It's funny, but initially there was some talk about, "Maybe we should add more sound to Jason?" I said, "No, no, no! If Jason gets hit by Freddy and there's a moaning sound, that totally destroys the myth of it. He can't make a sound. He just has to take what Freddy gives him and when he gets a chance to fight back, he fights back like an unstoppable killing machine." I wanted to go back to the first Friday the 13th and get into Jason Voorhees as a son and a killer. He has a one-track mind—like a shark.
Jason Ritter as Will, and Monica Keena.
MARK SWIFT:
Damian and I thought a lot about Jason's backstory. We tried to come up with a good visual metaphor for why he does what he's doing. So we came up with the closet at the Voorhees house—stuffing these victims into it. That was another thing we had to fight for, when they'd say, "What is the closet? I don't get it." We also thought it was a way Freddy could realize he had a fear of drowning. For us that was one of the big differences in our draft and the finished film. When Jason opens the closet and we see those victims, we look up and see a little kid drowning. But in the movie, it seems more like he has a fear of water. And we didn't want Jason to have a fear of water because if you look at the past movies, that has never been an issue. It's drowning he's afraid of, because that's what happened to him as a boy.
RONNY YU:
The key to Jason's anger is very simple. Anyone, no matter what culture they come from, would be pissed off if someone tried to mess with their mother. Jason's just like, "Don't fuck with my mom!"
DOUG CURTIS:
We really tried to get Betsy Palmer to return as Jason's mother. We thought it was so important for the fans. We even met her agent's original asking price. It wasn't outrageous, although it was really more than our budget could afford. Then, eventually, at the last minute, her agents called back and simply said, "This is not what she wants to be remembered for."
BETSY PALMER, "Mrs. Voorhees," Part 1 and Part 2:
Sean Cunningham asked me to do the last couple of Friday films. I said, "How about a piece of the action? You won't even have to pay me a salary." Because I got about 30 bucks in residuals from the first two movies, while Sean and the studio made millions of dollars. But Sean said, "Oh, no, we can't do that," and I ended up being offered SAG minimum. And it was only a couple of dumb scenes. It was ridiculous. So I said, "No, thanks." Then Sean wanted me to do the one with Freddy from Elm Street. He offered me $5,000 for the one day, and SAG minimum for the second day. I said to my agents, "You shouldn't even be offering this to me." It's ridiculous. They said, "Well, it's only two days' work." I said, "I don't care if you have me there for 200 days." Eventually I said, "You can't tell me Freddy from Elm Street and the Jason guy behind the mask are going to work for SAG minimum. You say that I want favorite nations—that I want to be paid same as them." Then they upped it to $10,000, then $20,000, but I still said no.
I do want to tell the fans, though, that the scenes were nothing. I mean if the role was a role again, and I could do something with it…? But the first scene, I'm standing at a grave and I'm saying to Jason, "Jason, you let me down, you didn't kill these people!" Please, all right? And then the second day was my face was either turning into Freddy, or he was turning into me. That's it. What does that mean? No, I'm a little more sincere than that. And I don't need a car!
PAULA SHAW, "Mrs. Voorhees":
I've been a working actress up here in Vancouver for a long time, and at the time I got a call that Betsy Palmer was no longer going to do the movie. I don't know when they found that out, but it seemed like it was pretty last minute that they needed to cast the role. At my age, I'm sure you can imagine I'm not a big fan of the Friday the 13th movies, but I really wanted to do a good job. So I went out and rented the first film. And I thought, "I can do this. I can be evil!" I'm a great screamer. I lead workshops that have a lot of emotional release attached to them so I have a strong voice from that kind of shouting and screaming and yelling. It sounded like a lot of fun.
It was a challenge—I wanted my work to be a continuation of what Betsy did, but not be an imitation. I think ultimately she seeped into me, by way of osmosis, and I took on her essence. I have so much respect for her as an actress and her performance as the character. I did have an image of her from the first movie. Clearly, I don't look like her precisely, though they didn't seem to be concerned about it—I asked them. And she had the advantage of being able to be loving when she first appears in the original film, so she got to at least show that side of her personality. I really didn't have that opportunity. So we do a few lines, like "To my dear son," but I didn't really have a chance to work up to being evil.
