Released only a year apart, Freddy Vs Jason fared well with viewers while the sci-fi crossover Alien Vs Predator was a comparative disappointment, so why did one soar where the other sank? In 2004, audiences were excited to see the long-awaited face-off between two titans of sci-fi horror, the Xenomorph of the Alien series and the titular Predator of the action-horror franchise of the same name. A year earlier, Freddy Vs Jason had received a mixed critical reception but proved a hit with fans of both slasher series, with the consensus being that the much-anticipated showdown did justice to both villains.
Crystal Lake’s mute madman Jason Voorhees was a perfect match for Robert Englund’s dream demon Freddy Krueger. Although the movie wasn’t as outright scary as the best installments of either series, the script had an agreeable streak of self-aware humor while its cast played proceedings dead straight. When Alien Vs Predator arrived in cinemas, though, audiences were let down by a face-off that failed to do either of the eponymous monsters justice.
The 2004 movie was mostly disliked by fans of both franchises, and its 2007 sequel Alien Vs Predator: Requiem didn’t fare any better. With only a year separating the release of the two deathmatch movies between horror icons, it's hard on paper to see why only one was well-received. However, a closer look at both Freddy Vs Jason and Alien Vs Predator illustrates a set of differences between their approaches that shaped their receptions.
Freddy Vs Jason’s R-Rating Vs Alien Vs Predator’s PG-13
This one is a classic complaint most horror franchise fans will have heard before, but it bears repeating; when all four franchises in question were R-rated until their crossover films, it only made sense for said showdowns to keep that adults-only rating. As proven by Alien Vs Predator: Requiem’s gory brutality, an R-rating alone would not have necessarily salvaged the original Alien Vs Predator’s reception. But giving the movie an inexplicable PG-13 weakened its appeal before audiences had even seen the movie, as the rating alone proved the face-off wouldn’t get too intense or gory. PG-13 horror was in the doldrums during the early 2000s, with the likes of Darkness Falls giving the rating a bad name among genre audiences. While there have been solid PG-13 horrors both before and since, they tend to be atmospheric chillers like The Others or more comedic outings like Happy Death Day, where both Alien and Predator movies made extensive use of the bloodshed an R-rating allows.
Freddy Vs Jason’s (Likable) Cast of Cliches
The characters of Freddy Vs Jason, from the Jason Mewes-aping stoner to Monica Keena’s wide-eyed final girl, are all slasher movie cliches. But they are likable ones too and, although the successful slasher Scream offered a more believable set of teens, FvJ did not attempt to humanize its archetypical characters. As a result, the cliches proved charming precisely because they were hard to relate to. The cast is a set of goofy stereotypes whose fates viewers weren't invested in, and it was clear they existed primarily to be gorily killed by the two title characters - the ones audiences actually came to see. Freddy Vs Jason wisely eschewed attempts at depth, instead simply giving viewers a set of over-the-top ‘80s movie characters and risking bad reviews by assuming viewers would be in on the joke.
Alien Vs Predator, in contrast, makes an effort to introduce its archeologist exploration team as believable, rounded characters like those of director Paul W.S. Anderson’s earlier Event Horizon - but no one came to AvP for complex human characters. A movie with not one, but two entirely external threats (Aliens! Predators!) didn’t need to dwell on their internal lives the way that the more cerebral horror of Event Horizon did, meaning this exposition was wasted on characters who no one had a reason to care about. The sequel, Requiem, tried to address this issue by setting the action in a small town and populating the cast with a slew of cliches, including the villainous jocks and thinly-sketched love interests of classic teen horrors. However, this installment over-corrected, barely giving any of the characters defined personalities before the ending of Alien Vs Predator: Requiem killed off almost all of them.
Freddy Vs Jason’s Embrace of CGI
This one is controversial amongst both fandoms, as many fans of horror cinema feel the introduction of CGI ruined the weighty effectiveness of prosthetic-based effects and resulted in countless movies featuring weightless, unconvincing bloodletting. This is not an entirely unfounded criticism, and many recent horrors could undoubtedly have benefitted from some more grisly, tangibly "real" feeling practical effects. However, Anderson’s choice to eschew CGI in favor of man-in-suit monsters during the making of Alien Vs Predator was a rare case where a little added computer assistance would have aided the production, instead of rendering it less convincing.
While Anderson’s insistence on keeping the effects largely practical displayed an admirable commitment to the methods of the earlier Alien and Predator movies, this approach meant most of the fights became two guys in rubber suits duking it out. Well-used CGI could have given the reptilian aliens less weight and made them more otherworldly, making the crossover stand out among the franchise as the Xenomorphs would have looked less like the Predator, and more like the lithe monsters seen in later sequels like Alien: Covenant. In contrast, Freddy Vs Jason used a ton of CGI to realize both extremely gruesome Jason kills that wouldn’t have been possible before and ambitiously weird Freddy dream sequences, embracing the new tech in a way that was entirely true to the spirit of their predecessors.
Kelly Rowland’s character being macheted fifteen feet across a forest and another victim getting their head rotated 180 degrees were the sort of kills Jason always excelled at, and CGI gave them the cartoony shock value such silly deaths needed to land. Freddy’s transformation into a hookah-smoking caterpillar, meanwhile, may have aged like fine milk, but even this embarrassingly bad CG still maintains its effectiveness years later. Since much of Freddy Krueger’s appeal comes from his ability to infiltrate dreams, shoddy effects can always be explained away via the “it’s just a dream” excuse. Ultimately, judicious utilization of CG, an awareness that human characters weren’t particularly important, and an appropriately gory R-rating conspired to ensure Freddy Vs Jason made for an appealing face-off between horror icons, while Alien Vs Predator could have benefitted from all three.