For years, fans have wondered why Jason Voorhees was suddenly afraid of water when he faced off against Freddy Krueger in Freddy Vs Jason, but this plot hole does have an answer. Released in 2003 after a decade long wait exacerbated by competing studios and the quagmire of Friday the 13th's franchise rights, Freddy Vs Jason was seen by many reviewers alike as a disappointing face-off between the two titular icons of slasher cinema.
Although the self-referential slasher flick featured some inventive kills and a solid performance from leading lady Monica Keena, the broad humor that Yu brought to his earlier horror-comedy hit Bride of Chucky fell flat this time around. Meanwhile, the eponymous face-off between Crystal Lake’s mute madman and Springwood’s infamous dream demon was inevitably underwhelming after such a lengthy wait, and some dodgy CGI didn’t help proceedings.
However, in recent years retrospective reviews have labeled Freddy Vs Jason an underrated slice of sleazy, cheesy horror, and it’s hard to deny the movie has some fun moments for devotees of both the Friday the 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street franchises. However, the movie does feature one egregious plot hole that doesn't mesh with the established character of Jason. When the pair come to blows around the midway point, Freddy taunts Crystal Lake's most famous son with water in his dreams, doing his standard routine of forcing dreamers to face their worst fear. The problem is, Jason has never been afraid of water at any point in the (admittedly shaky) Friday the 13th canon thus far. He’s constantly using the lake as cover and even spent most of his eighth outing aboard a cruise ship. Seemingly, the only plausible answer is that Freddy is just guessing what Jason would be afraid of, and that's why this gambit doesn't allow him to beat the masked murderer.
Like the infamous question of how Jurassic Park: The Lost World’s T-Rex ate an entire ship’s crew while theoretically locked in a cargo hold, there is a canon answer to this plot hole that was lost in translation between script and screen. The movie’s co-writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift have spent the years since Freddy Vs Jason’s release plagued by the question of why Jason is suddenly afraid of water as, in their original script, the scene’s water was intended to symbolize his childhood fear of drowning. The way the sequence was shot, though, suggests he's just afraid of water instead, a frustrating issue that the duo have discussed in numerous interviews. This lack of clarity led to all manner of fan theories, one of which both works as well as the actual canon answer, since it fits Freddy’s modus operandi and explains why the tactic doesn’t deter Jason for long.
The odds are good that Freddy - who relies on infiltrating the subconscious of his victims - is unable to access Jason’s unconscious mind and as such, Robert Englund's iconic creep is bluffing when he figures water would be the most likely fear for Jason to have, given the circumstances of his death. This explanation would make some sense of why Freddy only uses this trick once, why it’s not effective, and why Freddy is trying to escape Jason’s subconscious dream world in the first place. He can’t control Pamela Voorhees’ beloved son for long, as he isn’t able to gain an insight into Jason’s murderous mind, so he needs to get out into the wider world before Jason puts an end to his attempts at mind control, thus leading to Freddy Vs Jason's showdown.