Release Date: August 15, 2003

Director: Ronny Yu

Stars: Robert Englund, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter

Runtime: 97 min

Mostly everyone loves a good slasher with a great villain. There’s that great Michael Myers in his HALLOWEEN franchise, and my personal favourite, Ghostface, of SCREAM fame. I haven’t seen any of the FRIDAY THE 13th movies (except for the remake), and I’ve only seen the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The thought of putting Freddy Krueger, the Christmas sweater wearin’ killer who kills people in their dreams (when you die in your dreams, you die for real…), and Jason Voorhees, the hulking, machete-wielding killer, in the same movie is thoroughly awesome.

Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees set out to terrorize the teenage population. Freddy needs Jason to remind the teenagers (who are really in their early 20s) that Freddy still exists, in order to fuel his power once again. But when Jason Voorhees starts having too much fun killing off teens – Freddy needs to stop him. A true battle royale ensues.

None of the writers are A-listers, so there’s really not a great story at hand; and it’s hard to find good writing for a horror slasher movie. They’re essentially all the same, and this one really isn’t so different, once one dissects it. It is a clever premise, mashing up these two successful franchises. Even if you don’t like either of the franchises, this is still an incredibly fun movie. The body count is high, so that’ll keep the target audience happy. The first pair of tits is also three minutes in, so that is sure to keep male audiences hooked.

The movie is simply 97 minutes of pure horror fun, and that’s really all anyone can ask for. Now, the movie isn’t as amazing as the extraordinary premise might suggest it would be – it’s good for what it is: A fun horror movie. The acting is admittedly horrible (save perhaps Christopher Marquette and the always extraordinary and witty Robert Englund), but what do you expect from a horror movie? Jason Ritter is often good, but not this time around. Monica Keena has huge boobs, but her acting is some of the worst you’ll ever see. But the teenage target audiences won’t be focusing on her acting.

The movie is kind-of an insanely fun and it features a Destiny’s Child member being thrown into a tree, so, suffice to say, the kills are thoroughly awesome. There’s also some great fight choreography. I’d love to see another one of these movies done slightly better. It’s not particularly scary, so it’s mostly just an effectively fun actioner with already-dead horror icons fighting to a further death, I guess one could say. The acting is poor and the story needs work, but horror fans aren’t there to see a great story or good acting (even though that would help my enjoyment), they’re there to see a battle royale between Freddy and Jason, and the battle is well worth the wait.

63/100