Freddy vs. Jason

2003
Staring: Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland, Chris Marquette

Freddy Krueger has long since been forgotten by the kids of Springwood. The children who do are locked away in the mental institution. To instill fear into the children once again, Freddy resurrects Jason Voorhees to make the residents think that Freddy had done it. The children begin to pick up on the Freddy legends, and all hell is opened for the teenagers of Springwood. But is Freddy happy with Jason's deeds?

I was never a huge fan of the Friday the 13th films. There’s good for a laugh (and probably some devised drinking game) but that’s about it. The series falls apart after two movies and barely picks itself back up in parts 4 and 5. After that point it is nearly unwatchable.

Unlike those b-movie horror sequels made in the 80s, this film has atmosphere and more than just two lighting features like most of the films had (bright and dark). They’re surprisingly faithful to both series – of course ignoring many aspects of both the 2nd and 7th Freddy films – and rightly so too.

Say what you will, but this film brought the series back to where it should be. Overall it was violent, dark, had production values that weren't second rate, and had a story that (for the most part) made sense. It was actually rated-R, in a time where Hollywood big-wigs believe that films should have a PG-13 rating so that the first week’s opening will make big bucks, only to have the audience find that the film isn’t really that good because it’s heavily edited for gore and/or language.

***/*****