Hello and welcome to Review. I'm your host, Rich Evans.
This may be the most important review, the most culturally significant review that we ever do. It is a watershed film. It has changed the modern course of cinema, generations. It kind of did in some ways. This was the precursor to our modern nightmare IP mashup world. It all started with Freddy versus Jason.
It's been like three years, I think, since we did our epic reviews on the Nightmare on Elm Street series and then, shockingly, the Friday the 13th series. I watched them all. We watched them all. I rewatched them all, but that was a few years ago now. And we said, eventually we'll get to Freddy vs. Jason. Much like the movie itself, we waited way too long before we finally did it.
Well, let me ask you this question. You said this movie was too late. So, it's 2003 and I do remember this movie coming out and being like, oh, you know what? Because the horror revolution began in '97 with Scream. And then instantly they ran out of fresh ideas and they started rebooting things. The Halloween H2O and stuff like that started coming out. They all had the same poster. Every one of these Scream ripoffs had the same poster.
Early 2000s, late 90s posters with all the attractive TV show actors. It was always blue. But I will say in regards to this movie, refreshingly lacking in any sort of that post-Scream, kind of, wink-wink, self-aware nonsense, this movie is incredibly dumb in the most refreshing way.
I actually really like this movie. I do as well. And I was shocked afterwards because I looked up the Rotten Tomatoes score and it's like 43% critical and 50% audience. And my response to that is, "What else did you want?"
Well, I remember when this came out, I knew someone who said they were disappointed in the movie. They said, "I wish they would have taken it more seriously." They're like Freddy versus Jason. That's like saying you want like Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein to be a more serious horror film. It's done in a way that is the best way to do this. I suppose they could have taken it a little more seriously, but you go, "What do we do with a Freddy vs. Jason movie?" You come up with some stupid way for them to come back to life. You have to. You can't just have your whole movie be Freddy fighting Jason or else it'll get dull as it does kind of towards the end. There's so much Freddy fighting Jason in this movie. It's worth your price of admission, but also you can't have that be the whole movie. So, you have to have teens and then you have to have a plot and some kind of stakes with the characters where you kind of care about them. The main girl has her backstory with her dad and the boyfriend goes to the insane asylum. There's a lot going on in this stupid movie.
And they even squeeze in just a little bit of time for some character development for Freddy and Jason. They have the Jason backstory with the mother and the drowning at the camp, and then Freddy is less sympathetic as he should be. The only thing they would have done with Freddy is, you know, he's a he was a child murderer, but he really liked little girls and then there's a part where he tries to attack the lead actress.
Yes. He's a bit of a perve. It went from child predator in the remake, right? That was overt straight up. In all the Freddy movies, it was always kind of like subtext, which I think worked better. And that was forced on them. I know with the original movie it was going to be a little more overt, but then there was some real life stuff happening at the time, so they scaled it back.
Jason is a big, Frankenstein-like dumb monster. He's kind of stuck in his ways as Freddy's mom says at one point in this movie, "You're like a big, dumb dog that can't stop eating." And they start right off the bat, they make Freddy a creep because they show the little girl in his basement. You see his silhouette kind of hovering over. We don't see what happened, but obviously, he murdered her. And then you see that close-up of him licking the back of the photo. They make Freddy appropriately creepy in this. They didn't make him too silly at the start. The movie kind of ramps up the silliness as it goes along.
Well, here's an interesting thing. The first thing I noticed upon re-watching with a more critical eye is that the lighting is terrible. It's that early 2000s. And in a way, I love that because I could see what's happening. Everything's bright blue and nighttime is bright blue and it's not modern cinema where everything's super dark. And yes, it does look very early 2000s. It looks like an American Pie movie or a sex comedy.
And then the exteriors of the house with the rain coming down. You could literally see where the giant flood light is. And then there's another scene too where the teens are in their hideout and the cameras coming in and there's like a spot and it looks like, "I thought why did they stop and join a local theater company and why are they doing a play now? Is this a dream?" And then it realized, "Oh, this is the actual lighting for the scene."
And then I'm like, "This movie is getting a little silly." Which I was surprised you guys didn't include it on your top 10 Joe Dante films because it gets pretty active towards the end with the oxygen tanks flying.
It's amazing. Even before that, when they're in the dream world and Freddy's fighting Jason and Freddy is making Jason think that he's winning by like chopping off his arms and they have the ADR of Freddy going, "Not my arms." There's that shot where his arms come back. It's super awesome. He's having fun with Jason because he can't be hurt here.
So I looked up the director's Ronnie Yu. I looked at his credentials and a lot of Hong Kong films. I don't think they were action movies. They looked like comedies. I only have seen one of his movies, one of his Hong Kong movies. He did a movie called The Bride with White Hair, but it's very stylized as this movie is. Lots of like crazy camera movements. And so, the lighting in this movie, it's not natural obviously, but it's done intentionally, especially later when you have all the like everything's bathed in red or bathed in green. He's a very stylized one of those like Hong Kong style shoemaker, like a style more than substance kind of thing.
