Freddy vs. Jason may very well be the Casablanca of the modern horror movies. It's utter bliss; enormously funny, visually breathtaking, genuinely disturbing, and brimming with subtext. Quite simply, this is a superb example of the Hollywood machine; every single aspect is carefully tuned for optimal effect. You walk out of the Cineplex with a goofy smile on your face, wanting to make a beeline for the food court for some Orange Julius or some Chick-Fil-A so you can maintain that junky popcorn high. I want to say that you can recommend it to people who haven't seen or particularly liked the Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th films, that it's not only great as one of those movies it's great purely on the level of a summer blockbuster. It's certainly true that the only people who could really dislike it are people who dislike the movies, who can derive no pleasure out of stuff like Casablanca, not to mention Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, X2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban or Spider-Man 2. I would argue that Freddy vs. Jason does have substantial artistic merit, but I would never take the position that it's high or serious art. I wouldn't say that about Casablanca or Lord of the Rings either. It's all silly glossiness, the sort of film that we would probably say is "forgettable" if it didn't feel so damn good. (I do feel weary about the canonization of Casablanca and Lord of the Rings into religious experiences. They're good movies, but they aren't that good, and I don't like being in the position of criticizing them.)

But many of the jack "serious critics" refused to even review Freddy vs. Jason; they looked at the title, it seems, and announced, "This is worthless.” Some who have actually seen it still haven't been able to get past the title. I wonder what kind of movie fan can't find the idea of pairing Freddy against Jason to be pleasurable on at least some level. I mean, if you have to drag your feet to Freddy vs. Jason, well, I frankly cannot relate to you. Some treat it as a "good" bad movie, which still stigmatizes it as bad and makes it sit at the kid’s table. What about those who had high expectations for Freddy vs. Jason, but were ultimately let down by it? What exactly did they want?

I have to say I was very impressed by this movie. Putting aside the stuff of deep criticism (which you know I'll get to in a moment), this is just a fantastically made movie. Director Ronny Hu keeps things at a high pitch, making good with the sex, tits (not as many as Friday the 13th IV: The Final Chapter or Friday the 13th V: A New Beginning but he nonetheless shows them whenever he can) and gore and filling the film with lots of fun offbeat camera angles and cheesy CGI effects. That gore is especially exciting; I think this is easily the bloodiest of any of the Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th films. With this film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and most recently The Passion of the Christ, it seems that the current administration of the MPAA may have loosened the belt up a bit when it comes to onscreen violence. Most pleasantly, people who complained about the violence in those last three films in particular placed more blame on the filmmakers and/or the culture that embraces it than they did toward the MPAA for failing to act as the gatekeeper. As it should be; such an approach places the cinema properly into a free marketplace of ideas. Anyway, Freddy vs. Jason makes good with the basics as far as I'm concerned.

Believe it or not, the chief complaint that I have heard of the film is that it has too much plot! And too much dialogue is devoted to plot exposition, et cetera. Yeah, all right, this is something us defenders have to cop too, apologize for, and ultimately forgive. Most of the bad dialogue comes from Freddy Krueger chattering all the time to nobody in particular (coming off a bit like Bill Murray's Garfield, come to think of it) as well as the teens discussing what is happening. But the storyline motors along and we never really confused about who's who or what's happening.

The lines not devoted to explaining away the plot are kind of wonderful though, for once subtly self-reflective on the genre. "This Everclear is kicking my ass,” opines a Chris Farley clone as he drinks the stuff right out of the pitcher. Then Jason comes up behind him and he laughs, "Hey Jethro! This is a rave, not a Halloween party! Why don't you go find a pig to fuck?!" When they're running away from Jason the Jason Mewes clone says to himself while toking a joint, "Man, that goalie was pissed about something.” But my favorite exchange comes very early in the movie between the three teenage girls:

--I thought you were going to quit [smoking].
--Yeah, now I only smoke when I drink.
--But you're always drinking.
--Well, I'll work on that next.

