Cutthroat Competition in New Slasher Films
Aug. 20, 2003 -- Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. Hollywood is preparing to give new meaning to cutthroat competition at the box office, and bloodthirsty audiences are cheering on the endless parade of murder.
The epic showdown between horror fans' favorite villains in New Line Cinema's Freddy vs. Jason was the No. 1 film at the box office last weekend. And it's just the beginning of a new wave in slasher films that will add new digital gore to B-movie legends.
In October, we'll see a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The sun will rise again on Dawn of the Dead in 2004.
Original horror films are also in style, with the release of Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses, the vampire-kung fu thriller Vampire Hunters, and the zombie gore fest 28 Days Later.
But before you whet your morbid appetite, these are not your parents' low-budget B-movies, oozing with gobs of ketchup-like prop blood, made by kid filmmakers who cast their neighbors in supporting roles.
The $25 million budget for Freddy vs. Jason is probably larger than what was spent on several of the shoestring-budget first installments of Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th.
Still, Freddy vs. Jason was a long time in the making, as Robert Englund, who plays the plays the razor-fisted monster in a fedora, told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.
"This is actually a fan-generated project," Englund said. "I can remember back, I guess, in 1984-1985, guys coming up to me in the street, saying 'Mr. Englund, sir, excuse me, dude, what would happen if you ran into Jason in an alley? Could you kick his butt?'
"It's is like, you know, male adolescents have too much time on their hands. What would happen if Freddy mud-wrestled with Chucky?" — the evil doll from the Child's Play horror series.
Kevin Bacon Was Dead Meat From the Very Start
The budgets may be larger, but the gratuitous gore formula hasn't changed. Monsters like Freddy Krueger have a special hunger for teenagers, especially promiscuous ones who make out in the woods. They also don't like annoying jokesters who scoff at supernatural terror.
If the slasher genre seems out of step for these times, when parental groups protest on-screen smoking, Englund, 54, doesn't care. He's been a mainstay of low-budget horror since the 1970s, when Tobe Hooper cast him as a sex-crazed maniac in Eaten Alive.
"I hate all that apologetic crap," Englund told ABCNEWS Radio while promoting Freddy vs. Jason before its release..
Freddy Krueger hasn't made an on-screen appearance 1994's New Nightmare, the seventh in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, which also spawned — and we do mean spawned — a short-lived TV show.
"This is my nice persona," Englund told Good Morning America. "I have to trot this out once in a while, you know?"
Unlike Englund, many stars aren't quick to own up to their slasher-film beginnings. But Kevin Bacon was dead meat in the original Friday the 13th and Johnny Depp got his start on the first Elm Street.
John Carpenter's Halloween series catapulted the career of Jamie Lee Curtis, who made Fay Wray's screaming in King Kong seem more like a whimper.
In pre-release interviews, Englund laughed off speculation of what his career would have been like had he taken other roles. "I've been typecast and let me tell you, it's better to be a horror icon than it is to be Dork Boy No. 2," he said.
Slipping into Freddy mode, Englund added with a laugh, "I get the girl, heh-heh-heh … I always get the girl."
Jason Can’t Be Killed …
The deadly hockey mask of Jason Voorhees never really slipped off movie screens, last appearing in Jason X two years ago, when the unhappy camper awoke from his slumber in the 25th century, and teens of tomorrow found their high-tech laser weapons were no match for the machete-weilding menace.
Who knew we'd ever live to see a psychopath in space? It looked like curtains for Jason in 1984's Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. But as many a victim will tell you, you never can kill the undead.
Jason re-emerged in Friday the 13 Part V: A New Begging. In part VII, Jason Goes to Hell. And as if the series had become a travelogue, in part VIII, Jason Takes Manhattan.
Don't try to make sense of the Jason saga. In slasher films, you can chuck continuity out the window, just like another severed head. The audiences don't seem to care.
In the new film we find that Freddy has been doomed to hell, where he meets Jason and sends him back to Elm Street, where Jason starts killing again. Freddy's creepy abilities are thereby restored, and the dream killer is back in business.
But Jason doesn't like being used and turns on his partner in a monster battle royal. To give away any more plot would be violating the B-movie code. Besides, it's hardly worth knowing. Many people have seen King Kong vs. Godzilla multiple times. Only a precious few can tell you who wins.
It's the fight that counts. And needless to say, giant fire-breathing lizards hate to be awoken from a prehistoric slumber only to receive second-banana billing to a monkey.
… But He Can Be Fired
If guns, knives, and firebombs can't kill Jason, at least Hollywood can ax the actor who plays him. Stuntman Kane Hodder, who had played Jason since Part VII, was replaced in Freddy vs. Jason by Ken Kirzinger, another veteran stuntman. Kirzinger was said to have more "sympathetic eyes."
But all in all, it's good news for bad guys. Shooting is now under way for the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Jessica Biel, best known as preacher's daughter Mary Camden on TV's 7th Heaven, leads the cast of youngsters who tangle with the cannibalistic power-tool lover known as "Leatherface."
In the age of product placement, one would imagine that this presents a great opportunity for the folks at Black & Decker. That's not yet happened. But Marilyn Manson has signed on to score Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a job no doubt he's been dying for.
Next March, an army of flesh-eating zombies who will rise from their coffins in the new Dawn of the Dead, and they'll be menacing a giant shopping mall. Zombie-loving teenagers, however, are already munching on popcorn.