The DP is a guy named Fred Murphy. And it's like DP for hire like everything TV movies nothing specific. Now do you know this off hand? Is he Canadian? You probably don't know. I didn't look because this movie was shot in Vancouver and they did that to cut costs. So I'm wondering if they hired just a local cinematographer, a Vancouver cinematographer from the phone book. They went on Craigslist. No, this guy's worked a ton and he's done a ton of movies. Not saying he's unprofessional, but I'm just saying like because there was a controversy with the movie where they didn't cast Kane Hodder as Jason and people were upset about that. They cast this guy Ken Kerzinger who I think works well for the movie. I like Kane Hodder just fine, but I don't care if you replace Jason. You can't replace Freddy because he's got too much personality. And there was all this like, there's all these different conflicting stories on why they didn't cast Kane Hodder. Was it a money issue? Blah blah blah. The director wanted someone taller. There's all these different stories. And to me, one that never gets brought up that I think is the most simple and logical is that Ken Kerzinger is a Canadian actor. So that's one less American you have to bring up for the shoot. You got all your lead actors who were American actors, John Ritter's son, Jason Ritter, and it's like, well, Kane Hodder, you never see his face. He's expendable. Let's get a local. So, they had Ken Kerzinger professional. He's done tons of stunt work and things like that, but that's like one less person to worry about because you have to have a certain amount of Canadian cast and crew when your movie's shot in Canada. Yeah. So that's always been my thought as to why they didn't use Kane Hodder. But yeah, they're using obviously professionals. The cinematographer, professional cinematographer. I'm going to guess he's Canadian.
But well, he's done a lot of work is what I'm is my point. And it's a lot of varied work. It's nothing specific. And I know like, you know, a DP can adapt to certain movies, but the movie looks like a early 2000s sex comedy. Like, and then the director who doesn't have a background in horror. It just seems like two odd choices to like you know there's a very specific cynical studio choice why Ronnie Yu directed this because the movie he did right before it was Bride of Chucky. He breathed new life into a long dead horror franchise from the 80s. So you see that and the movie was a big hit. Bride of Chucky was a big hit. So you say, "Hey, that guy did it. Let's have him do that again." It's kind of like picking J.J. Abrams to direct The Force Awakens. Yeah, exactly. That guy successfully revived, which was my idea. No one else had that idea. No one ever suggested it. And the major studio said, "Hey, we need to listen to everything in this funny YouTube video." Right.
And we need to base our entire franchise off of this comical YouTube video off one clown from Milwaukee. It's a very realistic thing that definitely happened. They really did call me. Oh, they did? Yeah. And they said, "What do you think, Mike?" And I said, "Go with JJ." Okay. Like he did the Star Trek movie. And even though it wasn't great, you know, it revived that movie. Let And why don't you guys use him for Star Wars? We'll cut this out. We'll cut all this. I don't want people to really know that it was my decision. Right. Right.
So here's where you at. Ready? Yeah. 3, two, one. So, Disney people listen to me. Of course they did. Who would believe that? Anyways. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Anyways, back to Freddy versus Jason. And there's nothing that brought it up to the level where you could feel this is about some important human issues aside from just two men smashing each other. So, it didn't do it for me. Also related to the style of the movie. Another like that early 2000s thing that I hate is that low frame rate, that shutter speed thing. I was going to bring that up. Even the Lord of the Rings movies do that. It's so ugly and it's so dated. Yeah, it's not quite simulated slow motion like slow motion like with film you have to over crank, you know, but and then it's like with that they change the shutter speed so you get this like fluttery effect. So that's not a post thing. They actually do that. Yeah. You shoot like that. It was a creative choice that many people made in the early 2000s. Just that little window. I always thought it was like, oh, I want this shot to be slow-mo. Let's do this slow-mo thing. But really, it's not. It's just regular speed, but it's just jittery. I think in this case, they're doing it for like the dream sequences, but it's more distracting than anything. No, no, they do it in the cornfield where that guy's running from Jason. They just have a shot where he's running through the corn and it's like jittery and then then it cuts back to real time. Maybe it was stylized.
And then it cuts to actual slow motion where he's running out of the cornfield and you can see that he already has all the fake blood in his mouth. He's ready for him to get stabbed so he can spit it out. But before he spits it out, you can just see that it's in there. That's fine. I wanted to say like speaking of early 2000s, like when you're in that period, you're just sort of like, well, you know, the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s, all had very defined looks. And I was like, the 2000s, but now looking back, boy was I wrong. Crank up that butt rock new metal. The end credit music. All the music in this movie is god awful. The Britney Spears pants and the hairstyles and then the frosted tips. But the datedness, like the music in this movie, which is terrible. But that's I mean that's a part of the DNA of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. You can't blame them a movie for being dated when it's made in an era because you look at like the older movies they had like the Fat Boys where Freddy Krueger was rapping in their song. Freddy's dead I think was like early grunge like goo goo dolls before they became a wimpy ballad band. So that's a staple of these movies is dated to the time that they were made because they appeal to a younger crowd. They appeal to the youth. So, you got to put the rap metal in. I wanted to mention that. That was another trend is, and this isn't me being cynical. I've heard interviews with various producers. I think one of the producers of the Halloween franchise talking about this. The market research was showing that these films were huge with the African-American audience. The studio wanted to attract people from that demographic. Who better than LL Cool J? That they intentionally would cast like a rapper or an R&B star to bring in a different demographic than who would normally see like a Halloween sequel. Talking about a black person. A black person, because this has Kelly Rowland, one of the Destiny's children in a classic performance.
