T w e n t y S i d e d

I woke up thinking about the “rock” band The Eagles of Death Metal (“rock” is quoted because they are a multi-genre group). I don’t dislike them, to be clear; but I’m not a particular fan. In fact I had never heard of them before they appeared on Kesha’s album Rainbow in 2017. The band name is conspicuous and the typical explanation is that the founders, inspired by some incident, wondered what a cross of The Eagles with Death Metal would sound like. But as can be seen in the details of the varied stories, there is a more dismissive point of view behind the idea: The Eagles of Death Metal play about as much Death Metal as The Eagles play rock music. AND TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR: I don’t mean this as an insult to either group. If you like The Eagles or The Eagles of Death Metal, THAT’S GREAT. Listen to who you want to listen to. Have your own opinions about it. IN MY OWN OPINION, The Eagles occasionally “flirt” with playing a rock song. Some of their early work is very borderline. But their big hits, the things they’re known for, are easy listening. Pop music of the era of their popularity. Important songs, some arguably deep songs…certainly *influential* songs. But still, The Eagles aren’t the platonic ideal of rock music, they are possibly the preeminent example of baseline watered down rock music of the times. I think The Eagles of Death Metal used the song as a humorous reference, not as a position statement. If a band is The Eagles of Death Metal (as a metaphor) are they even *playing* Death Metal? Is their product even *metal music*?

The final films of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises are both genre films in a genre they helped create. They are “numbers” films. Built to a standard and a set of requirements. Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare receives some recognition for adding to the lore of the series (whether it’s *good* lore is a separate matter) but Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday is literally a checklist movie built to support an ending that is needed to do *a different* movie. To state the point obviously, yes; they are slasher films. Technically. We have already seen these movies focus on the margin of returns and being built by formula (recall how Nightmare 4 went into production before a director was hired, as New Line’s expectations didn’t include director input). These two franchise films could be said to be The Eagles of Slasher Films. Except they’re not nearly as popular as The Eagles.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare was primarily given a green light by New Line Cinema because the production was expected to be technically profitable. But they weren’t really big on the idea. New Line had moved on to other franchises and didn’t really see a future in the Nightmare films. Previous movies had been intended as the last movie, in fact the idea that the villain is defeated in every single film but comes back for the next had been established across the major franchises and was expected in any given slasher movie. This idea was also accepted by audiences (critics were less enthusiastic). New Line intended it to be the last film in the franchise; no really they mean it this time. And it is definitely built like a send-off. Director Rachel Talalay originally wanted to focus the project on completing the Dream Warrior idea and embrace the humor and pop-culture references that the series was already known for. New Line nixed this script and pursued other options, but the produced film actually has a basic structure drawn from the same elements and even features the dream master ability. However, any ties to the characters of 4, 5, and 6 are at least explicitly cut, if not topically. To me this film always felt like a continuation of that story. I suspect New Line didn’t want the project to be perceived as “more of the same”…even though that’s literally what they were doing.

The ending of Freddy’s Dead is in 3D. The movie usually avoids being named as one of the 3D offenders from this era likely because of this limited if clumsy application (the main character actually puts on 3D glasses IN THE FILM for…reasons…to let the audience know the 3D segment is starting). The pop culture references are so pervasive they aren’t worth listing in detail. If it was culturally popular, it’s in this movie. Johnny Depp appears because he was in the first A Nightmare on Elm Street and was now a huge star. Marketing focused on the history of the franchise and the “death” of Freddy Krueger; and featured actors that had appeared throughout the series.

Introduced in this film is the idea that Freddy Krueger is empowered by “dream demons” (from hell) that revive him every time he is “defeated.” BUT if Freddy Krueger is killed in the real world instead of the “dream” world, he will be trapped in hell forever. Now, Freddy has been “defeated” in the real world a few times in the series, even arguably “killed.” The sequel movie then usually ignores that fact. You can come up with any reason why a slasher villain can be beaten at the time so you can have an ending to the current movie. So I don’t remember people taking this particularly seriously. It even sets up the next couple of movies *intended to be* in this continuity (we’ll get there). However, it does not appear this was intentional…just fortuitous. Nothing I can find indicates Paramount had sold Jason Vorhees to New Line Cinema, nor that New Line *expected* this happen soon, while Freddy’s Dead was in production.

