Hindsight can be a funny thing. Like every rabid horror fan I've been waiting for ten years for this movie to finally materialize (ever since it was hinted at at the end of 1993's Jason Goes To Hell) and because of that fact when I went opening night I had over-hyped the film too much and came out with a bitter taste in my mouth. Now, a mere five months later, my tune has changed.

New Line has taken the anti-hero killer Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare On Elm Street series and brought him together with the hulking immortal hockey masked killer Jason Vorhees from the Friday The 13th series. The story goes a little something like this: Freddy has all but been forgotten about in the town of Springwood (which leaves him powerless) so he resurrects Jason from Hell and uses him as a pawn to go to the town and start killing in order for people to remember him. However, things get out of hand when it turns out Freddy can't quite control Jason and soon the two titans end-up facing off at Camp Crystal Lake in a large scale throwdown.

Is this as good as expected? Not really. Is it entertaining? Yes, it is. Director Ronny Yu has taken the two series and breathed some new life into them (which is pretty much the same thing he did with Bride Of Chucky) and Robert Englund is certainly having a blast as Freddy (a role he'll forever be known for); however I do still have some problems with the movie with my main one being that the script just seems to focus on the teens a bit too much (in fact most of the first two-thirds of the movie does) which leaves us wanting a little more of the two icons duking it out, however that's not to say that when they do it's not worth waiting for. This also suffers from having a few throwaway moments such as the utterly pointless "Freddypillar" scenes and some of the acting is so-so (mostly Brendan Fletcher - who reminds me of one of the Dillon boys and Destiny's Child member Kelly Rowland).

There's just two questions left to answer: 1) Was it worth the ten year wait? All things considered, somewhat yes. I don't think they'd ever be able to match the vision for the film I've had in my head all these years. 2) Who wins? I think he all know that...

Directed By: Ronny Yu.
Written By: Damian Shannon, Mark Swift.

Starring: Robert Englund, Monica Keena, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter.

Picture Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: Wow. This is one flawless picture. The colours are great, the detail awesome and there's not a hint of grain in sight. Talk about an awesome transfer.

Extras: New Line has snagged an early contender for "Best DVD of 2004" on my list next year for their 2-disc "Platinum Edition" DVD. There's so much here be prepared to spend an afternoon with this one. There's the standard "jump to a death" feature that's on all their other Freddy and Jason releases, there's a trailer, 8 TV spots, a music video by El Nino, a funny "Pre-fight" promotional event held in Las Vegas that mirrors a boxing match pre-fight, other New Line trailers (Butterfly Effect, Texas Chainsaw Massacre '03, Jason Goes To Hell and Freddy's Dead), a brief featurette on "Camp Hacknslash" where some lucky people got to spend the day at a summer camp and then watch the movie outdoors on a big screen (this feature is cut much too short), 2 Fangoria articles to read taken from the magazine, 20 deleted scenes with or without commentary (including the original opening and ending), Eleven galleries (6 storyboard, 5 still galleries), a whopping 12 featurettes on the visual effects, 5 production featurettes (development, location, art direction, stunts and make-up effects) and finally an entertaining commentary with Yu, Englund and Ken Kiringer (he played Jason) which has Englund having a ball cracking jokes and poking fun.