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Retrospective Film Review
Freddy vs. Jason (2003) • 20 Years Later — a fitting end to two iconic slasher franchises
Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees return to terrorize the teenagers of Elm Street. Only this time, they’re out to get each other, too…
Why do Godzilla and King Kong fight? It’s because they’re monsters. Also, it makes bank at the box office. Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees are The Odd Couple of horror cinema. Hell, the two killers cohabitating in an apartment would probably sell tickets. Looking back 20 years, the two icons locking blades was a surprisingly straightforward affair following a decade’s wait after the brawl was teased at the end of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993).
For the fisticuffs to start, Paramount Pictures and New Line Cinema had to shake hands, and talks went as far back as 1987. For perspective, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) came out that year and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) had just come out: many people’s favourite of their respective sequels, widely praised for perfecting each pop-culture icon. Freddy versus Jason was the obvious next step for slasher fans, but each studio was making serious bank flying solo… so why cash in and only get half in return?
Six years later the studios were all but done milking those franchises. Final Friday had done abysmally, and Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) may have achieved the highest opening weekend yet for Freddy but it fared terribly with audiences and critics. An open secret within Paramount is how they only tolerated Friday the 13th for financial reasons. New Line Cinema, on the other hand, owed their success to Freddy and fostered a creative partnership with Wes Craven that led to him returning to direct New Nightmare (1994).