Why does she only smoke when she drinks? What is the connection between smoking and drinking? Not much actually, other than that they're both "bad" and her justification for her "bad" behavior is gleefully transparent. She'll apparently stop drinking by only drinking when she smokes. See how it works? Rereading all this, I find myself laughing hysterically.

The caricatures imported from other movies are fun, but how about Debb's boyfriend Trey? When we first see him he kisses her and then pulls back repulsed. "What have I told you about kissing me after you've been smoking?" He orders her upstairs for sex uttering what is to be his catchphrase, "Don't make me ask you twice.” After a bout of sex, where she is on top, she cuddles up to his chest. "Babe, I told you I don't like to be touched after.” She angrily announces that she'll just take a shower. He rolls his eyes and gives her a candle to see her way there. "Good, your hair smells like menthols.” And then that’s all we see of him, Jason offs him shortly after that. I love this guy! Again, his pet peeves include the smell of cigarettes, having to ask his girlfriend twice for sex and cuddling. An asshole, yes, but a rare kind of asshole. He reminds me of David Lynch's original conception for Mike (Laura Dern's boyfriend) in an earlier draft of Blue Velvet. In this draft, Mike takes vitamin supplements and refuses to drink beer, only water. He talks about the body being a machine. Mike is symbolic of the cult of normalcy. His character quirks are tailor-made for a slasher movie victim.

There is an intelligence at work here, the kind of intelligence that was sorely absent in the overrated Jason Lives and the not at all underrated Jason Goes to Hell and Freddy's Dead, which all came at the material at an ironic right angle. In contrast, Freddy vs. Jason is clever and subversive, but ultimately reverent. It's funny, but funny within strictly defined boundaries, never quite cracking that fourth wall.

It's a mistake to say that these slasher films are junk food cinema; it's more like comfort food cinema. One of the most attractive things about the Nightmare on Elm Street films is that they are so insular that they exist in some sort of vacuum. In this universe, Freddy Krueger has the combined psychic weight of King Kong, Dracula, Ted Bundy and the Boogie Man. He seems to be the only scary monster that has ever existed. The characters have never heard of other monsters or other serial killers. The Nightmare on Elm Street universe is every bit as self-sufficient and isolated as that of Star Wars. Unlike Freddy Krueger, nobody ever talks about Jason in the Friday the 13th series, or knows anything about him. He's not a boogie man or an urban legend; most of the people who he kills don't even know who's killing. That starts things off on an entirely different foot. If the Friday the 13th films have the similar charm of Nightmare on Elm Street, it's because they're predictable in a way that the Nightmare on Elm Street films aren't. The predictability serves the same function as Nightmare's deep reality; we know exactly what we're getting. The experience has a sort of innocence; there is something untouched about it. New Line Cinema's excellent DVD release provides footage of a promotional appearance Freddy and Jason made at the Harrah in Las Vegas where they growl at each other and take questions from the press, and some video of the film's premiere in Austin, Texas, which was staged at Camp Hackenslash where guests play dodgeball, have wet T-shirt contests, hot dog eating contests and do arts and crafts before settling down for an outdoor screening. Watching this I have to lament that I was too much of a pussy to see these movies when I was a kid. I'm not sure that "comfort food" is enough to describe the pleasure of the Freddy and Jason movies. It's this warm, infantile affection, like a teddy bear that you can't fall asleep without.

That isn't to say that there is anything at all sanitary about these pictures, in particular Freddy vs. Jason. They are very "unsanitary,” they have the sort of sexy if ugly truths that your mom would disapprove of you learning or thinking about. Indeed, they're like the ultimate in subversive children's fairy tales. For all the effort put into coming up with a suitable way to pit the two titans against each other, the storyline is exactly the same as the one for every Dracula meets Frankenstein picture. It was in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, it was in The Monster Squad, it was in Van Helsing. The dynamic was even the same in Universal's The Raven, which didn't have Dracula or Frankenstein, but did have Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in like roles. In these films, Dracula wants to take over the world, or something, and so he brings back Frankenstein's monster. Frankenstein inevitably changes sides. Dracula is the truly evil one, diabolical and brilliant. But also handsome and seductive. Dracula is the original figure connecting death with sex, dying as the ultimate orgasm. Once you experience this bliss, you become his whore. He is regarded with terror, but also with excitement. Frankenstein's monster, on the other hand, can't help what he is. Killing is not gratifying for him. He's in some sort of a mental fog, often misunderstanding the situation or his own strength. We forgive the monster because he lacks the moral consciousness of Dracula. Dracula chooses to be evil. The monster does not.

