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PART 2: Quint Rings In Halloween With A Chat With Robert Englund!!!
Here's part two folks....
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QUINT: I HAVE TO BRING UP V. I HADN'T SEEN IT UNTIL I FOUND OUT I WAS DOING THIS INTERVIEW, SO I WATCHED IT YESTERDAY FOR THE FIRST TIME AFTER EVERYBODY TELLING ME HOW AWESOME IT WAS. IT STARTED OUT, I WAS LIKE, "THIS IS ALRIGHT... DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HOOPLA IS..." THEN, I'D SAY 20 MINUTES INTO IT I REALIZED HOW INTO THE STORY I WAS...
ROBERT ENGLUND: Well, you know originally I think Kenneth Johnson, and he's got one on now... on Disney and it's actually a pretty good show for kids, but Ken Johnson did that other really good series... another aliens on earth series (Alien Nation) that had much better make-up. But we brought John Dykstra to television, so I'm proud that V almost single handedly raised the stakes for special effects for television. Before that it was somebody in green make-up with a twisty bra showing through their spandex suit on Star Trek, with the exception of a couple of good effects on episodes of The Twilight Zone or Chiller or Outer Limits... we were pretty much state of the art. I think there was one TV movie called Gargoyles that had some pretty decent effects. Then it was us.
It was originally about the occupation of Europe by Nazis, but he couldn't sell that script, so he just turned it into the occupation of America by aliens. All those stories, all those subplots are really true stories, things that happened in the Warsaw Ghetto somewhere.
QUINT: TO ME IT WAS MORE EFFECTIVE THAT WAY. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. IT HAPPENED ONCE, IT HAPPENS AGAIN.
ROBERT ENGLUND: Exactly. Exactly. The series that followed the mini-series was actually pretty good, too. The problem was it took us about 8 to 10 episodes to really find the series. I remember one night we were all shooting at night with barrels with flames in 'em and we were warming our hands by 'em, actually in the story. All of a sudden, I look around and say, "We should be shooting the whole series at night." So, we become this sorta occupied America. When you shoot it at the day time and you see cars and malls and houses in the background there's no threat. At night, there was this great threat. You know, running around and sneaking potatoes and guns and dodging the aliens. Then it worked.
We sorta found it by episode 8, but by then the series was so expensive... Plus, we didn't use tons of stuff we built for the miniseries, which cost tons and tons of money. So, we had all this stuff, which was production value, but we weren't using it that much on the series which I think was a problem and because our show was so expensive because it was such a huge task, we eventually got cancelled after 23, 24 episodes. But the moment we got cancelled the show went to number 1 in Europe for, like, 2 years. I was immediately flown over on the Concord to Europe... I think I won best supporting actor in a festival in Italy, over Richard Chamberlain of The Thorn Birds. I actually won.
That was when I first realized how huge it was in Europe, but that was my first... the sort of veil was opening up for me in Europe then to do movies over there. It was kind of a one-two punch because the horror and science fiction audiences kinda overlapped. So, when Freddy came out I went to Europe, so it was like, "Oh, he's that guy from V. Boy, isn't he versatile?" I got offered to go over there and do movies, too... or attend a film festival or be on juries or things like that.
QUINT: DID THAT INSTANT CULT FANDOM OVER THERE PROVE TO BE A GOOD TESTING GROUNDS FOR WHAT WAS TO COME A FEW YEARS LATER WITH FREDDY?
ROBERT ENGLUND: It was actually about the same time, but you see my first taste of celebrity was with V. I remember being in New York signing autographs... I think it was at a Star Trek Convention or something because there was no Star Trek on at that time and during V, I was sorta like the de facto science fiction star on television. I had been sorta embraced as this character, Willie, and was getting tons of fan letters. So, they paid me all this money to go to New York and I thought this is great. I can go see a couple of Broadway shows. So, I'm signing autographs and it was, like, raining outside and my line was longer than the Star Trek actors. It went out the building and around the block. About halfway through signing autographs, instead of it being Star Trek/sci-fi fans all of a sudden it was punk rockers and heavy metal kids and they all wanted me to sign Freddy.
That's when I realized Nightmare On Elm Street was out, but it wasn't nation wide released. It had only been released on the east coast. Maybe a limited 500 theaters up and down the east coast without hardly any advertising. It became this huge grassroots hit and I'm really proud of that, that Nightmare On Elm Street became a hit without any... it was sort of like the last big, organic hit without the hype machine behind it. That's not to say we haven't been merchandised to death now, but when it began Nightmare 1 and Nightmare 2 they were really embraced and discovered by the fans without it being forced down their throat on MTV or anything like that. I'm really proud of that.