You don't think they cast her for her acting ability in this movie? No. Which one had the super bad toupee here? Okay. She I think that was I'm assuming it wasn't them casting her. It was her asking to be in the movie to start trying to make a headway into acting. Wow. And seems like that worked out great. No, it didn't work for her. It didn't work for Beyonce. Remember Beyonce was in Goldfinger. Oh, Gold Member. Gold Member. Yeah. Sorry. The parody of Goldfinger. And then Rihanna was in the Battleship movie. And it's like certain and then and then some for some like musical artists that goes well like a Will Smith or Ice-T there's a lot of people that transition successfully from music into movies. Some just aren't cut for both. And Kelly Rowland is certainly one. Place your hormones back in the box and quit while you're ahead. Okay. We don't have time for data dork right now. Thank you. Well, Jay, I understand this film was in development hell for quite some time, which leads to its late arrival, 2003, right? And you are the expert on this because I was curious because it's called Freddy versus Jason and I know I don't know the details, I know you do, the difference between Jason and Friday the 13th and they are two separate copyright holders. It became much more of a legal issue later, but when this movie was made, New Line Cinema bought the rights to Jason. So that's why all the New Line movies are like Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, Freddy Versus Jason. They sorted it out after this one because then the reboot was just called Friday the 13th. But it was a thing where they couldn't call it Friday the 13th, but they had rights to the Jason character.
Now, is that Sean Cunningham? Sean Cunningham, who was a producer on this movie. Yeah, I saw that. That was the dispute was Sean Cunningham produced and directed the original Friday the 13th, but another guy named Victor Miller wrote it and so there was like rights split up between the two of them. Eventually in the late 80s, Paramount decided that they were they were tired of making these embarrassing movies. So they sold the rights to New Line Cinema. So now Freddy and Jason are owned by the same company, but Paramount still own the title Friday the 13th. But that was, yeah, the early 90s, New Line Cinema got the rights to the Jason movies. They made Jason goes to Hell, which ended with the Freddy Glove coming out. And that was like 93 or something. So that was the plan was to do Freddy versus Jason after that. And it took him like a decade. My joke when this movie came out was always when I see like the trailers or whatever, my joke was always the most anticipated movie of 1998. It took 10 years for the lawyers to sort this out. Not the lawyers. It took 10 years for him to come up with a satisfactory concept. They didn't know how to do it.
There's I I haven't read it, but there's like an entire book that was written about all the different scripts over the years to try and like tackle a Freddy versus Jason movie, and they all got like extremely weird. There's one that had like a cult of Freddy worshippers. There's one where Jason got actually arrested and was on trial. There's like courtroom scenes with Jason on trial. There's apparently one where Freddy like assaulted Jason's mom. Like crazy stuff. And so I think it was like it's Freddy versus Jason. We got to go all out. And eventually cooler heads prevailed and they said let's keep this simple. And that's I think the what really works about the movie. Well, it's almost like a what-if movie. Because if someone's expecting some sort of cohesive plot that makes sense, you're insane. They do the best they can though. I know. That's the thing is like the initial setup is a little convoluted as far as like Freddy getting in touch with Jason. There's like ridiculous voice over that was added later that wasn't a part of the original cut of the movie. Like Freddy narrating the movie is a very strange choice. Freddy is a narrator up until they no longer need a narrator. And he's just explaining everything. And I was so hoping he would come back. And you know, at this point I was really mad at Jason. He's sitting by like a fireplace with a book, reading to a bunch of children he's about to kill. But no, he doesn't narrate anymore. There is one part where he talks directly to the camera, though.
I remember seeing this in the theater and a friend of mine leaned over to me and he just goes, "Who's he talking to?" It doesn't matter. Looney Tunes. But the but yeah, the setup is a little convoluted, but once that's out of the way, it mostly makes sense. And the storyline with the teen characters, I think, is pretty good. And that's the thing everyone says, who cares about the plot? Who cares about these characters? It's not bad. You need them. You got a little backstory. They were the Will and Lorie. They were a young couple when they were like 14. And then one day, Will just disappeared. And she doesn't know what happened to him. And there's a mystery surrounding her mom's death. And it turns out Will is kept in an institution, the same institution from Nightmare Elm Street 3. But they put him and all the other kids that knew about Freddy. They locked him away and they drugged him because they're trying to cut out Freddy from this town like a cancer. That's pretty good.