This is updated in Freddy vs. Jason, with Freddy as Dracula and Jason as Frankenstein. After slaying him for the upteenth time, the good people of Springwood bury all mention of Krueger from their newspapers and forbid anybody to mention him. They've caught on that if they were to forget Freddy, nobody would be afraid of him and he would be powerless to kill their kids. In Hell, Freddy resurrects Jason to kill some teens on Elm Street, killings people will credit to him thus making him stronger. It works, but now Freddy has to stop Jason from taking more of his warm bodies. And so that's how they get to fighting one another. The Freddy mythology of Freddy vs. Jason borrows that of Freddy's Dead and reverses that of Wes Craven's New Nightmare. New Nightmare, as you remember, argued (rather moralistically, I think) that the creation of Freddy Krueger movies was necessary in containing an ancient demon. As long as the demon is contained as the star monster in a movie franchise, it can never hurt anybody. The clash between the two mythologies could possibly be explained by labeling the universe of Freddy vs. Jason as an artificially constructed universe. The characters in it are drawn out of whole cloth to act as sacrifices to prolong the existence of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchises and keep Freddy Krueger out of the real world. Such a reading makes Freddy vs. Jason into something more meta than meta. It's so meta, it turns around and eats its own tail.

When I first saw the film, the casting of Chris Farley and Jason Mewes clones as the victims reminded me of the casting of Frank Whaley as the dumb college kid that Samuel L. Jackson blew away in Pulp Fiction. That scene in Pulp Fiction seemed to be an attack on the Whit Stillman-centric cinema of the early nineties. The scene is evidence that Tarantino wasn't seeking to bring back the beauty of idle chatter, he was seeking to join it with the more primitive but stronger highs of Hollywood blockbusters and grindhouse exploitation. (I'm sort of shocked that Whaley never worked with Stillman, he seems to be the poster child for the syndrome.) Similarly, when Freddy and Jason kill Mewes and Farley they are destroying a culture of irony. It's an attack on Jason Lives and Freddy's Dead. These comedic, wisecracking constructions are swallowed whole by the spiritual iconology of Freddy and Jason. After the Farley character finds out that Jason is a really a madman, he throws his Everclear on him and sets a Tiki torch to him, hysterically chanting "Burn motherfucker burn!" On fire, with machete in hand, Jason resembles one of the angels in Bill Paxton's Frailty, an awesome testament to medieval religiosity. The great sin of the fuck-happy, pothead, secular teen culture is its irreverence. They see their existence as something that needs to be endured. Their attitude suggests that life is essentially without meaning or substance, and those who assign meaning or substance to their life are guilty of naivety or even fear. They aren't punished because they have sex, it's because they never assign the sex any weight. They don't understand the concepts of faith, vengeance, love, God or power. Germane to serial killer sexuality is the idea that these little girls, whose idea of sex is giving kisses to Johnny Quarterback's pecker in the front seat of his convertible, suddenly get a tree trunk pushed up their ass. The serial killer shows them what it's like to be fucked for real. The serial killer teaches them that sex is not about fun or pleasure; it's about destruction, pure and simple. Freddy is more or less literally Dracula, but Jason is a sexualized Frankenstein's monster. There is a feeling that Jason knows what he is doing when he is killing teenagers. I'm not sure that he enjoys it exactly, but I do think that he gains a relief from doing it. Jason isn't in the moral clear the way that Frankenstein’s monster is. With this said, audiences still cheer on Jason when he confronts Freddy! They’re responding to having their buttons pushed; the filmmakers clearly want us to kinda sorta sympathize with Jason. They show Freddy turning him into a little boy, and then pushing his finger knife into the crying kid's skull. But the victims in the movie like him better too; there is a sense that they would rather be killed/fucked by Jason than Freddy. This is made overt in a scene where a potential mark taunts Freddy: "You're not even scary. And let's talk about the butter knives. What is with the butter knives? You trying to compensate for something? Maybe coming up a little short there between the legs, Mr. Krueger? I mean, you've got these teensy-weensy little things, and Jason has got this big ol' thing like..." Well, then she's cut off, so to speak, by an attack by Jason. It seems that the bigger the knife, the bigger the penis, the scarier the monster, and the more value he has.