QUINT: WELL, YEAH... I MEAN FOR A GOOD WHILE THERE YOU WEREN'T JUST A HORROR ICON, BUT YOU BECAME AN AMERICAN ICON...
ROBERT ENGLUND: Yeah... I mean the first time I heard Johnny Carson do a Freddy Krueger joke or the first time I saw a Freddy Krueger joke in the funny papers... I used to collect those... I got 'em in a drawer here somewhere. You kinda know how much you've infiltrated the American culture when you see yourself in... aw, who was the guy who had the talking cows? I'm trying to think of that artist.
QUINT: OH, GARY LARSON.
ROBERT ENGLUND: Yeah! I think there was a Freddy Krueger Gary Larson cartoon and things like that. Jay Leno was telling Freddy Krueger jokes. It'd be Freddy Krueger or Elm Street or Nightmare. He'd say, like, A Nightmare on Something Blvd. or A Nightmare in Austin... you know, or Saddam Hussein, that Freddy Krueger look-alike. It's like sliced bread. You hear him used as an equivalent piece of American pop vernacular.
QUINT: DID YOU GUYS HAVE ANY IDEA WHATSOEVER IT'D GET ANYWHERE NEAR AS POPULAR?
ROBERT ENGLUND: Oh, when I was doing the first Nightmare, I was very busy doing the television series still, V. We had this hiatus, so I was sorta like more preoccupied with trying to get away on weekends to do publicity and talk shows with V, make a little money on the side. I was working really hard and I knew this kid Johnny Depp was really special. I sorta thought Johnny was going to be a rock star then because he had a band. He had a sorta stray jazz band, rockabilly. I sorta thought Johnny was gonna make it as that 'cause there was this huge underground scene in LA then of music. It was a huge Renaissance, the New Wave and the go-gos, you know. I thought Johnny was gonna blossom there.
I knew he was special and Wes was special and all of the crew for most of the early Nightmares, maybe the first four of them, are all like who's who now in Hollywood. There was Chuck Russell who did The Mask, Renny Harlin who did Die Hard 2. These are all the directors. Obviously Wes Craven. The cameramen have all gone on. One of them now is doing one of the biggest shows on television. I see their names everywhere. They became a whole generation of behind the camera talent. The writers Brian Helgeland, the guy who wrote Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, duh!)... you know, these are all the writers of the Nightmare movies.
So, I was working with the hottest young guys in Hollywood, so it sorta kept me on my toes. But I had no idea when we did the first one that it was gonna take on and become as big as it was. I knew we did a good little movie, but I didn't know if we were gonna be able to sell it or if anybody was ever gonna see it because it was pretty nasty. I mean, Sean Cunningham came in and did some second unit work on it... It's like a lot of influential people. We knew we were on to something and doing something different and very, very imaginative.
I remember one day it dawned on me that no one's ever exploited the dream sequence of a nightmare this well for a horror movie. It's a great hook. You fall asleep, I'll getcha. Period. I think there had been, like, a Dennis Quaid movie (DREAMSCAPE) about dream experiments that explored that, but it didn't explore it on this sorta primal level. It was more science fiction. I just knew we were on to something. I just thought I was just going to go back to work on V. You have to understand, for me V was huge then. I thought I'd take my makeup off, drive home, have a beer and sign autographs for V. Everybody was talkin' about V then. I think the TV movie was in reruns then. They had a really quick rerun for the TV movie before the series started, so I was busy doing that.
QUINT: I HAVE TO ADMIT... I WENT AS FREDDY KRUEGER FOR HALLOWEEN 5 CONSECUTIVE YEARS IN A ROW AS A CHILD...
ROBERT ENGLUND: Ah! I maimed you! I scarred you!
QUINT: IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!! BUT KIDS LOVE FREDDY. THERE'S NO GETTING AROUND THAT.
ROBERT ENGLUND: You have to be careful making him sympathetic, but he simply dares you to like him. I think that's part of the thing... Listen... Quint... I have an 11:50 call I have to make...
[AT THIS POINT WE RESCHEDULED THE CONCLUSION OF THE INTERVIEW, CONDUCTED A FEW HOURS LATER...]
QUINT: OK, WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE NIGHTMARE STUFF BEFORE WE CUT IT OFF... WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT WHAT EVERYBODY WHO'S READING THIS INTERVIEW ON A MOVIE NEWS WEBSITE WANTS TO READ ABOUT... FREDDY VS. JASON.
