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Freddy Vs. Jason Scripts

Freddy Vs. Jason! What kind of emotions and visions does that bring for you? Do you imagine a fun non-stop entertaining horror film with tons of potential? Do you picture two modern day horror icons, icons who are just as recognizable as Dracula or Frankenstein, battling it out to the finish in a fiery blaze of carnage?
Or do you cringe at the very thought of it? Do you envision a mockery of the genre? A film that is so silly, so bad and so downright awful that you can only hang your head in shame at the very thought of it? A film that tosses out any mythology the movies have come to establish, a film that forgets what makes Jason and Freddy so popular?

It's certainly has taken a long time to get off the ground hasn't it? When was the first time you heard about this? Were you in the third grade? I know I was. I never thought it would happen but it is. The damn thing is actually getting made and Ronny Yu is behind it. It's certainly in good hands, "Bride of Chucky" proved that the guy can make what might turn out to be unbelievably silly into a grade A movie. Some of his previous films, "The Bride With White Hair" in particular, are downright masterpieces.

It's been the story. That's what's taken it so long. There's been so many scripts, so many drafts, so many writers. Trying to go through all the rumors, rewrites and ideas would be downright impossible... All right, well not impossible.

In the beginning...many, many years ago, before "A New Nightmare" changed the face of Freddy and Jason went to hell, there was a man named Rob Bottin, who won an Academy Award for his F/X in "Total Recall" and made some of the most timeless creations of all time in "The Thing". Bottin once wrote an outline for the story and was actually working with Robert Englund, who was helping with the script. David Goyer, James Robinson and Mark Verheiden, finished up the idea and the early story concerned the return of hero's and heroines from past films of each franchise. Alice (ANOES 4 and 5), Steven and Jessica and their baby (F13 9) might've been involved also, as well as other characters such as Tommy Jarvis (f13 6) or Heather Langenkamp (which really would've been weird because she died in ANOES 3.)

What turned up was a script written by Matt Thompson and Camren Burton. The FBI witnesses a child's death at the hands of an invisible Freddy Krueger, so the entire city is evacuated to (funny enough), Crystal Lake. Krueger follows, only to find a specter of the past, Jason Voorhees, who it turns out drowned while working as a janitor at Camp Crystal Lake (something that turns up in just about every draft.) Voorhees however is under the power of a witch named Jamelyn whose son was murdered by a cult who suspected him to be evil like Jason. After his death, she went nuts and returned Jason from Hell to get revenge. Jason is completely under her control, and only has the ability to take revenge on the cult. But Jason has other plans and eventually breaks Jamelyn's power. Alice and Jacob from "A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child", and the Freemans (Jessica, Steven, and Stephanie) from "Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday" all get mixed in. The finale takes place in a twisted maze of roman architecture, in which Freddy and Jason meet on Krueger's turf. The whole thing was rather lame and uninspired. There isn't one moment in the film where you say, "Wow, it's Freddy vs. Jason in the same movie!" It was also pretty "Ridiculous?"

Peter Briggs came up next, he also thought he'd be directing this film . His treatment had characters named "Cobain," and "Reznor" as well as the returning cast members that Bottin had in mind. His script wasn't horrible, but very, very farfetched. Freddy and Jason had been working for satan all this time and are tools in his plan to end the world during the millennium (or SOMETHING) like that. It's enjoyable in it's own way and certainly has it's moments (like Jason having a "misshaped child-like face almost sympathetic face") But the thing was way too big for it's own good and was scraped for being way too expensive (maybe it was that battle in hell with a the devil showing up during the finale.)

Brandon Bragga and Ronald Moore's script is by far the most chaotic out of all the scripts written. Pay attention now, this is going to get messy. Their movie takes place in the Nightmare on Elm Street Universe. In this universe the Friday the 13th movies exist as films but were based on a real guy who is not as over the top as the Jason of the movies. In appearance he is just a large man with a deformed face, but he's still got his hockey mask. The opening scene is pretty good, with two hapless business people accidentally stumbling into Jasons house only to find, "Sitting calmly in the chair in the middle of the living room, a large, hulking figure of a man. It's _JASON VOORHEES_. He's wearing the hockey mask and seems to be watching her in the dim light. A big chase ensues and once captured, he gets an attorney, and she becomes our heroine. After a psychologists evaluation, we find out that Jason never sleeps, hmmm I wonder why?

