2K Replay: FREDDY VS. JASON

by Adam Riske 

Nominated for “Choice Movie Your Parents Didn’t Want You to See” at the Teen Choice Awards. It lost to American Wedding.

• Best Scene/Moment: The super bloody final brawl between Freddy and Jason, especially the moment when Jason runs Freddy through a wall of windows.

• Best Song (tie): “Bombshell” by Powerman 5000 and “Welcome to the Strange” by Murderdolls.

• Best Merch: An “Extremely Rare! Freddy vs Jason Piece of Freddy’s Sweater Screen Used Movie Prop” for $175.07. This is so tiny. I can barely tell it’s a sweater, let alone from Freddy’s sweater, let alone from Freddy’s sweater in Freddy vs. Jason. It looks like glass for some reason.

• Director Check: Freddy vs. Jason was directed by Ronny Yu. Yu is a writer-producer-director from Hong Kong who was quite prolific, directing over a dozen Hong Kong features between 1979 and 1995 including The Postman Strikes Back, Legacy of Rage, and The Bride with White Hair. He directed his first English language movie in 1997 with the bizarre but amazing Warriors of Virtue, followed by the cult classic Bride of Chucky in 1998, which rebooted the franchise into a camp horror sensibility that’s continued to this day. After the success of Bride of Chucky, Yu directed the forgotten action comedy The 51st State starring Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle. Freddy vs. Jason came next and was a large financial success in 2003. Afterwards, Yu directed two more features: the underrated Jet Li action flick Fearless from 2006 and 2013’s Hong Kong feature Saving General Yang. He doesn’t appear to have any upcoming credits.

• Double It with This 2003 Movie: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

• Year 2003 Movies to Trailer Before It: Final Destination 2, Underworld, Willard

• Draft Day or Freddy vs. Jason? Draft Day

• Mall Movie? This is the mall-est a movie has ever been.

• Only in 2003: New Line Cinema distributed Freddy, Jason, and Leatherface movies all in the same year.

• Scene Stealer: Chris Marquette. He’s one of the best movie dorks of the 2000s.

• I Miss: A time when there were new entries being released in the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.

• I Don’t Miss (tie): The shuttery motion photography used in certain sequences and horror movies from the early 2000s that look like an Xbox commercial.

• 2003 Crush: Monica Keena.

• 2023 Crush (tie): Katharine Isabelle and Monica Keena.

• What I Thought in 2003: I thought the movie was just okay on my initial viewing, but I loved the experience of seeing Freddy vs. Jason in a theater on opening day with a packed audience. Even though I saw it at 10am, it felt like a rock concert.

• What I Think in 2023: Freddy vs. Jason is one of my least favorite entries among their respective franchises. I don’t think it works as either a Friday the 13th movie or A Nightmare on Elm Street movie very well. It’s better as a modern-day monster mash film. It’s watchable but feels all over the place and dated by its visual style.