ROBERT ENGLUND: Oh, we didn't get to that.
QUINT: YOU'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT FOR A LONG TIME. CAN YOU GIVE US AN UPDATE?
ROBERT ENGLUND: What happened was originally, I believe, Rob Bottin, who did the special effects on one of my favorite films, the remake of The Thing directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell. Rob's a great hands on effects guy. They never agreed upon a budget, I think, at New Line. Then Rob left the project and it's been rewritten since then several times. Now, I believer, Steve Norrington, the guy who did the original Blade with Wesley Snipes, I think he's gonna helm it now. There's a new script that's been approved of by Bob Shaye over at New Line Cinema. You know, Michael DeLuca's left and Bob is King still, so he's apparently happy with the new script. I would imagine maybe 2002 we might tackle this thing.
I've been sorta signed, sealed and delivered for a couple of years now. I've just sorta been waiting. I guess about a year ago today, there was sort of a greenlight, it was going to start and then they changed the script and everything. It's still definitely in development, though, and on the track to be made at New Line Cinema.
QUINT: WAS THERE ANY HESITANCE ON YOUR PART IN STEPPING BACK INTO THAT DIRTY GREEN AND RED SWEATER?
ROBERT ENGLUND: I think they approached me, like, 2 years ago or so... what was that? 1999? It had been 5 years since I'd done a Freddy film and I realized, and I had heard rumors through Michael DeLuca and Bob Shaye that they didn't want it silly. There had been a lot of drafts of this screenplay. I was actually flying to Europe to do a film festival, be a juror at a film festival, and I ran into one of the guys that's a story editor/producer on one of my favorite TV shows, King of the Hill. He had written a draft for one of the Rob Bottin versions of Freddy Vs. Jason.
I know there's some humor, obviously there's gotta be some humor and some fun involved with it, but it's also gotta deliver the goods. I don't think you could make the movie without getting into Jason's nightmare. I think at some point there's gotta be some set piece of Jason's nightmare, of Jason's dream sequence, to see what makes Mr. Voorhees tick. I would imagine now we could do something kinda like The Cell because we have that technology now, not only at our disposal, but we can afford it now because whatever they did in The Matrix and whatever they did in The Cell costs about 1/10th as much now. Once that stuff's been done, it's much easier to duplicate. Once it's coined, then whoever does it next time can do it a lot cheaper. I know that was one of their big gifts that they had in the '80s at New Line Cinema, they had these great effects guys who could go see a movie like The Shining and duplicate that stuff almost instantly for maybe 1/50th of the cost.
QUINT: WHY DO YOU THINK THE FANS ARE SO RABID TO SEE THIS FILM GET MADE?
ROBERT ENGLUND: Well, for one thing New Line now owns the rights to Friday the 13th and Jason. I think they were sort of obligated if we didn't get Freddy Vs. Jason out in X amount of time, they would have to make Jason X and release it. They did and that seems to get the fans appetite whetted. I think Jason 10, which I hear is great, it's Jason in space...
After all the dust is settled, and I love Pinhead and I love Tony Todd as Candyman and there's a lot of guys out there and there's a lot of characters that I think are really great, but they fall into a different genre. Hellraiser is certainly never silly. It's pretty violent and pretty sexual. Hannibal Lecter is definitely of a serial killer ilk and it's an A movie and it doesn't quite have the sort of sleazy, although the last Hannibal had a pretty terrific third act, it doesn't always have the sort of fun that a Nightmare on Elm Street or a Friday the 13th had. There's an unrelenting cheap thrill about a Nightmare on Elm Street or a Friday the 13th movie.
I personally think the Nightmare on Elm Street movies are a couple of rungs up the evolutionary ladder than the Friday the 13th movies because we have that added cleverness of the dreams and the nightmare to play with. We also have a richer backstory. I think the Freddy backstory is a little richer than Jason's. I think it was sort of an idea that somehow we get these two horror icons together, kind of like Frankenstein and the Wolfman, would be fun. It's certainly a tradition in hindsight, a Hollywood horror tradition to do that.
QUINT: SO, WHAT'S YOUR STRATEGY? HOW'RE YOU PLANNING ON TAKING HIM DOWN?
ROBERT ENGLAND: Well, my strategy would be that I... That Freddy would have to... I mean, I haven't read this screenplay, the most recent screenplay, but mine would certainly be that Freddy would have to do a mindgame on Jason, he'd have to confuse him 'cause I can't grapple the guy, he's too big! But it'd have to be a situation where Freddy could really play a head game on Jason and finding out some deep, dark secret buried into some weird Cell-like nightmare, flashback/dream sequence where we see something that makes Jason particularly vulnerable and Freddy could just get in there and work it.
