Freddy vs Jason

[Last of the V8's]

Saw Freddy Vs. Jason today.
No more than I expected, Freddy and Jason are well past their sell buy date.
The story is boring so much I nearly nodded off though there are some great fight sequences and gore.
I applaud the BBFC for finally putting out an 18 rated movie.
I expected it to be cut for a 15, or 12a, ha, ha!!
England does give a good performance,pretty scary in places but overall wait for video.
I bet it has a smashing 5.1 soundtrack but my local Cineworld chose to chuck it in the smallest screen in super mono, though the screen has speakers all round, bastards!!
Freddys make up is the scariest of the series, so well done there but a dud all the same, I expected more from Ronny Yu the director of the superb Bride Of Chucky.
Oh, and what credability the film has is totally blown in the last 2 seconds.

[SmallBlueThing]

Do not reveal the last 2 seconds!

I can't wait for this- my most-awaited film of the last 2 years. I was a huuuge Nightmare and F13 fan in me youth, and was delighted when this was announced. Even more so when they sacked mullet-headed redneck wrestler Kane Hodder from the Jason role.

I have no expectations whatsoever- other than it'll be a blast. If it is at least as entertaining as Jason X and New Nightmare, I'll be happy.

Steev
Who once went to his sixth form disco as Freddy- complete with metal bladed glove.

[The Amstor Computer]

Here's hoping that the film bombs and takes the muppets responsible with it. Nightmare... was an entertaining, amusing horror flick that got shat over by subsequent episodes. Friday 13th took everything that Halloween did so well & completely ignored it.
If it takes one last shite installment to kill them both off for good, so be it...

[SmallBlueThing]

Bah! What piffle! Nightmare is a classic and while parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 only achieved moderate creative success, New Nightmare is not only the best of them all, but does all that Scream purported to do, but better.

As for the Fridays, the first is an effective gory jump-a-thon, heavily influenced not by Halloween, but by Twitch Of The Death Nerve. That is was released and marketed to exploit Halloween's success means nothing except paramount are a capitalist corporation who know the market. Subsequent episodes go from the dreadful (parts 5, 7, 8 ) to the run-of-the-mill (parts 2, 3, 9) to the exceptional (part 4, jason X). However, as the absolute epitome of disposable eighties horror, they are all classics. You don't have to like them, but don't underestimate their cultural effects or write them off as worthless. they are anything but.

Steev

[The Amstor Computer]

Cultural impact, I'll grant you - and you can assign some historical importance to the original Friday 13th, but I see nothing worthwhile in any of the subsequent installments. "Disposable eighties horror" sums them up perfectly.

"Classic" is a bit further than I'd be prepared to go for Nightmare. It's a supercharged, nasty and thoroughly enjoyable picture - and it gave us a fantastic bogeyman in  Freddie - but it's not quite there (for me, at least).

As for New Nightmare... it certainly surpasses Scream (vastly overrated, IMO) but it's not a patch on the original.

Jason X? Urgh. I'll give it credit for trying something new, but that's about all I'll say for it. Utterly dismal.

[Eric Plumrose]

Pah. New Nightmare could have been so good if Wes had thought it through better. Still waiting for the definitive remake of Bay of the Twitching Blood Bath.

[judge dreddd]

undead SCUM, if they place one foot in my meg they are history !, rapid fire http://www.2000adonline.com/images/artwork/Dreddfire_thumb.jpg">

[SmallBlueThing]

Well, Blackblood, I fail to see how you can see "nothing of value" in the subsequent instalments of the F13 series, when possibly the definitive icon of the modern slasher pic, the hockey mask, wasn't introduced until part 3.

Since Jason as 'big silent guy in a mask who kills people' didn't happen until part 2- it can be said that the first three episodes of the franchise are parts of a classic whole- one that isn't complete until Jason comes back to life after being hung in the barn at the end of part 3. Until then, when he becomes the unstoppable living-dead pyscho in a hockey-mask, he isn't complete and eighties horror hasn't got it's biggest icon.

Part 4 is notable because, well, it's actually quite good- and has a very young Corey Haim in a bald head wig. More seriously, it also features possibly Tom Savini's standout effect of the period- jason's head-slide down the blade. Admittedly, if you've never seen the US version, you won't have seen that, because it's censored in the UK even to this day.

Part 5 is ludicrous shite. It's not even jason. Ptui!

Part 6 opens with the greatest pre-credits sequence of the series, and goes into the funniest title-sequence too. At this point the makers were reacting to the criticism that "they are all the bloody same", by heavy-handedly pointing out that yes, they are, but so are the movies of another celebrated screen mysogynist- and so Jason takes on the James Bond role with aplomb. He also becomes the killer zombie that we know and love from here on in. Also notable for the Most Stupid Way To Try To Kill Jason- tying a big rock to him and attempting to drown him in the lake.