The other thing was, I was basically just Freddy in disguise. The question is: does Pamela Voorhees ever exist in the film, or is it Freddy pretending to be me? He had taken me on as a persona. One could write a thesis on this. In that regard, I did not attempt in any way to mimic or imitate Betsy. And it was my choice to even wear the sweater. I thought we should at least duplicate that aspect of it. I think her hair may have been a little curlier than mine, too.
Jason's rampage through the cornfields of Springwood was a logistical feat for Freddy vs. Jason's makeup department, who had to create complex mechanics and appliances for an almost non-stop barrage of gore. "That rave scene became like a fucking triathlon," says makeup effects supervisor William Terezakis. "You'd finish stabbing someone in the chest here, then you've got to run over there and inflate Jason's lung, then go back and stab someone else, then bust some other guy's leg. It was like one gag after another, and they were just working us like fucking animals. In total, there were 12 of us on set handling different units all at the same time, because they often had three cameras going at once. I could hear the circus music playing as we ran. We even resorted to getting vitamin B injections in our necks to keep going. It was a brutal shoot, but fun."
ROBERT ENGLUND:
I really wanted the script to exploit the nightmares of Jason, to not only have Freddy privy to what makes Jason tick, but also for the audience to have his backstory reiterated. Not only in a sort of expository plot way, but also to go into the fantasy nightmare world of little Jason Voorhees, that big Jason Voorhees would remember. To me, that would make it fair, because otherwise Jason would just sort of kick my butt up between my shoulder blades. Freddy's really got to get in Jason's head. And the screenwriters solved that with Freddy vs. Jason. It's a great device. They get rid of all their exposition for the new fans—you got all the backstory just in that one scene where you go down through that neuron into Jason's subconscious. That was one of the things in the script that made me really happy to get on board.
KEN KIRZINGER:
The motivation of the characters is different. Freddy is pure evil—he's the bastard child of a hundred maniacs. But Jason, if his mother hadn't been murdered and he hadn't drowned in a lake, probably would have grown up to have a more normal life. Jason's just sort of a little misguided. I like to call him a "psycho savant." He lost his mom early. He's been living out in the woods and under the lake with no guidance. He's just following a mandate, "Kill all those bad kids." Jason's mother is the only person that Jason listens to, the only person he would take orders from. If Jason was arrested and tried, he probably wouldn't go to jail because he's insane. He thinks that what he's doing is right. He's doing it for his mother, not for his own personal greed or anything else.
Principal photography on Freddy vs. Jason began on September 5, 2002. Shot in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, over a period of eight weeks, the $32 million production—minus $7 million spent on script development—was by all accounts a physically demanding and emotionally draining experience. But it was especially challenging for its young cast, many of whom lacked any prior feature film experience. Adding to the tension was Ronny Yu's intense focus on the visual aspects of the film, often to the exclusion of performance considerations. Yu's temperament also varied widely on any given day—moody and unpredictable one
minute, highly enthusiastic and collaborative the next. And then there was his limited command of the English language. By the end of the shoot, Yu's oft-heard battle cry of "More energy!" became both a catchphrase—and a punchline—among the cast.
RONNY YU:
Once filming started, I tried not to get myself into the position of feeling pressure because the burden can become very heavy. I just went in and trusted my own instincts. If I felt something was right, I did it. This one took a lot of energy out of me. It was a very complex schedule because we had a very limited amount of time, especially with the unpredictable weather in Vancouver. Piecing this puzzle together was very difficult. It almost felt impossible.
