Three months after the events of, Freddy Krueger, now powerless in Hell because the residents of Springwood have forgotten about him, uses what's left of his powers to bring Jason Voorhees back to life. Freddy then disguises himself as Jason's mother to manipulate Jason into killing Springwood teenagers to create fear and regain his strength. Lori Campbell lives with her widowed father, and her friends Kia and Gibb, are sleeping over. They are later joined by Trey, Gibb's boyfriend, and his friend Blake, whom Kia tries to get Lori to hook up with, much to Lori's disgust. Jason kills Trey that night, and the police suspect Freddy. After a nightmare, Blake awakens to find his father killed before Jason kills him. The police call it a murder–suicide the following day, hoping to contain Freddy. Lori's ex-boyfriend Will Rollins and his friend Mark Davis are patients at the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, and take Hypnocil to suppress their dreams because of their previous contact with Freddy. A news report prompts them to escape and return to Springwood to tell Lori about Freddy. That night, Lori and the others attend a rave in a cornfield. Freddy tries to kill Gibb in a nightmare, but Jason kills her and several other attendees in the real world; this makes Freddy realize that Jason's rampage will deny him victims. Linderman and Freeburg escape the rave with Will, Lori, and Kia. Lori and Will go to Mark's house, and find Freddy killing him. Deputy Stubbs approaches Lori and her friends, who realize Freddy's plan. Learning about the Hypnocil, they try to steal it from Westin Hills; Freddy possesses Freeburg, however, who disposes of the medicine. After electrocuting Stubbs, Jason is tranquilized by the possessed Freeburg and kills him before he falls asleep. The teens devise a plan to pull Freddy from the dream world into reality and force him to fight Jason, bringing the unconscious Jason to the now-abandoned Camp Crystal Lake. Freddy fights Jason in the dream world, where his dream powers show him that Jason is afraid of water because of his death by drowning. He uses water to make Jason powerless, but Lori goes to sleep and tries to save Jason. Freddy attacks her and reveals himself as her mother's killer. Jason awakens at Camp Crystal Lake and chases the teens into a cabin. Linderman is killed, and the cabin catches fire. Lori is awakened and pulls Freddy into the real world, where he is confronted by Jason. As Jason and Freddy fight, the remaining teens escape the cabin. Kia distracts Freddy until Jason kills her. On a dock, the two killers do devastating blows to each other, with Jason tearing Freddy's clawed arm off after Freddy cuts off Jason’s fingers and stabs his eyes. Lori and Will pour gasoline on the dock and set it afire; this makes propane tanks explode, throwing Freddy and Jason into the lake. Freddy climbs out and tries to kill Lori and Will, but is impaled by Jason with his own clawed arm; this allows Lori to decapitate Freddy as Jason falls, lifeless, into the lake. Lori and Will leave Camp Crystal Lake. A victorious Jason emerges from the water the next day, holding his machete and Freddy's severed head. When Jason walks out of the water, Freddy suddenly winks and his ominous laughter is heard in the background.
Influenced by fan desire for a crossover film with a fight between Freddy and Jason, New Line and Paramount tried to make a Freddy vs. Jason movie in 1987 but could not agree on a story. When ' failed at the box office, Sean Cunningham wanted to reacquire the rights to Friday the 13th and begin working with New Line Cinema on Freddy vs. Jason. Paramount and New Line wanted the license to the other's character so they could control a crossover film. Negotiations on the project collapsed, and Paramount made Jason Takes Manhattan. After ' was released in 1989, the rights reverted to Scuderi, Minasian, and Barsamianto. Before Cunningham could begin to work on Freddy vs. Jason, Wes Craven returned to New Line to make New Nightmare. This put Freddy vs. Jason on hold, but allowed Cunningham to bring Jason back with . The ninth installment "turned a healthy profit". Cunningham's "frustration" with the delayed development of Freddy vs. Jason led him to create Jason X to keep the series alive. Based on Jason Takes Manhattans concept of taking Jason away from Crystal Lake, the tenth film put the titular character in space. The film lost its biggest supporter with the resignation of president of production Michael De Luca. Lack of support let the finished film sit for two years before it was released on April 26, 2002. It was the series' lowest-grossing film at the domestic box office, and had the largest budget of any of the films to date. New Line spent a reported $6 million on script development alone from several different writers. Cyrus Voris & Ethan Reiff were commissioned by De Luca alongside Lewis Abernathy & Sean S. Cunningham. Neither draft was well liked by the studio so Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore were hired to bring the project in a new direction. David J. Schow was given an offer to write the script because he just happened to walk by De Luca's office one day. David S. Goyer and James Dale Robinson both subsequently rewrote the Voris/Reiff draft. Rob Bottin, known for his make-up work on The Thing and Total Recall, was selected to direct the film in 1997. Mark Verheiden entered the project in the late '90s and proposed releasing the film with two different endings; one with Freddy winning and one with Jason winning. Peter Briggs, Jason X writer Todd Farmer and screenwriting duo Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger were all later brought in to write for the film. Newcomers Mark Swift & Damian Shannon were hired after delivering a pitch that De Luca was happy with. Goyer returned to the project once again in an effort to trim "every ounce of fat" from Swift & Shannon's 120 page script. According to Swift and Shannon, several endings were considered for the film; one involved Pinhead of the Hellraiser franchise, but New Line did not want to secure the rights for the character.
Casting Jason
New Line, thinking that Freddy vs. Jason needed a fresh start, chose a different actor to play Jason. Cunningham disagreed with their decision, believing that Kane Hodder was the best choice for the role. Although Hodder received a script for Freddy vs. Jason and met with director Ronny Yu and New Line executives, Yu and Matthew Barry felt that the role should be recast to fit Yu's image of Jason. Hodder said that New Line did not give him a reason for the recasting; according to Yu, however, he wanted a slower and more-deliberate Jason. The role went to Ken Kirzinger, a Canadian stuntman who worked on Jason Takes Manhattan. Yu said that Kirzinger was hired because he was taller than Robert Englund, who played Freddy Krueger. Kirzinger is tall, compared to the Hodder, and Yu wanted a much taller actor than the Englund. Kirzinger believed that his experience on Part VIII and his height helped him land the part. New Line did not cast Kirzinger until it saw him on film, and his first scene was Jason walking down Elm Street. Douglas Tait played Jason in a re-shot ending:
The film was released on VHS and DVD as part of New Line's Platinum Series on January 13, 2004. The DVD release contained a second disc of bonus content with audio commentary by Ronny Yu, Ken Kirzinger and Robert Englund; deleted and alternate scenes with commentary; Ill Niño's music video for "How Can I Live"; trailers and TV ads, soundtrack promotion and behind-the-scenes featurettes. The film was released on October 4, 2005 on Universal Media Disc and September 8, 2009 on Blu-ray; the Blu-ray release had the same content as the Platinum Series DVD.
Reception
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 41% based on 160 reviews and an average rating of 4.85/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Fans of the two horror franchises will enjoy this showdown. But for everyone else, it's the same old slice and dice." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 37 out of 100 based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an average grade of B+ on an A+-to-F scale.
Accolades
and Glenn Ennis were nominated for the Best Fire Stunt award at the Taurus World Stunt Awards 2004 for the double full-body burn and wire stunt. Chapman doubled for Robert Englund as Freddy and Ennis doubled for Ken Kirzinger as Jason in the stunt. The film was also nominated for Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards.
