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# The horror: ‘Freddy vs. Jason’ is laughably unscary
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/the-horror-freddy-vs-jason-is-laughably-unscary/
- Published: 2003-08-15T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T02:45:54.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

Ideally, recycling washed-up psychopathic killers from overextended slasher series will not become de rigueur in Hollywood, where original ideas are apparently harder to come by than Saddam Hussein.

But if it does (and we’re just one big opening weekend away from being assured it will) here’s hoping that in, say, 10 years — when the guy in the mask from “Scream” squares off with the hook-wielding fisherman of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” fame — that it’s a lot scarier than the embarrassingly awful horror flick “Freddy vs. Jason.”

Of course, if you’re looking for a good laugh, “Freddy Vs. Jason” is hands down one of the funniest motion pictures of the summer! (Exclamation point added for possible inclusion in newspaper advertisement.) In what New Line Cinema is billing as the “ultimate showdown,” Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund, once again entirely too enamored with his own schtick) from the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise squares off against “Friday the 13th” villain Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger, AKA unknown actor in a hockey mask).

For fans of the series, both of which lost their luster roundabout their sixteenth or seventeenth installment, the film is likely to be the ultimate letdown. Even the most unsophisticated of audiences will likely be put off by director Ronny Hu’s ham-handed attempt to pit these two titans of terror against one another at any cost, reason be damned.

Here’s how it goes down: Freddy’s feeling neglected in Hell, unable to invade people’s dreams (his Standard Mutilating Procedure) because, conveniently, a drug has been invented that prevents slumbertime reverie.

So Mr. Krueger journeys to the “bowels of Hell,” pretends to be Jason’s mother and tricks the dimwit-ted destroyer into rising from the grave and doing his dirtywork for him.

While Jason is hacking a bevy of shapely D-listers to pieces, Freddy’s fearsome reputation is inexplicably restored, giving him the power to assume new life. Ahh, but killer competition rears its head — after all, there are only so many victims to go around in a small town like Springwood — and soon Freddy and Jason are at each others’ throats (slashing them, of course) in a turf war that will ultimately leave everyone in sight soaked in blood and bad one-liners.

Putting aside the ridiculous set-up, woeful acting, and the fundamental problem with this picture — that in pitting Evil against Evil, the filmmakers have left us without a hero to root for — what makes “Freddy Vs. Jason” so insufferable is that it isn’t even remotely frightening.

We’re laughing when we ought to be covering our eyes, yawning when we should be screaming. At the very least, horror films are supposed to be horrify. Yet all this convoluted clunker does is mystify. (Rated R for pervasive strong horror violence/gore, gruesome images, sexuality, drug use and language. Running time: 97 minutes)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 15, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/081503.pdf?ref=smdp.com)