Part 7 signals a downturn in the series, with jason fighting carrie. No excitement ensues.

Part 8, in which jason goes to Manhatten, is notable for the fact that a) he only barely makes it, as most of the movie is spent on the Love Boat and b) when he does get there, it's vancouver. The ending of this one defies belief, and, if we were obsessed with 'canon', we would be arguing over it to this day. As it is, we don't care.

Part 9- 'The Final Friday' (the series' second attempt at a 'final chapter', the first being part 4 the, uh, 'Final Chapter') introduces a lot of backstory and gives jason hitherto unknown body-possession powers. It also sets up Jason Vs Freddy in the final moments, and has jason fighting big googly wooden hands, which is nice.

Part 10- 'Jason X'- gets bored of waiting for F vs J to happen, and sends him off into the far future, where he wakes up on a spaceship. Easily the best movie of the series, it's funny, violent, ironic, clever and the ending will knock your socks off. Highly reccommended, and a personal favourite. I'd rather watch this a million times than ten minutes of any Peter Jackson flick.

...which brings us to F Vs J. Is this set on the Planet of the Eighties? as per JX? Has jason developed yet more new powers enabling him to travel in time? Who will win? No idea, but one thing's for sure, 'Nothing this evil ever dies'.

Steev
ki ki ki ha ha ha

(AND NOT "Kill kill kill how? how? how?" or "Kill kill kill ma ma ma" as has been suggested!)

[paulvonscott]

I actually thought much better of Wes Craven once I'd seen Deadly Blessing and The Hills Have Eyes.  I even enjoy the Scream movies (while still feeling there was something missing from most of them).  Craven at the very least can deal with characters better than most cheapo horror movies.

Nightmare on Elm Street was pretty good for a teen horror movie, New Nightmare was great until exactly the point when the SAME OLD FREDDY KRUEGER SHITE BEGAN, and once more we had to witness cartoon monkey bollocks of the very fucking worst order.  Giant tongues and all that toss.  

I remember 2 being very dissapointing, I can hardly describe my opinions on three, the Dream Bloody Warriors, but the words 'Dokken Soundtrack' go somewhere to summing it up.  I have seen others at various involuntary times, but they all blur into one vague (shite) cartoon horror pastiche.

As has been pointed out recently, Freddy is a paedophile child murderer, as if his films weren't abysmal enough for us to wish to never speak his name again.

And I actually like watching dodgy old horror movies, but anything with Freddy in is a real turn off.  I enjoyed Jason X which revelled in it's own sillines.  I've seen quite a few of the Halloween movies and there's only one good film among them, in fact it's possibly the best film of the teen slasher craze it started.  I'm not even sure Friday the 13th has that :)  But I enjoyed the first one and Jason X.

[Smiley]

The People Under The Stairs rings my ding-a-ling.

Ludicrous panto gimp shotgun rampage with Ron 'n' Nancy subtext.

Class.

[SmallBlueThing]

Wes Craven is an ideas man. He's also a competent director, though a bit of a one-trick pony. Sadly, his reliance on Kevin Williamson's obvious and puerile scripts for the first two Scream movies has blighted his later career somewhat. Craven's career-highs, Last House On The Left, Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare On Elm Street, People Under The Stairs and New Nightmare (and arguably Serpent & The Rainbow) are all powerful, nasty films that are far more intelligent than most give them credit for.

The first Nightmare is a classic, by all definitions of the term. It took a genre that was already ailing, gave it a creative shot of adrenaline, brought it to the forefront of the public conciousness, won many awards, created a franchise and gave the world an icon who remains so even to this day. It's also one of the scariest movies of the Eighties- and one, along with American Werewolf, The Howling and Hellraiser that defines how we view horror in that decade.

I have a problem with some of the phraseology here. Phrases like 'dodgy old horror movies' and 'horror flick' do nothing to combat the idea that somehow horror movies are less worthwhile than other, more legitimate, forms of cinema. Remember this is a genre that has given us one of the world's most recognisable characters, Dracula, probably the greatest, most stylish and well-directed movies of the twenties and the thirties in Nosferatu, King Kong and Bride of Frankenstein, spawned the careers of some of the world's leading filmmakers including Coppola, Spielberg, Whale and Argento, given us some of the greatest leading actors in history, including Cushing and Lee, Lugosi, Karloff, Chaney and Price, and has never rolled over and died, despite media sensationalism, moral outcry, periodic public disdain, wars, famine and plague. It's a genre that has no limits and no sound specifics. It can encompass movies as diverse as Cannibal Ferox, The Sixth Sense, Silence of the Lambs, Halloween, The Exorcist and The Brainiac.

There is nothing tawdry about horror, except that which is meant to be so. I have to say that I'm biased- I'd happily watch any horror movie ever made than any other type of film (Except maybe 50s, 60s and 70s British comedies). I find it amusing that people who love 2000ad- "a kids pulp comic of no literary merit that you should have grown out of long ago"- can reveal such a conservative view of an entire genre.