Yeah. It's not a bad backstory using Hypnosil. From Nightmare on Elm Street 3. But the reason why they put him away was because he climbed up to her bedroom window just like Johnny Depp did in the same house. And then he saw the father, it looked like the father was killing the mother, but really he was trying to protect the mother because Freddy was killing the mother. Because Freddy loved to kill the people that lived in that house. He had a thing for killing the women. I've always loved killing the people in this house. It's not a plot. Welcome to my plot convenience, Brit. Welcome to Yeah. So, um, but then, Freddy eventually gets his power back because the town has made everybody forget about him. Freddy revives Jason to go kill kids on Elm Street so that he can gain his power back. But then, Jason can't stop killing. So then, Freddy has to stop him himself. Hence the titular Freddy versus Jason.
Yes. Well, Freddy gets very upset when Jason takes one of his kills. Which is the girl in the cornfield party who wanders into the grain silo. Gibb is her name. I don't know. But and she's about to get attacked by the the glow stick guy. 2000's raver. And then Jason takes his machete and stabs the the person through the back and through her. And then Freddy gets very angry. Instead of talking to Jason about his feelings and saying, "Look, Jason, I know you didn't know, but I was about to kill that young lady." And if we're going to work together and you know kill the kids of Springwood, we have to you know set some boundaries and some rules. I don't know why they didn't put that scene in the film. And then Jason would have just went like "I I'll take the east side of town, you take the west side of town," and you know we'll have a compromise. But Freddy just became angry. He just got mad and he said no. You need motivation for him to want to attack Jason. That's the thing. And it it kind of makes sense in the in the world of this goofy movie.
I would classify Freddy as irrationally angry. So, it wouldn't make sense if he tried to talk about his feelings. So then, they start fighting and Jason's kind of too dumb to really understand what's going on anyway. Freddy just sort of pointed him in the right direction where he could kill kids, which is all he wants to do and then he can't stop. It would be a one-sided conversation if Freddy tried to talk to Jason about their feelings and formulate a plan.
Yeah. Cuz that's I think that's what the people wanted that wanted, you know, a more realistic version of the But hey, see the thing is I think when I saw this movie, you know, obviously I was older, but I was kind of prepared for a disappointment based on many disappointments for movies like this. I think it all started with the canon He-Man movie. Oh, we're going way back. Yeah. And and you're just like, oh, they're making this and then um and then they're making this and it's just disappointment. They're making and then when they get around and the idea Freddy versus Jason, people have been talking about that since the 80s.
And then finally when it would come out, I maybe I think maybe Alien 3 you could factor into a disappointment. Even though I like that movie, but coming off of Aliens, it's a good movie as if from a different perspective as like a more mature adult. As a follow-up to Aliens at the time. And you're like, they're doing another Alien sequel to Aliens. I can't wait to see what Ripley and Newton Hicks get up to this time. Whoops. And I'm like, boy, that was a disappointment. And then so many things. And then Freddy versus Jason is I expected the response to be, oh, they barely fought. They only fought for two seconds at the very end of the movie and we had to sit through all this. But no, they give you the good. Pretty much the entire second half of the movie is Freddy fighting Jason. And they vary it up.
We get Freddy and Jason in the dream world where Freddy has the advantage and is knocking him around and they had pinball sound effects. Then they go to Camp Crystal Lake and they fight in the real world because established Freddy lore is if you're holding on to him in your dream and you wake up, he gets pulled out into the real world. And they have a plan. All our teen Scooby-Doo characters, they have their plan. They got a Scooby-Doo van. They get to Crystal Lake, which is within driving distance of Springwood, I guess.
Well, they go in the middle act. They go to the hospital to retrieve Hypnosil. Yes, the hospital from part three. Which is nice. There's lots of little nods to the other movies throughout these. That was how Freddy got back into the real world, right? He makes I you probably don't like the scene where there's the Jay and Silent Bob guy. Oh, that's again dated. That was pop culture figure from that time. Let's just rip him off wholesale. It's just Jay from Jay and Silent Bob. And he's he's of course he stops to smoke weed and then Freddy turns into a like a caterpillar. Little Alice in Wonderland stoner caterpillar. Yes. And and takes over his body by going into his mouth.
Yes. Cuz it's also been established that Freddy can possess people. It's happened a couple times. So the comical thing is the control room for the hospital. It looks like the control room in the Death Star. And apparently it runs on like 100 million volts of electricity for some reason. That's fine. Jason's hacking at it. There's sparks and electricity flying everywhere. And I'm like, this is overboard, but it needs to be. It's fine for this movie. The whole thing is kind of silly and hype. You open with a classic Jason kill. Which I even thought might have been a scene from one of the movies. It's like the girl's out on the pier and come swim with me, Mark. She takes off all her clothes. We actually have nudity in a horror film. Which which is all gone. The lady swims and then Jason kills her, but it turns out Jason's caught in some kind of like hell or limbo. And then I like that aspect this sort of like Jason purgatory when he's not like in the real world killing people. He's kind of just like resting under the ground and has this like image of just killing people on repetition, right?
