Freddy Vs. Jason, which pits the villains of the A Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday the 13th slasher series against each other, is better than one might expect. Certainly it's better than any of the proper Friday the 13th films, every last one of which is mind-numbingly awful. But here's a slasher movie that -- gasp -- has an actual plot, a fairly interesting one, even. And it has fun playing with all the paradoxes that result with the collision of these two series. With one mad psycho killer on each side of sleep, how does one stay safe?

The human characters prove themselves more than mere fodder by figuring out how to pit the two against each other. In an admirably crazy turn of events, it becomes strategically advantageous for an unconscious Jason to be given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The film cops out on the pay off for this scene, alas, but the thought was nice.

Unfortunately, this is pretty typical of how Freddy Vs. Jason plays out. It may be more creative than the average slasher flick, but it's not nearly creative enough. There is all kinds of untapped potential, but the movie is constantly sidetracking itself with its obligation to provide gruesome, bloody death scenes at regular intervals. Some of the killings are used as actual plot devices, but others are just distracting.

And everything comes tumbling down when the two villains stage a climactic battle at Camp Crystal Lake. Granted, these villains have come back from the dead so often that both sort of evolved into a kind of immortality, but Freddy Vs. Jason doesn't just bend the rules, it breaks them entirely, shattering any suspense we might have felt in the process. Let's face it, if Freddy and Jason can, in the real world, lop off each others' limbs, spear themselves in the eyes, and not even slow each other down, there's just no way to care about the course of the battle. It'll have whatever outcome was written for it, regardless of what happens getting there. Most ludicrous is when a gigantic explosion not only fails to singe Freddy or Jason but fails to touch the wooden dock it was detonated upon. Reality is not necessary an attribute in movies like this, but plausibility would have gone a long way.