QUINT: I KNOW THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY'RE DOING YET, BUT WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT DOING THIS DO YOU IMAGINE THE CLASSIC FREDDY GET UP OR THE NEW NIGHTMARE FREDDY GET UP?
ROBERT ENGLUND: I think we've taken the audience there. Certainly, Wes Craven's New Nightmare wasn't a huge hit, it was a very successful film and since Scream has sorta indoctrinated a young audience on how to watch movies with their tongue's firmly entrenched in their cheek, a lot of people have returned to Wes Craven's New Nightmare both on cable and on video and DVD and sort of reevaluated it and watched it with that post-Scream sense of humor...
So, I think we would certainly have to split the difference. I think Freddy has to probably be a bit of the heroic Freddy that he was. Heroic is probably a wrong word, but... You know, Freddy's sort of a legend in his own mind since A New Nightmare and I think he has to have a bit of that streamlined appearance, which means I gotta go back to the gym.
QUINT: JUST OUTTA CURIOSITY, WHAT'RE YOU DOING THIS HALLOWEEN?
ROBERT ENGLUND: I usually leave Halloween to the amateurs. I'm still doing some Boogeymen stuff on Halloween with a couple of friends of mine that run some pretty big radio shows back east. Actually, I'm probably going to be answering the door and learning lines. I've got a lot of lines I have to learn by the middle of November and I've been busy on the road to Chicago, San Francisco and New York being the sort of voice and spokesman of the Boogeymen DVD. Those trips have sorta thrown my rhythm out of kilter. I'm growing a beard now, I'm growing my hair long for this part and I'm trying to tackle these lines. I'm working on a translated script Macedonian into English by an Italian. I'm doing a little bit of rewriting on this script. I'm trying to learn it. So, that's really what I'm doing now. I'm just sitting around in bed watching the new season on television, finding some movies on cable and working on my lines.
QUINT: WHAT PROJECTS CAN WE LOOK FORWARD TO FROM YOU?
ROBERT ENGLUND: I was on television last night. I did a little turn, a kinda Twilight Zone turn last night, on Charmed with the fabulous Rose McGowan and Shannon Dougherty. It was a great little script... I know it's more a teenage show and on the WB you have a certain target audience, but this reminded me of one of those great old Burgess Meredith Twilight Zone's... I'm sorta like a demonic doll collector and I shrunk all those girls down, which I think is every teenage boy's fantasy, to have Rose McGowan and Alyssa Milano stashed away in your night stand drawer. It was a kind of a cool little episode. It was fun for me to do.
So, that was on last night. I have a digital movie coming out where I play a one-armed hitman that's been picked up called Cold Sweat. That stars a girl you might know, Melissa Clark, who, among other things, was in Spawn and more recently on the UPN network on a show called Soldier of Fortune, a Don Bruckheimer production. I just got back from Europe... In June and July I was over there doing a little action movie that I think is going to go direct to Showtime called Windfall, which is a little caper/action film and I'm sidekicking again with Casper Van Dien, from Starship Troopers, and a wonderful actor as our heavy. We have a great guy playing a bad guy. If you know who Greg Henry is from Brian DePalma's Body Double and he's also the guy that gets Lisa Lui from behind in Payback. He's a great, great actor and a real teddybear of a guy and he plays all these psycho marines! He's a great musician, too.
QUINT: I GOT ONE MORE QUESTION FOR YA' AND THAT'S MY STANDARD QUESTION... SOME JOURNALISTS HAVE THE "IF YOU WERE A TREE, WHAT KIND OF TREE WOULD YOU BE" BULLSHIT QUESTION...
ROBERT ENGLUND: Is this my Barbara Walters-Quint Question?
QUINT: YES! SLIGHTLY MORE RISQUÉ... WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE DIRTY JOKE?
ROBERT ENGLUND: (laughs) My favorite dirty joke... gosh... It's strange because I spend a bit of time in my local bars now, here in Laguna Beach, but you know all I've been hearing lately are these really bad Bin Laden jokes, these Taliban women jokes as if the Taliban women are bad... these poor woman and probably tied up with a blanket over their head with an eyehole cut out.
