Doesn't it just sound like a winner? Yes, the stars of the most violent, gruesome and farcical horror franchises of the last 20 years, 'Friday the 13th' and 'Nightmare on Elm Street', battle it out for ultimate supremacy in this slasher film. The basic plot sees Freddy, stuck in hell, deciding that the time is nigh to seek vengeance on the kids of Elm Street. In order to do this (don't ask), he hoodwinks the hockey-masked wearing Jason to act as his killer by proxy. However, it isn't long before Freddy gets a bit jealous of the masked one's murderous prowess and steps in to join the fray. Which is basically an excuse for an awful lot of murders of lithe young teens - who includes Kelly Rowland from Destiny's Child - and a gargantuan amount of fight sequences between our two disfigured leads.
Hong Kong director Ronny Yu does his best with the material, tongue wedged firmly in cheek, as he attempts to process this nonsense masquerading as a script into something semi-bearable. He goes to town on the ingenious, sometimes grotesque death sequences and it's obvious that's he's playing to the gallery, despite the sombre veneer. 'Freddy vs Jason' doesn't pack the same relentless flair for idiocy that the likes of 'Final Destination 2' so proudly sported, and flags very significantly before the over-hyped finale, but it's not as bad as it could have been. I think that's what they call faint praise.