Freddy Krueger kills it in the horror genre
Freddy Vs Jason might have been a fun film where two horror icons battled it out, but Freddy Krueger and the A Nightmare on Elm Street films are far more interesting and entertaining than Jason Voorhees’ famed Friday the 13th franchise has ever been.
When it comes to motive, Freddy and Jason have equally iron-clad cases; that is if supernatural serial killers have rationality at all to them. After being hunted down by a mob of angry parents in a boiler room and drenched in gasoline, Freddy is left burned to death and covered in peeling and melting skin. His main motive for killing is revenge, which he achieves in the form of haunting and violently killing people in their dreams. Jason, on the other hand, witnessed his mother get beheaded at Camp Crystal Lake as a little boy, and comes back to kill campers as a morbid testament to her.
Freddy’s iconic striped Christmas sweater and fedora add a comedic element to his otherwise murderous character. Not to mention his hilarious one-liners, such as “Why are you screaming? I haven’t even caught you yet.” Jason’s outfits and demeanor throughout the Friday the 13th series are, at the risk of completely missing the main thing wrong with him, boring. Speaking of boring, Friday the 13th relies on shock value to entertain and only made Jason ‘immortal’ to keep the money coming in since that eliminates the trouble of having to eventually kill him.
Jason’s astounding 146 kills topple Freddy’s 35. This comes as no surprise because Jason kills nearly everyone he sees, but it makes him predictable. Freddy has a set number of people that he is driven to kill, and those people are the kids of the parents who set him on fire. Jason goes to the killing buffet, slaughtering all sorts of random people for no apparent reason. On-screen gore is supposed to be horrifying; it is the horror genre, after all. But overdoing it can be tacky beyond belief.
With countless stupid sequels and a couple of redeemable ones between the two, including their crossover, both horror franchises have gone to great lengths to resurrect themselves. A Nightmare on Elm Street has an impressive nine films to its name, while Friday the 13th has 11. While the two horror characters are equally popular among horror fans, Freddy Krueger’s character development and clear-cut (no pun intended) motive give him an edge up on Jason Voorhees.