My favorite one is an old, old one and my dad use to tell it to me. A guy is in a hospital and he can only be fed through a certain... cavity on his... backside. It's real hot, it's just in the middle of a hot heat spell. He's in his hospital room and the air conditioner is out and it's pretty miserable. The nurse decides to give all her patients a brake on this hot summer day. You know, they're all in traction, they've got tubes up various orifices, so she makes up this great batch of lemonade in a big perspiring pitcher of lemonade. She pours it down the tube and it goes up guess which orifice in our hero and he lets out a shriek and the nurse goes, "What's the matter? What's the matter? Was it too cold?" And he goes, "No, too sweet!"
That's the kinda joke my father use to tell back in the day. In memory of my late, great father, that's my favorite dirty joke.
Wow... you got to the end of that big sucker! Congrats! Hope you enjoyed it, squirts. This is one exhausted seaman shoving off. Happy Halloween and farewell and adieu!
-Quint
email: AICNquint@aol.com
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Pretty much like this site...
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So even Freddy himself doesn't know much about "Freddy vs Jason"...
I really begin to think that this movie turns out to be a bad idead... and I am a fan of both series. We don't get that much insight into Robert, Quint. How about some more ... personal questions? The dirty joke Q was nice...
One last thing: no picture of you and Freddy on the top of the article, Quint? My 2001 cents Mac -
Ben, I didn't get the joke either...
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Well, once again we are teased with the promise of a new Freddy vs. Jason. Steven Norrington at the helm? That would be interesting, but I think I heard he is busy doing a J-Lo movie or Ghost RIder or something. Whoever is making this film needs to realize that the Scream-like tongue in cheek, self referential film is dead. If you want to put humor in the film, make it the blackest of humor. Make us giggle and then say, "Aww Man that is so wrong." and feel bad for laughing at it. Like when Jason slammed that chick in the sleeping bag against the tree or when Freddy moved the guy around like a puppet with his veins as strings. That's the type of humor a horror film needs. The problem with Friday films and Nightmare films and Halloween films and Chainsaw films is that the fans are too busy cheering for the killer and not scared of him anymore. We want to see these kids massacred because they are too annoying or too pretty or just too badly written for us to care for anyone but the guy with the butcher knife. Nightmare on Elm Street worked because we established a good herione, Nancy, and followed her through nightmares and hosptial visits and personal hells with her disfunctional family. We cared for her and cheered when she blew up Freddy with the exploding lightbulb. Same thing goes for Friday films. In the Final Chapter, say what you want about Corey Feldman, but he did a good job in that film. First he was a kid. The audience loves cute kids. He was a horror fan who made masks and everyone watching the movie was a horror fan or they wouldn't be there. He had a hot sister and peeped on the skinny dipping chicks next door. Once again, we cheered when Tommy whacked Jason's mongliodian skull with a machete and sent the hockey mask flying. Because the later films in the F13 and Elm Street series casted brainless pretty boys and girls, the audience shifted gears and began rooting for the bad guy because he was the only interesting guy on screen. I hope they try to add an interesting character to the Freddy vs. Jason movie to make them the bad guys we grew to love in the first few films of each series. I surely do not want a Frankenstein vs. Wolf Man story where we get a few seocnds of Freddy and Jason grappling over a cliff and then falling into the abyss. Yawn. Barker did a great job of creating horror at different levels in the first Hellraiser. There aren't too many horror films out there that do this, but it is extremely affective. Jason is the physical threat, while Freddy is the more powerful threat. I would love to see Freddy in Jason's dreams, trying to manipulate him, but also being scared himself at what is going on inside that big skull of Jason's. Freddy could twist and manipulate Jason for a while, but the real climax should be where Jason has had enough and grabs Freddy before waking up, pulling Freddy into the real world for Jason to get a little payback. I always saw Jason as a victim. He wouldn't be dead if not for those horny camp counselors. Jason is just fulfilling the orders of his dead mother. His development was cut off when he was still a child. He doesn't really know what he is doing. Freddy is an evil person. He kills and manipulates children. He is the more powerful of the two because he manipulates weaknesses and exploits them. New Line must realize that the reason these characters are stars is because they have done some dispicable acts. Stop trying to make them jokes and make this one a brutal, gory, scary flick that would make those of us who grew up on this stuff happy. More on this later. Bug, out.