There's that cool part later in the movie where we see this kind of dreamlike world where he's like dragging a dead body to this old cabin. It's like a fantasy. It's like a nightmare scene, but it's kind of like, oh, that's that's his entire life. Like visually it's represented in kind of a cool way. They open that door and there's like all the dead bodies floating around. The most recent one, the girl from this the grain silo floats up. I like all that stuff. And then Freddy he drags him out, wakes him up. He impersonates his mother to wake him up. But the point is is like we get some we get the Jason kills, especially at the barn. The cornfield.
As perfect as this screenplay is, in the first act, it gives you some Jason stuff and then some Freddy stuff. There's the scene where Kelly Rowland is in the nurse's office and she's flipping through the magazine and the pictures get grosser and grosser. Well, they've established that she wants to have plastic surgery. She's not happy with her physical appearance. She wants a nose job. But then Freddy's like, "Got your nose." Rips your nose off and it's a dream. You feel like you traveled back to 1987. Like that whole scene is like classic Freddy stuff. Some bad CG, but that goes throughout the whole movie. You can live with it.
It's peppered with classic early 2000s problems. Bad CD, but also positives. One positive is real fire. There might be some CGI blood at this point. But when it comes to like setting that house on fire and then the fire that's all scattered around the ending when they're shooting the gas when Jason's on fire. One of the best scenes in any Jason movie when he's going through the cornfield party and hacking everybody up while on fire. It's awesome.
I wanted to talk about that with this movie in general, like Easter eggs and the culture like fan culture and how different it is now when it comes to stuff like this. Like if this movie were made today and or if social media existed when this movie the way it does now the way it when this is made the fact that Kane Hodder wasn't cast as Jason there would be like online petitions cancel the movie I'm boycotting the movie all that the the fact that they have Jason's mom in the movie it would have been nice if it was Betsy Palmer she was still alive and acting when this was made um it would have been nice to have a little cameo by her that's why I looked her up to see if it was the same lady. No, different lady, but she just passed away. She passed away this month. September, she passed away of 2025. So, like, yeah, but that's another thing. It's like, oh, they have Jason's mom and it's not Betsy Palmer. I'm boycotting this movie. Everybody write to New Line Cinema. We're boycotting. Like, it just like endless fan entitlement is so off the charts now. So, you watch this movie and it just feels so simple and of a different era because those things don't re I mean, if you recast Freddy, that would be the only thing I don't think you could get away with. You could not have someone else play Freddy in this movie. This movie. Obviously, they recast him after that, but and that's another positive for this movie is just like seeing Robert England. It's been so long. Seeing him get to play Freddy one last time and just like reveling in it. He is having so much fun in this movie because he understands it's a cartoon movie. You can do the later sequel kind of silly Freddy.
The part at the end they're on the construction site and he's up top and he just yells down to Jason, "Hey, up here." I just love when he's like torpedoes away firing tanks at Jason. Well, also even like the house like they shot this in Vancouver. So that house, the Nightmare on Elm Street house, 1428 Elm Street is in Hollywood. It's right off of Hollywood Boulevard. And because they shot it in Vancouver, I think of like those recent Halloween movies when they wanted the Meyers house just to make sure it was completely accurate to the original film. They just built a facade of a house here. They just went to Vancouver and they said that kind of looks like the house from the first movie, but they just shot it there and it's fine. Nobody cared. Nobody got on X. Nobody was writing petitions to cancel Bob Sheay, the head of New Line Cinema, because they didn't go back to the original house or replicate it completely accurately. I was thinking about that. I know the staircase is right there when you walk in that leads right down to the front door. And then I was thinking about the kitchen. I was like, is the kitchen the same? And then I don't care. It doesn't really matter.
Yeah. As long as you got Robert England in it. That's the only thing that would have been a step too far if they didn't have Robert England. But like Kane Hodder, I like him as Jason. It didn't bother me at all that he wasn't in this. They cast a guy that was much taller because visually they're going for the contrast. Like Freddy, you can't change the Freddy makeup too much either. Freddy's like locked in. It's Robert England and it's this type of makeup. But his skin is like fleshy colored. So they made Jason super tall and they made him like almost like black. Like his skin is like rotting away so he would have that visual contrast. And yeah, the Freddy makeup was a little different but it wasn't too different. It was better than some of those other like Freddy's dead where he just looks like complete rubber.
The only thing I wanted to mention is that they steal a scene from Attack of the Clones in this film. And Attack of the Clones came out in 2002. And they're very similar scenes. And they're like what? like the Robocop thing they drop on Robocop. So I wrote down Fred Eye.