It's a hilarious script though! One of my favorite parts has Jason on trial (no mask, mute) with the courtroom reading a list of his crimes. It takes a whole day to read off the kill list "And finally, most recently Federal Agent Sam McNulty, a law enforcement officer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, strangled by the defendant while resisting arrest."

After the brother of one of his victims shoots Jason in the chest, he's rushed to the hospital and put under. It's at this point that we realize Freddy is behind his whole madness. He was sleeping with Jasons mother and tried to murder him when he was a kid! Most of the battles take place while Jason is in this sleeping state at the hospital. Freddy doesn't show up until late in the film and is just a wisecracking smartass, "Verdict's in, bitch." He tells Jason at one point, "You're guilty of fucking with the wrong guy." Freddy uses Jason to get into the "real" world with all of his "dream" powers, including turning a couple nightmares of punks in a mall real. Again, this isn't an awful or a terrible script, it just changes things around so much. Jason is essentially the "good" guy, (albeit a murdering good guy) and Freddy is the villain. It's too bittersweet though, not "big" enough.

Deborah Fine came along and did a rewrite of that script but it still didn't work right.

David Schow wrote a script that was re-written by Lewis Abernathy. This is by far the silliest and worst of the scripts and has more in common than the later Freddy sequels than anything. In this version a group of Freddy cultists resurrect Freddy by retrieving the dream demons from "Freddy's Dead" and places them in Freddy's remains at the auto yard. The Cultists must rape a young virgin to bring about a reincarnated Freddy. The virgin (Lizzy) and some others bring Jason back to life to kill Freddy. This one brings up an idea that is also used in many versions to come. They resurrect Jason by breaking into the morgue to use Lizzy's dead boyfriends heart (he'd been killed by Freddy earlier). Once they bring Jason back though, he tries to murder them. They end up locking him in a closet, which he quickly saws through with a chainsaw, finally Lizzy screams "Stop!" And Jason does, in which she quickly explains, "Now, I know that you've been through a lot, and I know that you're pissed off about being murdered and all." One of her friends (interjects) "I know I would be!" "But if you help us kill Freddy Krueger" Lizzy continues, "I promise to help you find the little bastard that killed you. What do you say? Have we got a deal?"

Jason kills Freddy by bringing him into the real world and then gets shot up by the police who have been pursuing our hero's through the whole film. Before he dies he gives her back her boyfriends heart...isn't that sweet? Abernathy's script put in the revelation that Freddy drowned Jason at Crystal Lake and ended with Freddy and Jason in a boxing match in a hellish dreamscape and yes, it takes place in a boxing ring! Jason also drives. There is one interesting aspect of this script though, we get to see Jason age 9, deformed and being abused by his father. Again, Freddy was the one who drowned Jason. The thing isn't scary at all though, and almost plays out like a comedy. Not something any of us would want to see.

Jonathon Abiel and Glenn Berger wrote a script that was set in the "real" world (kind of like Wes Craven's New Nightmare) In this script, there's a kid dressing up as Freddy Kruger whose name is Dominic Necros, running around wearing a Freddy mask killing people. There's a girl named Lizzie, who has become Necro's newest target. Her boyfriends name just happens to be Jason. Jason's best friend is Todd, the horror movie know it all, when one cop thinks Freddy wears a hockey mask Todd interrupts with, "he's copying Freddy Krueger. You know, Nightmare On Elm Street? Bastard son of a thousand maniacs, burned to death by angry parents? Seeks revenge on teenagers? The guy in the hockey mask is Jason Voorhees. Friday The 13th. Retarded kid who drowned at summer camp. Seeks revenge on teenagers. They're completely different characters."

Soon, in Lizzies dreams, the real Freddy starts showing up and (in the dream) she always ends up at Crystal Lake, where (the movie) Jason Vorhees shows up to save her. It's explained that since her boyfriends name is Jason, it's just her dreams way of protecting her.

So Lizzie and her pals decide to get away from it all and go to a (of course) lake, and here, Todd provides some more funny stuff for horror fans, people get Jason confused with Michael Myers and Todd says that, "Jason died in the last sequel. Again. And the only way to reanimate him is with a human heart." When the kids find a cabin with a real hockey mask in it, along with a skull and a machete sticking out of it. One of the teenagers boast, "I remember someone telling me Friday the 13th was based on a true story."