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Although the "let's pull Freddy into the real world" bit isn't exactly new, but who cares? The more Freddy and Jason and whoever have seemed like the "heroes" of the movie, the more the movies have suffered. Yes, the audience loves these guys. That doesn't mean you have to pander to the audience and change what made the audience like them to begin with...how utterly badass evil they were. My biggest problem with "Hannibal" was that Hannibal came off more as Batman than a serial killer. Where was the true menace? Where was the indication that he's a homicidal maniac? Cutting Ray Liotta's head open wasn't as "chilling," because Liotta was a total prick. Killing the cop was BARELY "vicious," because the cop was just crooked enough for the audience to think "well, he asked for it." Killing Gary Oldman? Well, apparently Gary Oldman was the villain, not an escaped cannibalistic killer. Hannibal even saves the girl! Now granted, yes, the movie is named "Hannibal." The main character is a part of culture (much like Freddy Krueger.) But there's a fine line between a sympathetic villain and making a hero out of an evil person, and Ridley Scott, (who hasn't had any sort of delicate touch since "Blade Runner,") crossed that line with a dive into the end zone. Anyway, with Freddy, Jason, Hannibal, Leprechaun, Candyman, or whoever, when the main villain becomes too likable ON PURPOSE, what could be a legitmate horro film becoms nothing more than a run-of-the-mill, modern-era, tongue-in-cheek slasher flick. Can't these people try a little harder?
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Ambush Bug and MCVamp are all over this. I
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So just who is this hockey masked, machete wielding mama's boy who goes by the name of Jason Voorhees? Although the writing and production standards of the installments of the Friday the 13th series have been pretty poor, this series is my favorite out of all the horror franchises. Michael's pretty scary. Leatherface is savage. Freddy haunts the nightmares. But there's something about this unstoppable killing machine that I love. Friday the 13th - The one that started it all. We are introduced to a pair of counselors who are slaughtered as they make love in the first scene of the film. Later we are informed that Camp Crystal Lake, AKA Camp Blood has a curse. "A death curse." Crazy Ralph repeats over and over. A group of camp counselors more interested in dealing with the pitched tent in their pants than pitching tents on the campground ignore the warnings of the townfolk and try to re-open the camp. Camp Blood has been haunted and plagued with bizarre events since the camp was closed years ago when two counselors were killed. Since then there have been mysterious fires and the water has been poisoned. The group presses on lighting up the weed and having the sex. Soon they are offed one by one in true classic Tom Savini fashion. Axe to the head. Kevin Bacon gets a knife through the throat. Annie is left alone and thinks she is being rescued when the jeep pulls up and the manly Pamela Voorhees steps out in a fancy grey sweater. Begin expostition. Pamela reveals that her son drowned years ago because the counselors were screwing instead of watching the children. Jason was a special boy. Maybe a little slow. But he always listened to his mother. After a climactic fight and the voice over of Kill Her, Mommy (abbreviated by MAncini's great soundtrack as Kill, Kill, Kill, Ma, ma, ma, later chi-chi-chi-ha-ha-ha), Annie chops the old broads head off and goes out to the middle of the lake in a rowboat to think things over. SHe's then attacked by the waterlogged corpse of Jason and a new franchise has begun. Favorite Kill: Pamela Voorhees' slo mo decapitation will always be the best. The head screams and her hands clench the air. COol stuff. Part II is moreof the same. The story begins back at Annie's house. SHe's plagued with nightmares about that Friday the 13th and screams as she opens the refrigerator and finds Pamela Voorhees' head. Jason icepicks her mafioso style and another group of counselors are served up for Jason to slaughter. This time Jason wears a bag over his head like the killer in The Town Who Dreaded Sundown. Some nice psychobabble is served up as Ginny, this enstallments heroine tries to understand what would go on in the mind of a child who witnessed the death of his mother and rises for revenge. Jason's development halts at this point and he is revealed to be a fully grown child exacting revenge on anyone who enters his schwanky property on Crystal Lake. The theme of punishing those who have drugs and sex continues through the second installment. We follow Ginny and bo-hunk boyfriend to a small shack in the woods where Jason has set up an alter for his mother. Relying on her psych background, Ginny dons the now famous grey sweater and tricks Jason to lower his guard long enough to drive a machete in his shoulder. Jason's first signs of unstoppable killing machine show in this film, but he is still very much alive. I guess he sort of lived in the lake all of these years. It wasn't until later that Jason actually died. Favorite Part II moment: Machete across the face of the wheel chair dude. A great shot as he rolls backwards down the flight of stairs. Part Three is much of the same except this time it cashes in on the 3D craze that was going in at the time. Best 3D effect is when Jason shoots a harpoon gun directly at the audience and into a counselor's eye. You can see the string the