Okay. It's something. It's something. I mean, it's literally something. That would be Freddy Krueger as a Jedi. A Fred Eye. That's almost too silly when they're like hand-to-hand fighting and doing like WWE moves because like Freddy's just a normal guy here. This is like a little too silly. What's the cannon? What's the What's the rules of that? I mean, that is the rules is he's brought into the real world. He's just a guy. He's just a man and he and he can't be thrown 100 feet in the air and crashed down through something without being horribly injured. That's why it makes sense that he would start using those tanks. it's like he can't fight him physically like just oneonone. That's the perfect thing to do is Freddy would outsmart Jason and you know someone had that conversation. Well, he can't fight him now. He could do some things where he throws him through a wall and you know doesn't Jason pick him up and throw drag him through windows. He sticks him through one window and then just drags him through the whole row of windows. Breaks like the support structures between each window. I don't think a person could survive that. But that's okay. We're gonna look past that. A person couldn't survive one hack from Jason's blade where he just like has a geyser of blood erupt from him and it happens over and over.
But they said, "Okay, we'll have a little bit of fighting." But then after that, there's a limit to what Freddy can take. So, he has to start outsmarting him and he's shooting CO2 tanks at him. And then he does the thing with the rebar and he dumps all this rebar down. You want to make it look like Freddy could defeat Jason. But then, oh, he drops a sokey thing in this like a cement mixer thing swinging around. And then Freddy falls. Oh, he's trying to dump a This is This is like classic Tom and Jerry stuff. Um he's trying to push a giant like cart of dirt. Caught on something and then Freddy falls and he's hanging off something. Oh no. The only thing that's missing is the Benny Hill music. That whole sequence. But you can't have two horror icons fighting each other for for 40 minutes regularly. I mean they kind of do, but they have the human characters mixed in that are caught up in the whole storyline. They give you your money's worth. Freddy versus Jason. That ending on the pier, the music is like bombastic. They're just hacking each other. Blood spurting practical blood. I'm just picturing some like poor effects guy like underneath that dock with like a hose. Probably like compressed air that shoots it out because you could see the poof of like
And that feels very like Hong Kong stylized. That feels like that's why you hire someone like that. There's that great moment during that fight when Freddy gets Jason's machete and he cuts off Jason's fingers. And there's like a extreme close-up of Jason's face and his little stubs come into frame and he's just sort of looking at it for a moment. He can't hold his machete anymore. He does not know why. He's just an o. He's just a big dumb guy. And and then Freddy gets to pick up Jason's machete and use it. If and then I would say it would have been cool if Jason put on Freddy's glove, but he kind of does when he shoves Freddy's arm with the glove through his body.
Now, did this movie do well financially? Well, that was the thing is like when it came out, I was like, well, I'm excited about it, and I'm sure like people that grew up on Fangoria magazine will be excited about it, but too much time has passed. Both these series are past their prime. Uh, nobody really cares anymore. But it ended up being the highest grossing movie of either franchise. It was a gigantic hit. Oh, okay. A big old hit, which is why it's even more surprising that afterwards they said, "Ah, we'll just reboot them both." I think it's it took so long to get this movie made. They had so many different ideas. They went through so many different scripts and drafts. It was such a pain in the ass. Even though when you see the movie, it's like, "Oh, this seems like it would write itself. It's so simple. Just come up with a a simple plot to get these two together, but it was apparently a giant mess behind the scenes to get it made." So, I think they didn't want to have to try and go through that again for Freddy versus Jason 2. And Robert England was getting older. He did a lot of his own stunts in this movie. And he's I don't know 50s, late 50s when they made it. So I think they said if we want longevity to these franchises we need to just reboot them. So that's what they did.
Well, that is the weird thing is both of them, the Friday the 13th reboot and even though everybody hates the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, they both did pretty well financially to the point where they could have gotten sequels, but I didn't think just like the interest wasn't there. Like a general audience, they made money, but no one was like excited for more of them. Yeah. Well, there's the Curiosity Watch and then there's the like I'll pass on the next one because I've seen it. And and then, you know, typically that's not the case with sequels. Like I would have skipped Freddy versus Jason 2. Because unless you have I mean you have a treasure trove of randomass plots that you could pull from those early meetings. Sure. The Freddy cult resurrects Freddy and Jason they they find the Jason from space. He travels through a wormhole and ends up in the And then you have robot Jason from space. Why not, you know? And then you have robot Freddy, Uber Freddy, put that in the movie. So I think it was just the novelty of putting these two together that kind of brought in and like I wonder if it's a case of like enough time had passed. We're now thinking of when this came out, Freddy and Jason were almost like it was like nostalgia. Is this an early like nostalgia bait movie? Because to me the joke was yeah like oh the most anticipated movie of 1989. like nobody really cares about these franchises anymore, but I guess it was a crowd-pleaser word of mouth. It did well. They're pop cultural icons and even though it was 10 years too late, it's still fine.