DOUG CURTIS:
Ronny and I became very close during the process of making this movie. Which is not easy, because Ronny can be very, very difficult. Ronny's a very moody guy. Ronny can go into these black holes of depression out of nowhere. He won't want to talk and can't be told of anything that is going on. If what's in his head isn't happening on the monitor in front of him—even though it's physically impossible—it just depresses him to a point where he can't even speak. And Ronny, more than any director I've worked with, cannot stand incompetence. If you're being paid to do a job, I don't care how small a job it is, you'd better show up with your game face on, because he is not a guy you want to come unprepared for. A lot of people got their egos seriously damaged on this movie because he didn't hold back.
My place was to just create an environment where, to the best of my ability, whatever Ronny decided to do was going to get done. I had to be the cheerleader. Because there were a lot of moments where people were saying, "Why the fuck am I doing this? I really don't know what he wants." Yet, at the same time, I've never seen a crew work harder for a director. Because, to Ronny's great credit, he is the first one to give everybody their due in the most effusive way. In the strangest way, he's so demanding that, at any given moment, people will say, "What more can I give him?" It was one of those movies where it was a love-hate thing with the director.
ROBERT ENGLUND:
It was hard work, and not just because of the schedule and the nights and the cold. Ronny just has a strange pop culture sensibility. He had the whole movie completely in his subconscious; it's just like the chef that has the spices that are his secret recipe. And he never quite shared it with me or Jason Ritter or Monica Keena or Kelly Rowland. But what kept me going after a 24 hour day, working in freezing temperatures with blood spattered all over me and long underwear riding up my you-know-what, was to see Ronny's visual poetry on a little tiny screen in the forest. We'd all run over to the monitor, shivering, then we'd see this amazingly cool stuff, even in the video replay. It was all in his visualization. Ronny is as young and as vibrant in that kind of way as you can be. And I don't think Ronny slept at all. He was literally up for a month. It was a brutal shoot.
MONICA KEENA:
Ronny had every shot worked out in his mind, and he's so specific about what he wants. I think he just has a really great eye for all of the special effects. But Ronny was also a different kind of filmmaker than I was used to. He was so focused on the visual aspects that, a lot of the time, I had to figure out on my own what my character was supposed to be doing and how she was supposed to act, which I never had to do before. "More energy!" That was his biggest direction on the set. That should have been the catchphrase for the movie.
Lochlyn Munroe played the part of Deputy Scott Stubbs in Freddy vs. Jason, one of the Springwood's finest who finds himself a victim of Jason's latest rampage. The actor has appeared in such genre films as Dracula 2000 and The Tooth Fairy, but remains most famous for his comedic role as the under-endowed Greg Phillippe in Scary Movie.
RONNY YU:
When Monica came in to interview, I asked her to improvise a scene. Then I said, "Can you scream for me?" And then she let out the loudest and scariest scream! And on top of that, she's a very good actress. So I just said, "Okay, you're hired!" But I think that actually worried her, because then she'd think, "Did I only get the part just because of my scream?" I would have to say, "No, no, no!" But, you know, that was a big part of it.
DOUG CURTIS:
There ended up being friction with some of the actors. It was a little difficult because once Ronny forms an opinion about someone, it's hard to change his mind. He never did particularly care for Monica Keena. She was too needy, in his mind. She was just being an actress—and a good one—and she wanted to give him the best she could. But in Ronny's mind, it was actually very difficult. Ronny would say, "We've got it!" And she'd say, "Please let me do another take. I think I can do better." That would upset Ronny, because in his mind if he was right, he was right. He didn't need anything else. It was Jason Ritter, just because of his great personality, who was able to keep Monica buoyant. He just made her feel safe and really helped her get through it.
JASON RITTER:
It was like Monica and I had this little club. We'd been there so many days together, just fighting and running away from explosions in slow motion and that kind of stuff. We developed a really good friendship. And she's very sweet, so that made it so much easier to pretend that I'm in love with her. If she was mean, it would have been so hard to kiss her and pretend like I'm trying to protect her. I would have been like, "Here you go, Freddy. You can have her."