But as for Craven- remember, for every Nightmare, there's a Swamp Thing, for every Last House, theres a Vampire In Brooklyn, for every Serpent & The Rainbow there's a Deadly Friend and for every Hills Have Eyes, there's a Hills Have Eyes Part 2.

Steev

[paulvonscott]

Once the boogie man becomes the hero, then really, as someone said to me today, the horror is dead.

I don't think I am THAT conservative, but I would say that a bunch of old Tigon (Trigon) movies hold more horror for me than some of the more recent movies that are really just a series of elaborately staged deaths and have all the appeal and charm of an American wrestling match.

Horror is a ghetto genre, it alomst always has been the province of the low budget B-flik.  Horror movies also usually have much less to say than their SF cousins, by and large, because science fiction is about ideas and horror is about fear.  That isn't to say you can't have an intellectual horror movie, or have great ideas in a horror movie, but lets face it, Jeepers Creepers isn't going to further our understanding of the human condition (or in fact scare us, but that's another matter).

A lot of what you call horror I call monster movies, or sfx gore showcases.  That's what 'the fans' like, an exploding spleen and a walking brain are the equivelant of collecting stamps for gore fans.  They like their evil heroes and the gore, it's about that simple.  Throw in some spurious plot, a disposable cast and some jokes and you have the average horror movie.

I do like Horror movies, though you really do have to be pretty picky or leave your sense of taste at the door (I have about twenty Lovecraft based movies - feel the pain).  

An awful lot of horror movies are made to be as funny as they are scary.  See Evil Dead's progress from horror to comedy horror to comedy (hey, at least they were all pretty good) and all the other pantomime boogiemen like Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers.  'This time he's back with a chainsaw stuck on his forehead'

Horror, particularly as a result of the fallout from Halloween is a pretty sorry state of affairs a lot of the time.  A lot of the movies I enjoy, I wouldn't say I like because they scare me OR are very good.  They have their charm, but where is THE HORROR.

[Smiley]

Familiarity breeds contempt, unless there's a certain amount of charm. Innumerable slasher pics and their attendant icons don't have any. They're the Big Mac's of horror pics.

[The Monarch]

Nightmare on Elm Street was pretty good for a teen horror movie, New Nightmare was great until exactly the point when the SAME OLD FREDDY KRUEGER SHITE BEGAN, and once more we had to witness cartoon monkey bollocks of the very fucking worst order. Giant tongues and all that toss.

my thoughts exacty will go and see this new one though

[SmallBlueThing]

"Horror is a ghetto genre, it alomst always has been the province of the low budget B-flik. Horror movies also usually have much less to say than their SF cousins, by and large, because science fiction is about ideas and horror is about fear. That isn't to say you can't have an intellectual horror movie, or have great ideas in a horror movie, but lets face it, Jeepers Creepers isn't going to further our understanding of the human condition (or in fact scare us, but that's another matter)."

Did you write this purely to bait me? (insert smiley) What a load of old badly thought-through, reactionary toss. Scifi thrives on it's paucity of ideas- it continually distracts from the 'now', offering 'hope'- like the promise of a holiday in the sun, it offers an 'escape' that does nothing to solve the problem. It addresses serious concerns on the shallowest of ways- by shunting them off into some utopian/dystopian future and telling us that there will be ways to overcome them. Horror, by definition, addresses those same concerns by showing just how bad they can get. It exaggerates everything that is bad and nihilistic about the world and human psychology in the here and now. And only by that can we learn to cope with them.

As for your comments about horror being the "province of the low buget B flick"- So? Is a film's budget an indication of it's quality? The basis of any movie is the script- if the ideas aren't there, then the movie will die on it's backside. I will at this point, indicate to a number of extremely low-budget horror movies that have made waves, culturally, financially, critically and intellectually- The Blair Witch Project, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Psycho, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween, Ringu, Hellraiser, Night Of The Living Dead, The Evil Dead, etc etc. In contrast, may I just send a cursory nod in the direction of Hulk, any Star Trek movie, Solaris, Planet of the Apes (remake, obv), The Matrix Reloaded etc etc. Huge budgets, tragically few ideas, box office and/or box office poison.

Please don't try arguing that horror is an intrinsically "dumb" genre, and that scifi is somehow "smarter". It's nonsense. There are dumb movies in both spheres. I have to admit I haven't seen that many scifi movies, because I don't like them. I HAVE seen a hell of a lot of horror films, and even when the genre scrapes rock-bottom, I still find it more interesting, intellectually, than even the 'smartest' space rockets 'n martians flick. Sci fi is sterile, whereas the horror genre is fertile ground for confronting all the questions that really matter. Which is also why, I guess, the nightmares in Freud 4 are a damn site richer in terms of interpretation than the nice dreams of hope, love and Summer Sun.

Steev