You could probably make this movie today. I mean, maybe you could make it I mean, some sort of different variation of it. I mean, Chucky versus Leprechaun is the way to go. Two little guys. I mean I may see the thing is though that would not get released in the theater. And that's because we're in a different era now. Chucky versus Leprechaun would be like a Netflix movie. That would be made for stars. It would be something that no one would see. It wouldn't be in the theaters and go to the theater. So it's a different world. That's the thing too is like yeah everyone knows Freddy and Jason now. What would you do? The only real icon now is that Art the Clown from the Terrifier movies. He's kind of like reached those heights where everybody, even if you haven't seen those, you recognize that clown, right? And there really aren't anything else like that. I've never seen one of those movies. So I But you know about him. The thing you need is the supernatural element where you know Jason and Freddy are immortal and cannot be killed. So I don't know what Art the Clown is. I don't know who he would fight.
I saw there was a John Wick for for this Halloween season. Fanta, the soda company, has like different cans with different horror characters on it. So, it's like Chucky. I think there's a Michael Myers one, but then there's like the Grabber, the character from that Black Phone movie. It's like him, Ethan Hawk. Yeah, that character. It's like is he like iconic? That's a good movie. Yeah, a popular movie. But you don't have other than Art the Clown, you don't have any other like Freddy or Jason's of this era. That's a long gone thing because you don't have a monoculture anymore. You don't have like everybody knew the same movies and TV shows. You grew up even if you know on the playground as a little kid. Even if you never seen a Friday the 13th movie, you know about Jason.
Critters versus gremlins. There you go. The giant critter made for sci-fi channel. The giant critter ball rolls over an entire crowd of gremlins and just sprays like green slop all over the town. Just keeps hitting people. And you know, and this was like the end of pop culture. It came out right before everything fragmented and cancel culture. You were right on the end when you could still call Freddy Krueger a what kind of runs around in a Christmas sweater? That that is a line that absolutely nobody involved with the movie wants to take credit for.
I always found that scene interesting, like if it was that Kelly Rollins herself, like saying, I want a scene where I'm I'm a badass and I'm trash talking Freddy Krueger right to his face. Well, the original idea, this is what the writers maybe. I want to talk I want to talk some sass to him. The original idea according to the writers they didn't write that line or that dialogue. Their idea was that she would basically say kind of what Heather Langencamp says at the end of the first movie I know the secret now. This is just a dream. Where she's like, I'm not afraid of you. I take back any power that you have. That's what Heather Langencamp says to Freddy at the end of the first nightmare. But Kelly Rowland is saying it to Jason. And then Freddy's behind her and he says, "Uh uh, wrong mythology or something like that." And then that was the original way. That was the original idea. He's just like, "Wrong mythology, bitch." And kills her.
Oh, that makes more So something that's a little more tied in with the kind of concept of those characters and doesn't just call him gay. Now I see. Confronting the villain. But with like as Heather Langencamp did of Freddy. But using it on the wrong character. Using it on Jason instead of Freddy. That see that would have been funny. You can't get me in your dreams. Like in my dreams you can't get me blah blah blah. And then she's talking to the wrong horror character. That's a little more clever. That's good. But that is when I watch the movie, I do see some sort of like I don't know divide between the actual script and the execution of it. Because if we want to talk about performances, especially a lot of these like side characters, even though I like the over-the-top quality to the movie, the actual performances, there's like the two guys that are in the cornfield. This is Everclear is kicking my ass. This is Jane Silent Bob character.
Well, that that that fat guy is like he's doing like a Jack Black impression. And then the other guy that's there with him, Jason's standing behind him and he's like, "This is a closed party and you're not invited." Invite only Corn Poke and you weren't invited. He sounds like a cartoon character. It's like all these like supporting characters are a little too silly those performances because it cuz it had influences of the teen sex comedies of the like like when they they dumped the beer bong on the nerd kid. Like he felt like that. Is that kid in American Pie? He has the driver's license with the name on it. You're talking about Superb Bad Mcloven. Mcloven. Yeah. Who's Stifler's mom? You slept with Stifler's mom. Is that American Pie? That's American Pie. I've never seen any of those things so I'm vaguely familiar with the pop culture around those kinds of movies. But yeah, that kind of like heightened comedy acting. It was very popular in that time. Dramas. And this is one thing where I feel like, yeah, it doesn't quite line up with probably what the original tone of the script was.
Over the top, but taking itself seriously. And some of the performances I feel are like too over the top. Or in the case of the two leads, I just think they're both not very good. I'll disagree with you on that. You're talking about Jason Ritter and Monica Kina is the actress. No. They are they are doing their job. Why don't you tell me about Weston Hills? Do you work there? Because I thought you were a general practitioner.
I'll pick you back or No. No way. You can't trust him, Lori. Whatever you do, don't go home with him. And there I mean it made me laugh several times because of Monica Kina. She is delivering a powerhouse performance saying the stupidest dialogue. Look, he has taken everything from us. He has ruined both of our paths and I am not leaving until I see him die. Jason died by water. Freddy died by fire. How can we use this? It It It's the They're not playing it tongue and cheek or goofy. No, they're they're playing it seriously. I just don't think their performances are good.