The teens end up drinking alcohol, which one of Lizzie's friends has laced with an experimental drug that Lizzies doctor had given her, so they're all tripping and never sure if the next scenes are all part of some weird shared dream or actual fact. Necros escapes from jail, rips out Jasons (Lizzies boyfriends) heart and throws it in the lake, which brings back...guess who? Jason Vorhees! Here's the description "JASON VOORHEES rises from the lake. This isn't some teenager wearing a hockey mask and holding a machete. And it doesn't quite seem to be the Jason we remember from earlier movies. This Jason is much, much bigger -- 350 pounds of twisted, rotted flesh packed on his mythically proportioned gargantuan frame. His hockey mask is now warped and melted down onto his deformed skull, caused by years of soaking at the bottom of the lake. Half of the paint has washed away, leaving the mask looking like a cloudy, semi-translucent membrane which barely spares us the horror of having to witness the hideous face of the monster lurking inside."

Part nice guy Jason, part slasher Jason, he kills a few of his own friends, then meets Necro. When the mask is pulled off we get a glimpse of Jasons face, and the teens are "forced to witness the gigantic malformed head housing the severely retarded and extremely tormented lake-drenched brain of the machete wielding maniac. A writhing mass of worms, leeches, and snakes slithers and squirms in and out of his head."

Necros ends up injecting Lizzie, Jason and him with the "sleep" drug and they all take off to Jasons nightmare, which we see that a teenage Freddy has, of course, drowned Jason. Freddy reveals to Lizzie, "Poor Jason. Stumbling around the lake all these years... The mind- less sleepwalker... killing victim after victim. Every time he looks at them, he sees only me.

He was my first, you know. But there have been so many more." A few more teens die by Jasons hand, Lizzie realizes that Jason really wants to murder Freddy so she screams "This is my nightmare. And in my nightmare, Freddy does feel pain. In my nightmare, Freddy bleeds!" A big fight ensues and when it's all over...Jason talks! "FREDDY'S DEAD!" He says and then lightning strikes him and he drowns again.

The script has it's moments, a few clever kills and is at times funny, but I'm definitely glad it's not getting made, way too damn many groan inducing moments!
And the rumored people who have been involved could go on forever! Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reiff, the creators of the cancelled show "Brimstone" as well as "Demon Night", wrote a script that came along right after Scream and apparently came damn close to being made in the ensuing horror movie madness that followed that movie. Joss Whedon also had a script, reportedly in his, Freddy and Jason meet in an elevator to hell and start a bloody rampage together but when they get pissed off at each other for murdering a particular girl, they turn on each other. At the end of this script, Freddy wins.
Steve Norrington and David Goyer were never really anything more than a couple of meetings and nothing came out of it. Another rumored director was, Guillermo del Toro.

Then there was the "brilliant" idea to have two versions of the movie, one where Freddy wins, the other, where Jason wins. So after all these ideas and drafts and scripts and outlines...you can see how ideas were passed down, (a heart being used to revive Jason, Freddy connected to Jasons past) but who has written the final greenlighted version of Freddy Vs. Jason?

The movie that's being filmed was written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (and was polished up by David Goyer) and deals with Freddy trying to find a way to use Jason as his puppet so he can come into the real world, and ends with an epic battle, hmmm does that sound familiar?
A few script reviews have turned up online, the latest draft features a cameo from Jasons mom, sort of (I doubt Betsy Palmer will be returning) and the majority of the movie seems to take place on Elm Street, a rave, a psychiatric hospital, and the final battle at Crystal Lake. The name Lizzie, which has been in most of the drafts is thrown out, but we can be sure one major revelation will be in the finished film (can you guess what THAT is?).

Regardless, Ronny Yu, the director of "Bride Of Chucky", turned that movie into an honest to God good film, so we can expect similar results here. The cast can be a little better, Kelly Roland from Destiny's Child and Jason Ritter aren't exactly the names I had in mind.

But look, It's Freddy vs. Jason for crying out loud and after all the lame scripts and ideas that have been tossed around for who knows how long, it finally seems like they've got a good one (or at least a decent one) and with the proper visual flair, who knows? We might end up with not only a watchable flick, but a good one. When I think about Jason driving a truck, or Freddy becoming so funny he could be played by Jim Carrey, I'm thankful that the idea at least has people behind it who have sense enough to go..."We can't make that! It's crappy!"
That's pretty great if you ask me.