A New Killer

Hello, and welcome to The Popcorn Isn't Real. I'm Leif Eric. I'm here with my brother Torvald. For this episode, I think we're just going to jump right in because we're covering Freddy vs. Jason. And today we are joined by a special guest. I'm so excited. My friend, a screenwriter and actor who has acted in many films and TV shows, including Freddy vs. Jason, David Kopp is here with us today. Yay! We're so happy to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. absolutely. It's my pleasure. So, David, you played Blake in Freddy vs. Jason, right? I did. I think Leif's theory today kind of revolves around Blake. He actually revolves around your character. I have many parts to my theories, and we'll get into them. One of them does kind of focus a little bit on your character, so we'll see what we get into there. But first, let me just set this up. Freddy vs. Jason, a 2003 film directed by Ronnie Yu, written by Damian Shannon

and Mark Swift it's a movie that Torvald and I both love it is the best film in the Friday the 13th series and it's also a good one in in the Freddy series in my opinion it might be the best in both series is uh I like the movie a lot though so uh yeah I mean Nightmare on Elm Street has some pretty good ones but it's true but I mean Freddy versus Jason how are you gonna beat Freddy Krueger fighting squaring off against Jason Voorhees I think it was like one of the highest grossing movies of that summer. Jason X came out before, and I think it only made 10 or $2 million or something. And I think domestic on Freddy was 160 or something. It was huge. I remember when I was a kid, I saw the poster for it before it even came out. And I had not seen a Freddy or Jason movie at that point in my life, yet I knew who they both were. And when I saw that poster, I was like, oh man, that's going to be epic. I want to see that

So bad. Oh my gosh. It's happening. I think I'd seen parts of Friday the 13th and Halloween when I was younger, but I never really got into the kind of super slow bad guy that everybody should be able to get away from, but they all just trip going upstairs and then he stabs them, you know? And I'm like, this is, you know, everybody just falls over and all the time and runs into things. Whereas the Freddy thing always seemed kind of more metaphorical to me. He was kind of like a devil in your head. And, you know, he had so many powers. He was just like, holy crap, this guy's really scary, you know? Freddie, he's cool as hell. He's a really cool bad guy. Jason, his victims just need to learn to be coordinated. That's all. I believe this, at least parts of this movie were shot in Vancouver. And was that how you got involved, David? Yeah, yeah. I was actually living in LA at the time when I had booked it.

But I did go back to Vancouver where I was kind of home-based mostly. I was working on a different show in L.A. at the time. I had a recurring role on a show there, and I had to leave to go do this movie. I liked the show we were doing in L.A., and they had parts for me. But I guess when you're recurring, you can step off to do something else, and they just write you out or something. And they were going to write me back in when I got back, but then it got canceled. So that sucked. Oh, no. So, Torvald, do you think you could give us a quick synopsis of Freddy vs. Jason for our listeners who haven't seen it or haven't seen it recently? Definitely. I mean, the plot is a little convoluted or maybe a little contrived. That's an understatement. Basically, Freddy, he's kind of worried because everyone's forgetting about him. And we find out in this movie that he can't come back and keep killing people if everyone forgets about him.

So, he decides to bring the terror back to Elm Street. He decides to wake Jason, who's currently in hell, resurrect him and bring him into his home turf to kill people. I guess his plan is that if Jason kills people, they'll think Freddy's killing people and they'll start to remember him. Kind of a weird plan. Yeah, it's a little odd. Basically, Jason, he starts wreaking havoc, as he is known to do. And he goes a little too far, starts killing some of Freddy's victims. And at that point, Freddy's had enough and decides he needs to take care of Jason. The whole movie culminates in a standoff with Freddy versus Jason, as you might have guessed if you've heard the title. And I think, you know, the high point of the movie, it's amazing. It's just a great fight between two epic villains. And, yeah, basically the movie closes and you finally find out who is the victor. Or do you? Do you? Is that what it's about?

I always thought it was about Blake and then it just kind of. Well, he just died early. I may have a theory for you then. So the first three kills in this film happen in a suburb of the town of Springwood. I believe that they were not committed by Jason, as the film would have us believe. I believe they were committed by the character Blake, who was actually a violent psychopath. And I think I can back this up with solid evidence. I like it. His sexually frustrated kid going on a rampage. He certainly was. I also believe the main character is named Lori. And there's sort of a subplot where maybe her father killed her mother. But later she finds out it was actually Freddy. I have a theory that it was actually her father. And her revelation that it was Freddy is just false. Her father actually killed her mother. And then my last theory that I'm going to prove today is that I believe I can definitively

prove to the world that Freddy was the winner of this fight. That's going to be a little divisive because I seem to remember an ending scene with Jason walking out of the lake carrying Freddy's head. Oh, oh, oh, no. My theory may be into a little trouble. At the beginning of this film, there's a kind of a weird sequence where Freddy somehow resurrects Jason. Not totally clear on how he did that. Yeah. One thing I want to say, though, is Jason is very slow. I believe he does not actually show up in Springwood. I think the first time we see Jason, it's about halfway through the movie. There's a scene that takes place in a cornfield. Some people say the best scene of the movie, where he kills a bunch of kids at a rave. I think that's the first time we see the real Jason, is like halfway through the film. Okay. Now, this film would have us believe that Jason just wanders into town, goes straight to Elm Street, and starts killing kids at a specific house.