Even in that aspect, the part when they're in the van, he keeps Jason Ritter keeps trying to find the right moment to tell Lori that she that he saw her dad kill her mom. It keeps getting put off and put off, but they're in the van and he says it and it almost looks like he's trying not to laugh. I tried to tell you this earlier. The reason I was sent to Weston is because I saw your dad kill your mom. He's like, "I saw your dad kill your mom." I would like to hire Meryl Streep and Daniel D Lewis and put them in the van and give them the same script and get Ronnie U to direct it and just do that scene. Just do it again. And do it again. And just see if your theory is correct and just say go for it.
Well, this has always been my thought. The other actors are already right there. Like I mentioned, they shot this in Vancouver, so most of the supporting roles are Canadian actors that you've seen in a million. Every time they show up in something, you're like, "Oh, this was shot in Canada." Lan Monroe is the cop, the younger cop with the the Backstreet Boys haircut, Frosted Tips, Canada actor. And the two friends, Will's friend that he's in the institution with, that actor, his name is Brendan Fletcher, and he showed up in a bunch of Canadian movies. I think he's a very good actor. I think he does great in his supporting role in this movie. Get Jason Ritter out of there and put him in that role. And Katherine Isabelle, who's the friend with the baseball cap in this, she's in like the Ginger Snaps movies. I think she is also a very good actor. Get Monica Kina out there. Put her in that lead role. And I think the movie is infinitely better with those two.
Just some reorganizing, I think. Yeah. And I don't neither of them were really names, but I guess Jason Ritter is it seems like if you're going to cast people that you know in those two leads, you'd want to get You know what's crazy is that Jason Ritter is in this. And the lady that plays Jason's mother was on an episode of Thre's Company. Is this true? It is true. Wow. Okay.
I mean, talk about a small world. I wonder if they had any conversations on set behind the scenes. You know, I worked with your father at the time. John Ritter had not died. I don't think I don't think so. No, because he was in John Ritter was in Bride of Chucky before this for Ronnie U. But interestingly, I think John Ritter's last film was Bad Santa. That was after this. So she probably said, "Your father's really great. I worked with her for one episode of or she doesn't remember. She might not even remember what happened. You go back to that lady's profile back to 1969 or like first film. It's like like a black and white 60s sex comedy movie. She's been around. She did a ton of work. So she might not even remember that day that she did a bit character on Thre's Company or have no idea that Jason Ritter is John Ritter's son. Who knows if this comes up. They they probably weren't even on set at the same time. That's probably true, but it's fun to imagine that that conversation happened.
Jason, there's been a great deal of controversy about your training methods. How do you respond to that? No comment. This movie's fan service without getting too bogged down in all the details. Like I was saying of like the way nerd culture picks apart like every small detail of a movie now. It's pure fan service. it and because it it it gives it sets you up you if you don't know who Jason and Freddy are gives you a little bit of backstory and it gets into the action pretty quickly and then you have to have your structure of the film with the characters and the plot and likable enough backstory for the characters the backstory of the friends. Brendan Fletcher there's a whole backstory with his brother and his brother Freddy shows up as his brother who also committed Kermit sewer slide. Kermit sewer slide. And his brother's in the bathtub and he's like mocking him. Yes, that was kind of an actual creepy scene. Um and that's what does. That brother Scott Farkus from A Christmas Story. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, it was actually him. Oh, nice. What else did you want? They did it as best as they possibly could with some stylistic choices that were kind of off a little, but really like if you wanted a movie where you see Freddy versus Jason, this is it. And this where it keeps those two characters because those franchises are both corny. So, it stays true to those characters without going in any like weird directions or adding pointless, mythology or backstory. It's both of them like in their purest form. They they tried to balance it where you couldn't say one or the other one for sequel potential.
You can't have it that clear-cut. Nope. Nope. So yeah, having the little Freddy Wink at the end is perfect. And then that was it for Robert England. It was a nice little sendoff for him. He got to do a lot in this movie for an older actor that hadn't played the role in so long to do all these stunts. He's getting thrown around. It's got some great one-liners, like classic Freddy stuff in sequel Freddy kind of territory. I don't want to say I love this movie. I think it's very good and very fun. You got to look at it for what it is. You could almost call it a guilty pleasure movie, I guess, cuz it is. I mean, it's all pretty stupid stuff. Guilty pleasure is a good way to describe it. And it's certainly a fun watch. It keeps it going. It doesn't get dull. And uh, it's a great Halloween pick for our first video of October. This was one of the most important discussions we've had. With everything going on in the world, this is important. It's important stuff. That we talk about very seriously.
Oh, I thought you were going to do some good long like Nerd crewesque sip. Well, that's staying in. I messed up the bit.