Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning.
"Essentially a cheap rural rip-off of John Carpenter's hugely influential Halloween, this trail-blazing mix of bloody horror and teenage terror from low-budget sleaze merchant Sean S Cunningham kick-started the splatter stalk-and-slash vogue of the 1980s. The catalogue of gruesome slaughter occurs when Camp Crystal Lake re-opens for summer business after a brutal unsolved murder has kept it closed for years. Cunningham skilfully works up plenty of gory scares, while also allowing the audience to sympathise with the counsellors (including a pre-stardom Kevin Bacon) under repeated attack from a mystery assailant. The climactic finale is strong stuff and leads to a Carrie-inspired jolt ending, which left the door open for numerous sequels of varying quality." - Radio Times Review
"Essentially a cheap rural rip-off of John Carpenter's hugely influential Halloween, this trail-blazing mix of bloody horror and teenage terror from low-budget sleaze merchant Sean S Cunningham kick-started the splatter stalk-and-slash vogue of the 1980s. The catalogue of gruesome slaughter occurs when Camp Crystal Lake re-opens for summer business after a brutal unsolved murder has kept it closed for years. Cunningham skilfully works up plenty of gory scares, while also allowing the audience to sympathise with the counsellors (including a pre-stardom Kevin Bacon) under repeated attack from a mystery assailant. The climactic finale is strong stuff and leads to a Carrie-inspired jolt ending, which left the door open for numerous sequels of varying quality." - Radio Times Review
Freddy Krueger
is desperate to terrorise the teenagers of Elm Street again but
is unable to as the parents have found a way to make the kids forget
about him. He enlists the help of serial killer Jason Voorhees
to go to Elm Street and dispatch the kids so the town will think
that Freddy has returned.
"First hinted at in Jason Goes to Hell: the Final Friday, a decade should have been plenty of time to get the clash of the terror titans right. But director Ronny Yu fails to re-energise the Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises in the same way he saved the Child's Play series with Bride of Chucky, because the script and story here are so dire. Yu's half-hearted direction comes as the only real shock worth mentioning in this pointlessly gory and daft affair that plays ludicrous havoc with the myths of both horror icons. Because the Springwood folk have drugged potential Freddy (Robert Englund) victims with a dream suppressant, the razor-gloved bogeyman has been rendered impotent. To instil fear in the local teens again, Freddy coaxes Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) into causing machete mayhem, planning to take over the body count when his full strength returns. But Jason isn't going to step aside that easily… Dreadful dialogue and performances scupper this cheap, chill-free claptrap that's still much too reliant on stale dreams-within-nightmares scenarios. Not the Battle Royale anyone expected or wanted, Yu's WWF pantomime proves that too many maniacs spoil the froth." - Radio Times Review
"First hinted at in Jason Goes to Hell: the Final Friday, a decade should have been plenty of time to get the clash of the terror titans right. But director Ronny Yu fails to re-energise the Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises in the same way he saved the Child's Play series with Bride of Chucky, because the script and story here are so dire. Yu's half-hearted direction comes as the only real shock worth mentioning in this pointlessly gory and daft affair that plays ludicrous havoc with the myths of both horror icons. Because the Springwood folk have drugged potential Freddy (Robert Englund) victims with a dream suppressant, the razor-gloved bogeyman has been rendered impotent. To instil fear in the local teens again, Freddy coaxes Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) into causing machete mayhem, planning to take over the body count when his full strength returns. But Jason isn't going to step aside that easily… Dreadful dialogue and performances scupper this cheap, chill-free claptrap that's still much too reliant on stale dreams-within-nightmares scenarios. Not the Battle Royale anyone expected or wanted, Yu's WWF pantomime proves that too many maniacs spoil the froth." - Radio Times Review