But this is not the behavior that Jason has ever shown in any of his film. He tends to stay out of town. But he goes specifically to the very first house from the very first movie. 1428 Elm Street. The first Nightmare on Elm Street movie. Yes. It's pretty unlikely, right? I think Jason tends to kill people as he finds them. And I don't think he would have just wandered to this very specific house. Even if you could maybe say, oh, Freddy's controlling him somehow. But that's clearly not true. Because if he was controlling him, why would they fight later? Right. On Elm Street, some young ladies are having a girls' night. The characters are Lori, our main character. There's another one named Kia, who wants a nose job. And then there is Gib. She is played by the amazing Catherine Isabel, who is one of my favorite actors and who is, of course, famous for doing the film Ginger Snaps, which is probably my favorite movie

of all time. She's lovely. Katie. I had done a couple of shows with her before that, actually. Yeah, she's excellent. Nice. In this movie, she definitely has to die, though, because she's smoking and drinking and having sex. I know. Didn't she shower, too, or something like that? She's souring too, that's right. You can't shower in a horror movie. Yeah, you gotta kill somebody in a shower. Now, see, I actually personally wish that her character, Gib, was the main character because I think Lori is boring and Gib is like really interesting to me. Like she's always drinking and smoking. Anyway. That's the curse of most scripts. I mean, the front person is always pretty dull, right? Then there's always kind of the crazy revolves around them. It's either that or it's the opposite, like a Jim Carrey movie. So we're at this girl's night and all of a sudden, oh no, it gets crashed because Gibbs' boyfriend, Trey, shows up with his friend, Blake.

Oh yeah, that's right. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Right before that, you see Jason peeking in through the window and you're supposed to think it's him knocking at the door. So he's there. I mean, Jason's at the house, right? How are you going to get around that? We see him, but does anyone else see him? Like, Gibb throws a cigarette at his face, but, like, do we have any witness in the film itself who can prove that Jason was there? I mean, just the audience, I guess. Totally. David, how would you describe your character that you played? Well, I mean, I needed to do a lot of research. I took a Daniel Day-Lewis approach to it and worked on The Voice for an entire year before I actually even felt comfortable with it. I think I spent more on coaching than I even made on the film, but it was very important to me to get it right. How would I describe them? I mean, it's a Freddy versus Jason film.

You know, he's a dick and he's going to die. So you just kind of, I just kind of had to act like myself and it all kind of worked out well. I think that's why I actually booked the role, man. I mean, why did they cast me? I don't know. Maybe it's just the way I come across. Crotch, crab, and sleazebag, you know?

That's what we're led to believe, at least. Yeah. Oh, yes, of course. When Trey and Blake show up, I think it's important to note that Gib's boyfriend, Trey, is actually very abusive, and the movie makes a point to show this. He's a bad dude. You may not remember this, David, but when you enter the house, your character, he carries a flask with him everywhere. And you offer it to Gib, and she just pointedly ignores you. And even though she's dating a guy who is abusive, she is just avoiding you like the plague. So I think what it's trying to tell us is that he's even worse than Trey, who is an abusive man. Yes. Well, I think that was actually the inciting incident of the film. Because at that point, she sparks Blake into his murderous rage. I think you're right. That started it all. Wasn't there a thing about Feng Shui or something too? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I was deliberately mispronouncing that to sound like an idiot.

Yes. Yeah, well done. Trey tells Blake to sit down and relax. And I think maybe that's because Blake is not normally very relaxed. This guy's on the edge. I also want to say that Kia is being a terrible friend here to Lori. Yeah, I know. Like, Lori is clearly not interested in Blake at all. And Kia keeps saying, come on. And she's not even just implying that she's not interested. She says it. Like, she tells Kia, stop it. I'm not interested. Kia just keeps pushing her. Laurie tells Blake to go get them some drinks, to get them out of the room. Now, when we see Blake get the drinks, the back door is open and Blake sees that it's open. And I think this is important because the back door slams closed, like all on its own. Blake does not close the door. Maybe it was the wind. I don't know. But then when Kia and Laurie are kind of searching around the house with candles because the power went out,

Blake sort of jumps out of the shadows and kind of startles them. And he tells them that the sound they heard was the door closing. He says, I closed the door. Why is he lying to them? Like, we saw that door close. It closed by itself. He did not close that door. Oh, I never even thought of that. Wow. I wish I had known this stuff when I was actually playing the character. Because I would have done a few things differently. Maybe got more fan mail from it.

Yeah. I just also want to mention that when he, you know, like you said, jumps out at them, this is a jump scare. Like, it's actually, it's meant to be a jump scare. Clearly, you're supposed to think that Jason's about to jump out and kill them. But it's just Blake. But I mean, like you're saying, if Blake's the killer, maybe, you know, the killer did just jump out at them, just like you were supposed to believe. Right. Like, why did he lie about closing the door? I think it's because he had plans to leave the back door open to establish alibi that someone else might have been there. He was going to leave it open, then it slammed shut because of the wind making a loud noise. So everyone else heard. So he can't use that as an alibi anymore. So he had to explain it to them that he was, you know, in order to keep his alibi, oh, I was just over here closing the door, you know. I think that's why he said that.