At the beginning of the film, Ronny pulled me aside and said, "It's really important that the love between you guys is real." He had more concern for the acting than I would assume the other films in the franchises had. But it was still hard for the actors because when there's all this technical stuff and every shot takes a half-hour to reset, you can't be like, "I don't like the way I said that line." Too bad. You have to move on.
CHRISTOPHER MARQUETTE:
Ronny was fond of saying "more energy," but that really got to become a joke. I'd say to him, "Is there anything else you want me to do in this scene aside from what you saw in rehearsal?" And Ronny's just like, "No, more scared!" But I thought Ronny gave me almost complete freedom over what I wanted to do, because he trusted me. Then he got to concentrate on the cinematography and the direction and the blocking, just placing me where he wanted me and saying, "Action!" I think that's great. Freddy vs. Jason would have been hell to go through with a director who told you exactly what to do every time. So I was happy.
RONNY YU:
When I look at the monitor, I don't look at it from a Ronny Yu point of view. I look at it from an audience point of view. I think, "If I'm the audience, would I be interested in that shot?" And when I see something I like, I jump up and down like a kid with a new toy. I try to instill that enthusiasm in everybody I'm working with.
The actors, I yell at them. Really, sometimes I do. A lot of them were first-timers—all those outstanding parts were played by very green kids. The most important thing for me is, if you cast the right person, you know that it will work. It doesn't matter how much experience the kids have as long as they understand the role. I talked to practically every single one of them, just to explain their character and tell them what I want from them. Then I'd give them references—magazines and movies to look at. I gave them homework. But with very experienced actors, you don't need to do that much coaching, because you just watch them. I've worked with Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle—it's a totally different thing. You just switch on the camera and let them do their thing.
MATTHEW BARRY:
Ronny was like, "Look, I want to set up the camera and go. I don't want to have to work with insecure actors. I just want them to come in, do what they do and then move on to the next shot." That made it tough, and challenging. And that's why I was especially proud of Kelly Rowland— she was determined and she wanted to work hard on it. Same thing with Britney Spears—those artists are hard workers. They're disciplined. I loved Kelly. I think she was one of the best things in the movie.
"We created the entire Camp Crystal Lake set at Bunsen Lake Forest in Vancouver," says producti
on designer John Willett. "We wanted something that looked real and audiences could immediately identify as a camp from the 1950s."
RONNY YU:
Kelly didn't have the experience of a Samuel Jackson, but she did have a certain energy. It doesn't matter what kind of experience an actor has as long as you have the right attitude. I felt I had to recognize that and use that. She was very humble and really wanted to learn and was willing to try everything. And she was very scared of Freddy. She would keep asking me, "Ronny, can I have my eyes shut?" I said, "No, Kelly, you cannot have your eyes shut in a confrontation with Freddy!" But everything worked out great.
KELLY ROWLAND:
I was terrified because the very first shot I did was when the Freddy claw comes out of the magazine and gets my nose. I did not want to do that scene first. I wanted to warm up a little bit. Honey, they jump-started my engine because I was not ready! I was, like, "Why did I have to start off with a scene with Freddy!?"
MONICA KEENA:
Kelly is one of those people that I don't know how you could ever say anything bad about. She just emits this wonderful glow and light and she brings so much more to her character than is written. Kelly was so bright. But she was definitely nervous the first couple of days. We spent a lot of time together on and off the set. We developed a rapport, so all our scenes together became very natural. It's believable we were friends in the movie because we really were becoming friends off screen, too.
KELLY ROWLAND:
The teamwork on the set reminded me of being in Destiny's Child. It's the little things that I think I'll look back on and remember. I loved how Jason Ritter was funny and always turned a dull moment into something bright and beautiful. And Monica helped me in scenes where I was really scared. There's one shot where we go into the cornfield and we're running and right behind me was complete darkness. I was like, "You've got to hold my hand. I'm gonna be scared!" And she did. I even remember the first time I met her—I was just drawn to her. Her eyes are so beautiful that they just talk to you. We didn't have to try to be friends because we were actually there for each other.
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 86