FREDDY VS. JASON [ 1/2]
No more gore.Running time: 98 minutes. R (pervasive strong horror violence/gore, gruesome images, sexuality, drug use and language). At the Empire, the Loews 84th Street, the Kips Bay, others.
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DID we really need Freddy Krueger to return for the eighth time so he could leer murderously at a member of Destiny’s Child and drool: “Hmm, sweet – dark meat”?
Of course not.
In “Freddy vs. Jason,” the razor-fingered dream demon has come back after a 10-year hiatus to take part in the horror equivalent of Batman vs. Superman – a clash of franchises with a built-in fan base just itching to buy tickets.
Naturally, Freddy’s gory, blood-soaked death match with Jason Voorhees of “Friday the 13th” doesn’t occur until the climax, and the remainder of the film is spent in mostly needless exposition.
There have been seven “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies and no fewer than 10 variations on “Friday the 13th,” so there’s a lot of back story to catch up on – but, since the audience for this clash of the psycho titans will be composed of die-hard slasher fans, the characters’ endless running commentary seems superfluous, even irritating.
Screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift take advantage of the reality-bending premise of “Nightmare on Elm Street” to bring Freddy and Jason together.
Freddy (Robert Englund), who has been banished to hell, invades the dreams of the hockey-masked Jason (Ken Kirzinger) and uses him to regain the strength he needs to once again wreak havoc on Elm Street.
Invoking Freddy’s name makes him real, so the local police struggle to hide evidence linking him to a spate of deaths, while the town’s teens try to suppress their dreams with the help of a non-FDA-approved drug.
Monica Keena (who plays shrieking, virginal blonde Lori) and Jason Ritter (who plays Will, her institutionalized boyfriend) conform to the bland, cookie-cutter teen-in-a-slasher-flick mold, leaving the aforementioned Destiny’s Child member – Kelly Rowland, making her film debut – to dominate the screen.
The teens plot to have Freddy and Jason face off in the real world as the only way of saving themselves but, despite all the explication, the logic behind this remains twisted.
Hong Kong director Ronny Yu (“The Bride with White Hair,” “Bride of Chucky”) provides some surreal touches to offset the endless rivers of blood and dismembered limbs, most notably a bizarre scene in which a young stoner encounters a hookah-smoking caterpillar straight out of a perverse “Alice in Wonderland.”
Despite oblique references to “Psycho” and “Children of the Corn,” “Freddy vs. Jason” lacks the knowing wit needed to keep it afloat in an age when even the horror spoofs have been spoofed.