bolt rides on into the camera, but it's still fun. The most significant thing that happens in this one is that Jason gains his trademark mask. Favorite Part III moment: Jason chops the guy walking on his hands in half as he walks down the hall. Part IV: The FInal Chapter. This is by far the best looking F13 film so far. Introducing the montage killing from previous installments. A little boy and his family lives by the lake. Another set of counselors move in next door. Tommy Jarvis, the little boy, loves horror movies and makes his own masks. This film stands out because it seems like the studios have casted the film with actual young actors and not fodder. Crispin Glover is present in all his wierdness. We have the guy who played Matthew Star on TV and young Corey Feldman who later became famous for Goonies, being one half of that bizarre phenomenon called the Coreys, doing drugs and badly impersonating Michael Jackson. We began to care for these kids especially that dead fuck Crispin who can't seem to get laid. Jason is thought dead and shipped to the morgue only to rise and make his way back to the lake after offing the mortician. Tom Savini is back with effects that vary from impressive to lame. Revealing Jason's face is always a treat in Friday films and Savini provides us with a truley creepy face behind the hockey mask when Tommy hacks it off with a chainsaw. Tommy drives the knife deep in Jaosn's skull and we scream in glee as jason's head slides down the blade, cutting even deeper. Hell, his eye even bulges and quivers as he does the machete slide. Good gory stuff. This film was supposed to be the end of it, but because it was so well received, another was churned out almost immediately after. Favorite Part IV moment: Crispin Glover has been crucified across the doorway with cork screws. Jason plows through the door tearing poor dead Crispin's wrists off and throwing his aside. Grisy meaty fun. So far the series has been a rehash of the same story over and over. Counselors come in. Jason kills all but one waskally female, who proves to be the death of his in this installment. Time for something new. Part V comes out, opening with Corey Feldman visiting Jason's grave. Two graverobbers show up and Jason rises and kills them. Here we go again. But it's just a dream. Present day and Tommy's all growed up and being shipped to a new mental institution. This installment is pretty weak. It looks to be cast by Russ Meyer because not only does almost every female in the film appear nude, but they are all possessors of large melon-like breasts. Which I don't mind at all. It makes the film almost watchable. More of the same with killings moved to the mental institution. We find out that Jason has been cremated and Tommy might be killing in his name. But it ain't him. It's some wierd looking ambulance driver who snapped. The end has Tommy going completely bonkers and puttig on the Hockey mask. The studios realized they needed to bring Jason back. We didn't want to see some guy in a hockey mask, we wanted Jason. Favorite Part V moment: Road flare to the mouth. The whole head lights up like a pumpkin with a candle in it. Jason Lives in Part VI. This film is by far the funniet and debatably the coolest of the series. While The Final Chapter was the best looking, we had the most fun in Part VI. Tommy Jarvis is back and played by a more likable actor this time. We find out Jason wasn't cremated. He was buried. And Tommy wants to burn the corpse to ashes to conquer his fears. But something goes wrong and a random bolt of lightning brings the maggot ridden body to life. A great wink to Frankenstein fans. And we are treated with a James Bond like opening with Jason walking out into a circle and slashing the screen releasing a bucklet load of blood onto the audience. Adding to the fun are semi-good actors with humorous lines. A cool Alice Cooper soundtrack. And some neat kills. This film introduced us to the unstoppable killling machine Jason who snaps backs, crushes skulls, and punches holes through people. He's more powerful now. Tommy and Jason's standoff is great as the waters of Crystal Lake are ablaze with octane fuel and Tommy tries to lay Jason's body to rest at the bottom of the Lake. The final scene where Jason is chained and alive at the bottom of the lake is a great shot. Favorite moment: After killing the two counselors in a moving mobile home, the car swerves and crashes on its side. Jason erupts from the wreckage and stands atop the vehicle like he has just killed a great beast. Three things happen in Part VII:The New Blood. A new supernatural element is introduced with the Carrie like character with telekenisis. THe studios finally realized that the franchise was getting a bit stale even by F13 standards. Introducing another horrific element attempted to spark the series. It was interesting to see the Carrie-wannabe battle Jason with electrical cables and logs, but the installment falls short in the end. We are treated to the best looking Jason ever. Pieces of his sckull showed through rotted flesh. His jawbone moved and clicked. His spine shoved thorugh his back like a stegosaurus. I wish they would have kept this look. It was by far the best ever. Another notable thing about this installment is that it was Kane Hodder's first time to wear the mask. He really took the character seriously and gave him attitude. Kane would soon become the only actor to play Jason more than once. Favorite Part VII moment: Jason grabs the sleeping bag of a sleeping counselor and whacks it against a tree, spitting the poor girl's skull. Close