In ancient Greece seduction commanded a higher sentence than rape, as rape took only the body and seduction took both the mind and the body. Freddy Krueger is a pimp, just like Dracula really. Writing this I thought that I actually had to go back to Freddy's Dead to get evidence of Freddy's harem, in that case his wife who promised to never reveal his little hobby of abducting and murdering little girls. But we actually see better evidence in Freddy vs. Jason. Krueger's harem is the ghosts of the little girls themselves. Lori, the virginal protagonist, falls asleep and sees a little girl in her dream. The girl tells her that Freddy Krueger loves children, especially little girls. Then Lori goes outside to see some girls cheerfully jumproping to the Freddy Krueger rhyme. The tyke is saying that she loved being killed/fucked, it was utter bliss, and Lori is going to love it too. Jason's victims don't live on, they're just corpses. Jason isn't a pimp; he's a straight-up rapist. Early in the film we have a counterpoint to Freddy's blissful little girls. Jason impales a camp counselor, and her face turns into various other victims apologizing for having sex and ignoring Jason when he drowned. These people are demolished.

Jason is preferred, in part because the orgasm/death he provides with his enormous penis/weapon is of a greater quality than that of Freddy's. Jason's victims literally go braindead afterwards; again, he literally destroys them. But also, there is the idea that with Freddy they lose both their mind and their body, and Jason will take only their body. Rape is preferable because it is sex made clean through victimization. There is another point that weighs our sympathies further towards Jason. He is more hypermasculine than Freddy Krueger, but he is also more purely iconic. There is never the sense that he can really be beaten, like Freddy can; Jason is this Grim Reaper that we and I think the characters understand will catch up sooner or later. Freddy's pedophilia makes him more unsympathetic than the retarded perpetual child Jason, but it also ties him in further into secular suburbia. The pedophilia places Krueger squarely between the race of movie monsters that Jason belongs to and the oppressive hedonistic teenage culture that destroyed him. Of course most horror fans are going to side with the spiritual and sensitive, if extremely manly and well-endowed, fucking machine Jason over wise-cracking kiddie diddler Freddy Krueger. The last shot of the film has Jason marching out of the mist carrying the severed head of Freddy Krueger. As Krueger passes the camera, he winks at us and we hear his cackle on the soundtrack. The filmmakers seem to be wanting us to believe that the match ended with a tie, that Jason has the body but Freddy is at the controls. But I'm satisfied that Jason has in fact turned Krueger into his bitch.

P.S: Some have suggested that the next pairing should be with Ash from the Evil Dead series, Pinhead or Michael Myers. This is neglecting to remember that New Line Cinema would only use characters that they have the rights to. And they have lots of suitable franchises left. We could probably write the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mortal Kombat, Critters, Austin Powers and Lord of the Rings out entirely. If you want to continue down the horror route, we still have Leatherface or, and I feel slightly embarrassed to say it, the Creeper from Jeepers Creepers or Death from Final Destination. Instead of Ash, how about Blade? That may kick some serious ass. The presence of a Jason Mewes clone has got me thinking though, and I offer this in complete seriousness: how about a crossover of Dumb and Dumber with Freddy and Jason? Kind of an Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein thing going on. The script will write itself, just take a look at those originals.