I must say I'm not a big fan of the slasher movies. I've never seen a Friday the 13th movie, or a Child's Play movie, or any Halloween except for 2 (which was nto at all scary), nor any Phantasms. I once saw Critters and Terrorvision within a few weeks of each other, and had to sleep with the blankets over my head for about a whole year. The VHS cover for Ghoulies made bathroom-going a harrowing experience, and my father had to take me and my sister out of the theater when The Secret of Nimh was playing because I couldn't handle the owl (my sister has yet to forgive me).

But that's all in the past. I'm a grown-up now and am no longer troubled by such schlocky horror fare. After seeing the preview for Freddy Vs. Jason before The Matrix Reloaded, I decided that this was a cultural phenomenon I could not afford to miss, and I must thus familiarize myself with these two mythologies. Fortunately, Ami is glad to help, having already shared multiple cinematic classics such as Hellraiser, Cyborg, and Rad with me.

So far I've seen Nightmare on Elm Street, and Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (which oddly enough, had a lot in common with the Matrix: wire-fu, gaining special powers by freeing one's mind, and lawrence (larry) fishburne). We haven't started on the Friday the 13th series, but I did a little internet research in order to make more educated bets on the final outcome of the Freddy Vs. Jason matchup. Here are the estimated body counts for both Jason and Freddy thus far:

Jason - 111+
Freddy - 36

As you can see, Jason is a far more efficient killing machine than Freddy, and he's also had more films. So, unless Jason falls asleep, I'm guessing that Jason will be the ultimate victor in this one. Actually, the most likely outcome is that they'll destroy each other, and the kids of Elm Street and Camp Crystal Lake will once again be safe... but for how long?

Freddy, Jason, Chucky, Michael Myers, the Cenobites and their ilk are kind of like the giant monsters of Japanese cinema. They're bad and kill lots of people, but folks just can't get enough of them. I'm hoping that in the future artistic license will prevail over intellectual property and we can see some super movie monster showdowns a la Destroy All Monsters and Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. Already there have been comic-book version of Robocop Vs. Terminator and Aliens Vs. Predator. The people want to see movie bad-asses beat living hell out of each other. Hopefully Freddy Vs. Jason is just the first in a long string of schlocky film adaptations of comic-book store arguments.

A few I'd like to see:

Army of Darkness Vs. McHale's Navy
Daredevil Vs. M.A.N.T.I.S.
Killer Klowns Vs. Killer Tomatoes
Wong Fei Hung (Once Upon a Time in China) Vs. Wong Fei Hung (Legend of Drunken Master)
ALF Vs. Howard the Duck