Finding the exact date New Line Cinema knew they could make a Friday the 13th movie is difficult. It likely happened in Spring of 1992. Part of the confusion is because Paramount sold film production rights to Jason Vorhees, but not the franchise name nor any other character. Friday producer Sean Cunningham had already created the “Freddy vs. Jason” idea (or, depending on who you listen to, *received* the idea from another writer) but the rights issue kept this film from being produced despite the deal between Paramount and New Line. The lack of rights to other characters also affected the eventual film by excluding the character of Tommy Jarvis, who was originally written to take the lead in the final “script”. That is, the produced character of “Steven” was meant to be “Tommy.”

The production was by all accounts a complete mess. The original idea by Sean Cunningham was “Freddy vs. Jason.” New Line realized they couldn’t do that yet (for name your reasons), so Cunningham set out to create an intermediary film to set that idea up. This seems to be the overriding goal of the project; it needed to mesh with the Nightmare films. Cunningham hired Adam Marcus to direct this new project. The two have “differing” memories of what Cunningham wanted. The first script is said to have been so bad it was immediately rejected. Dean Lorey was hired and famously pitched the idea of Jason Vorhees in a gang war in Los Angeles. New Line rejected this idea as well (and certainly there is no Los Angeles gang war in the produced film) but decided to back production anyway. Various rewrites “somehow” created a finished product very similar to Adam Marcus’ original idea with some characters replaced. Ironically, despite Cunningham’s dismissal of original writer Jay Huguely because of a disjointed script, Cunningham and Marcus’ disagreements caused extensive re-shoots on the films minimal budget; contributing to an eventual patchwork of shots and tone.

Summary: Jason is lured into a trap by the FBI. The FBI kill him with a grenade launcher. Except he’s not “dead dead,” he’s just “mostly dead.” He is a zombie after all. They take him to a coroner because they CLEARLY haven’t been paying attention. Except this time the coroner is already evil and eats Jason’s heart, which allows the spirit of Jason Vorhees to inhabit the coroner’s body. The coroner starts “Killing in the Name (of)”.  A plot is introduced where Jason can be magically reborn into his original body using a bloodline relative. Which conveniently does exist, now. The spirit of Jason jumps from person-to-person as he tries to use a relative to be reborn, only to be stopped every time by the main character Steven. This works until it doesn’t and Jason’s heart decides to take an active role instead of waiting and possesses a blood relative, allowing Jason to actually be Jason again. Then Jason is killed with the magic dagger MacGuffin (did I mention the magic dagger?) and since it’s magic demons drag Jason to hell instead of reborning him.

And then in the last scene Freddy Krueger’s razor claw glove bursts from the ground and pulls Jason’s hockey mask down. Which was the whole point.

Freddy’s Dead isn’t a bad movie, but it’s not really good, either. It’s a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. It delivers what you would expect. Robert Englund chews the scenery even as the story establishes the tragic history of the young Fred Krueger. And then the dream demons. Freddy’s pop culture status, largely due to Englund’s dynamic performances, were making the character controversial by the 1990’s. Heck, part of this film’s promotion was having the mayor of Los Angelas declare “Freddy Krueger Day.” Just to remind you, Freddy Krueger is a serial killer of children. So that didn’t go over very well. Neither did the numerous cross-promotions. Did this affect box office performance? Probably. I don’t think you could prove it and I doubt it was a significant factor, but public consciousness was more pervasive by this point.

Jason Goes To Hell once again performed better thanks to a lower budget, making back five times its budget of $3 million, and is arguably more important now (Freddy’s Dead made $35 million off of >$10 million). I don’t think you could argue the film is a cult-classic or has become beloved by fans of the series, but it certainly holds a stronger position despite a largely nonsensical story. Characters such as bounty hunter Creighton Duke portrayed by Steven Williams and Jason’s “unmasked” look at the end of the film have continued to affect the deeper (and frequently non-canonical) lore of the series. Some have argued the ninth Friday movie *feels* more of-the-times; a non-quantifiable metric. I would agree with that sentiment. The Nightmare movies have their place in pop-culture explicitly, but as a genre film there’s something about Friday VIII and IX that feel different. This will be prevalent in X, as well. Not saying it makes them better…audiences obviously didn’t think so, but in hindsight this trait is present. To be clear, though: the only reason this film even exists was the ending. Cunningham had an idea for a Freddy vs. Jason movie and had been working on it behind the scenes for a few years. The only thing Jason Goes To Hell had to do, really, was send Jason to hell. Where Freddy was.

So simple, right? And that’s why the next Nightmare movie would be the out-of-continuity Wes Craven’s New Nightmare the next year in 1994 and the next Friday the 13th movie would be…Jason X in 2001. BOTH before Freddy vs. Jason would release as a film in 2003.

That’s all for now, see you next week!

Paige Francis He/him