked by Freddy, but apparently he’s not strong enough yet to do any real damage. So he’s off the hook, right? Wrong! Jason’s there to kill both Blake and his dad.
We’re only 20 minutes in, and we’ve already killed off 40% of the established characters, so you know what that means! Back into the “introducing characters” phase!
We meet Will, Lori’s ex, and his friend Mark, who are locked up in an insane asylum following the events of pretend movie “Nightmare 7: Forgetting Freddy”. They aren’t institutionalized for long, though, with a brilliant escape maneuver I can only describe as the “Monkey Moon”, which is more or less exactly what it sounds like.
Lori’s dad crushes up some Hypnocil and mixes it into a drink which he then tries to get Lori to drink. This must be a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, because the parents are dicks. He could have easily said “Here, sweetie. Take this pill, it will help you not have nightmares” and she would probably think that would be a positive thing. But instead, he tries to sneak it to her, roofie style.
Oh, and we’re still in “introducing characters” phase, so lets add a few more, shall we? First up is Linderman (Chris Marquette, from The Girl Next Door and Fanboys) a nerd crushing on Lori, and Freeburg who, well, just watch the video:
Then it’s time for a horror movie standard! People are dying, so… PARTY TIME! They throw a giant rave in a corn field.
Everyone goes to the party, and Gibb drinks too much, wanders off by herself, and passes out immediately. Freddy starts stalking her in her nightmare, meanwhile, some asshole raver sees her unconscious body and starts trying to rape her in her sleep. Then, just as Freddy’s about to kill her in the dream, Freddy skewers her and the rapist with a giant pole. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a worse way to die.
This angers Freddy, that Jason stole his kill. Jason then goes on to kill a bunch of the other partygoers, WHILE ON FIRE. This causes the local teens to be more afraid of the very real indestructable killer than the little dream man, which angers Freddy even more.
Lori finds out her dad is a jerk and runs away in a huff. She and will decide they need to go talk to Mark, who suddenly is an expert. He proves his expertise by getting murdered by Freddy.
So everyone that isn’t an adult gets together and discusses plans for taking care of the problem. Meanwhile Lori has a nightmare. While most people have dreams of being stalked in abandoned factories, or of bathtubs full of blood, Lori has a nightmare that her friends will make fun of her for being a virgin.
They realize what hypnocil is, and that they need large quantities of it. So they decide to go to the asylum to get it. When they get there, Jay, I mean Freeburg, decides to smoke some marijuana instead of helping out. Then, an Evil Demon Worm (and not the Evil Demon Worm from Jason Goes to Hell, a different Evil Demon Worm) pulls out a hookah and blows evil demon smoke in Freeburg’s face. The Evil Demon Worm Magic Hookah Smoke causes Freeburg to be possessed by Freddy.
Freddyburg goes and grabs all the hypnocil, which literally everyone else walked straight past, and pours it down the drain. Then he fills up two big syringes with heavy duty sedatives and stands around waiting for Jason to come knocking, which of course, he does. Everyone else watches in horror as Freddyburg manages to stick Jason with the syringes, but before he falls down, he chops Freddyburg in half with his machete.
Freddy and Jason fight in the dream world, where Freddy obviously has the upper hand. But since Jason is nearly unkillable in real life, the whole thing is a little useless. But when Freddy finds out that Jason hates water, the whole thing turns his way.
The kids have the brilliant idea of bringing Jason back to Crystal Lake, then sending Lori into the dream world to pull Freddy back into the real world, so Jason can fight Freddy in the real world, on his home turf. If Jason wins, he’ll already be home and won’t pursue them anymore, and if Freddy wins, well, they have no plan for that.
They also didn’t have a plan for if Jason wakes up early and starts killing. Which happens.
They also didn’t have a plan for if Lori doesn’t wake up. Which also happens. Oops!
Luckily, they finally wake up Lori, and in a burning building, no less, which cues up the final Freddy vs. Jason fight. Sure, Linderman and Kia die in the process, but they have a touching death scene together, despite neither showing any romantic interest in the other at any point in the movie.
Lori and Will decide to stay and watch the fight to make sure Freddy dies. Because if Jason loses they will… they don’t come up with a plan for that either.
Freddy and Jason’s fight moves to the dock where Jason drowned, and Freddy gets the upper hand, but cutting off all of Jason’s fingers. Then using Jason’s machete and his knife fingers he stabs him to “death”. Luckily Lori is there to yell out at Freddy long enough to distract him while Jason straight up punches through his chest, “killing” him.
Then Lori lights the dock on fire, causing a MASSIVE explosion, throwing both fighters off the dock into the water. Freddy burns to death – again. Jason drowns – again.
But that wasn’t a dramatic enough ending, so Freddy crawls back up on the dock and is about to kill Lori with Jason’s machete, when Jason comes back and stabs Freddie with his own arm, claw fingers first. Then Lori decapitates him. Jason and Freddie and Freddie’s head all fall in the water. Lori and Will leave triumphant.
The next morning we see Jason walk out of the water, carrying his machete in one hand and Freddie’s head in the other. Then Freddie winks. They’re both still alive so they could have a rematch or make more movies of their own. But then both franchises were rebooted so that didn’t happen. The end!
Come back tomorrow for Scream 3! And come back next month, on Friday, May 13th, when I’ll be reviewing the first Friday the 13th Movie!
Catch up on past installments:
Scream 2
Scream
Red State
April Fool’s Day (1986)
Leprechaun
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Valentine
Jason X
Jason Goes to Hell – The Final Friday
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan
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