second was Jason's first use of a power tool as he pull starts a weedwhacker and tears into the manipulating psychiatrist played by the actor who later became semi-famous as Bernie in Weekend At Bernie's I and II. It's back to shitty quality films with Part VIII: Jason Takes MAnhatten. Some ad-wizard thought it would be a good idea to move Jason out of the woods and into the city. Actually, we see Jason rampaging teens on a cruise ship. Jason sets foot in New York for about fifteen minutes at the end of the movie. Bad acting. Bad effects. The ending was horribly incoherent. Jason speaks in a child's voice for the first time and we are to believe that toxic sludge in NYC's sewers devolve Jason into a child. It's hard to find a favorite moment: I guess it would have to be when the token black guy gets his head knocked off with a right cross from Jason after trying to bax a few rounds. This is one of the series worst installments, but instead of going back to its roots in the next one, it just gets worse. In Part IX:The Fina Friday:Jason Goes To Hell, the production levels are higher, but the quality is about the same. Bad acting. Bad effects. Bad concepts. You see, Jason is now a Hidden-like worm thing that can pass on from one human to the next. We find out that Jason has a sister and tidbits like the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead are thrown in for shits and giggles. See incorporating Carrie and New York weren't bad enough concepts, now they just throw out Jason all together and make him an evil blob that enters through people's mouths and possesses them. NOt a good idea. Once again the title is deceiving because, Jason is dragged into Hell by styrofoam Kroft hands in the last five minutes of the film. Best moment of the films comes in the last seconds when Freddy's glove grabs Jason's mask and pulls it into the underworld. So now we have Jason X. Jason in Space. When are they going to learn. Even though word is that this installment will be fun, I just want my old Jason back. What they need to do is go back to basics. Blair Witch Project proved that a killer in the woods can be scary. Jason is at his best when he has two feet on Crytal Lake soil. I say bring back Tommy. An ememy is only as good as the hero. Michael Meyers worked so long because he had his Van Helsing character in Loomis around for so long. Jason's Van Helsing is Tommy Jarvis. Freddy's is NAncy. These characters give us a face to root for. Put Jason back into the woods. Make it scary. Bring back Tommy Jarvis and try to develop the character of Jason some more. No more Jason in space or Jason as body snatcher or Jason vs. Carrie. In ten installments, we still know very little about the character. We began to uncover that stuff in the ifrst two episodes, but since then, all we get are servings of boring counselors. The character has a huge appeal. Why not try to flesh it out instead of spreading the character out among loose concepts? Someday, the people behins Friday will get a true fan with talent behind the lens. Once who would make a Friday film that examines Jason's complicated role as victim/killer. This theme was explored in the series of books dedicated to the first couple of chapters of the Friday series. Hell, in one of the books I remember reading about Jason as a child and the appearance of Jason's father at the end of part six. Maybe we'll get a glimpse of the man behind the mask if a decent director gets ahold of the F vs. J property. Some day. Someday. Too much typing tonight. Bug out.
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Man, that is one long talkback, but i think you fail to address the crux of the issue - what is the dirty joke all about?
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It's Manfredini not Mancini, when talking about the music.
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I get it. It's one of those jokes where it takes you one place and then drops a totally unrelated bombshell on you. It is the absurdity not the relevence of the punchline that makes you chuckle. But once you have to explain a joke, the thrill is gone and the moment is ruined. So never mind. Oh, and sorry about the Mancini music faux pas.
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Nov 02, 2001 2:03:12 AM CST
The right time for "Freddy vs. Jason" was about, oh, ten years a
by elgyn6655321
They should`ve made this movie back in the late 80`s or early 90`s, when both franchises were beginning to lose steam. They should`ve just made "Freddy vs. Jason" instead of "Freddy`s Dead" and "Jason Goes To Hell" (both of which sucked and drove the proverbial final nails in both thier coffins. It might`ve saved the two franchises just as they were dying.
So has anyone read any of the "FvsJ" scripts floating around? I started reading the Peter Briggs one, and thought it was actually kinda lame except for a few things here and there.
There was one cool part where a guy is stuck in a dream with Freddy, and he`s about to get it, when suddenly he awakes just in time - only to be immediantly killed by Jason! -
Hey St. Buggering just in case by any chance you have not seen it I would highly recommend Jacobs Ladder. I know it
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Jacob's Ladder_fucking_rules!!!!!!!!Tim Robbin's best.
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WillalwaysbeafavoriteforeverYou should watch it.
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WillalwaysbeafavoriteforeverReally, you should watch it.What's stopping you?
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