Ah, and then if an in-swing door is going to slam shut from the wind, the wind has to be coming in from another source across the house. So maybe that was when Jason came in, even though Jason wasn't the killer as you're suggesting. Well, there is another window open. No, we're unraveling this. I can feel it. No, that's a good point. Now, we do know that there is another window open because Gibb throws her cigarette out the window earlier. And I think that's where the breeze comes from. But Jason is such a huge man, there's no way he could slip in through that window, which was in the living room where they were, without anyone noticing. Right. And apparently, because, you know, the very next scene is Gibb and Trey having sex, she leaves and he gets murdered. She leaves to take a shower and then Jason pops out of nowhere and starts killing Trey. How did Jason, this big hulk of a man, sneak upstairs and hide while they had sex to commit this murder?

There's nowhere for him to hide. And he can't sneak, he's Jason. Totally. And now I think it's important to note here that after the shot where we see Blake at the back door and it closes, we get a POV shot of someone silently sneaking upstairs. We don't see who that is because it's a POV. And I think that was actually Blake spying on his best friend having sex with Gibb. Well, that would make a lot more sense in universe because I don't think we've ever gotten like a shot of Jason sneaking ever in any movie. Jason doesn't sneak. Yeah, he's not a super sneaky guy. Anytime he's coming, you can hear that noise, you know, like he announces himself. Wow. Now, all this talk is actually teaching me about screenwriting. I hope nobody analyzes one of my films this much. I'm never going to be able to answer all the questions. No, I mean, we have fun deliberately doing a close reading of the film.

Oh, for sure. Now, so I think it's important to note, though, no character in the film actually sees Jason killing Trey. We as an audience see it. Gibbs sees the aftermath, but there are no eyewitnesses that can attest that Jason killed Trey. Now, when Jason enters, it's also important to note that both eyes are open when he kills Trey. Now, I don't know if you remember, but at the beginning of the film when Freddy resurrects Jason, only one of his eyes opened because, of course, Jason actually has a deformed face where his other eye has trouble opening. Why does Jason have two eyes open in this scene? It's a good question. I actually thought of that while watching this time and I was like, that's weird. Yeah, well, I think that's because it's not Jason. Okay, it's Blake. Either that or somebody should have told Ken, the big stuntman who was playing Jason, to keep one of his eyes closed.

Maybe, maybe. Either way, it's in the movie now, so it's canon. It happened in the in-universe, so there must be some in-universe explanation. But Leif, I want to ask you, so are you saying that Blake is dressing up as Jason to commit these murders? Yes, that is what I'm saying. So he snuck upstairs, changed, got out his machete and then murdered his best friend. Well, we know that this guy was stabbed, right? So he has to have some sort of stabbing implement. I don't know if he had a machete. I think he must have. I mean, why else would that two eyes thing be in there? Like, we always go into a film with the assumption that there were no mistakes, that everything in there is intentional. And so I think that's got to be telling us something. Or maybe it's like a beautiful mind where you're supposed to be seeing the things that he sees and maybe Blake sees himself as that. Oh, yeah. I gotcha.

He thinks of himself as like an avenging figure, as a Jason kind of figure trying to take vengeance on these sinful kids. Yeah, this is what I look like when I kill people to myself and you get to say this too. I think you're right. Yeah, because it doesn't really make sense that he had brought a costume with him. But yeah, I think that as we know, Jason is a well-known killer in this town at this point. And I think he kind of sees himself as a bit of a Jason. He's a well-known killer in universe because later the policeman is able to look him up and he's well-known. Like he's like, I think this is the Crystal Lake killer. So as we already mentioned, at the time of the murder, Gibb is showering. And in the beginning of Jason Goes to Hell, there is a SWAT team, like a literal SWAT team of bounty hunters who lures Jason into a trap and then explodes him with a bazooka. And how they lure him into that trap is by having a woman go into a shower and shower.

And if that was really Jason, he would have killed Gibb is what I'm saying. That's Jason's MO. If he snuck into the house and there was a woman showering, he couldn't resist. Absolutely. And especially with the kind of woman Gibb is. Like, she is his perfect victim, right? Like, I think this is honestly the best evidence for your theory because there's no way Jason would have passed up that kill. He just wouldn't have. Why in the world would Blake kill his best friend, Trey? Because I want his girlfriend. Oh, well, then that's why he didn't kill Gib. Yeah, that's right. Dude, that makes perfect sense. And why he was offering her his flask and she just kind of like looks away from him, ignores him when he comes in. Yeah, I got to get Trey out of the picture. If you're unfamiliar with this kill, what Jason, in quotes, does is he comes in, he stabs Trey in the bed, then he folds the bed in half around Trey

with his monumental strength, you know? Now, you could say, how did Blake do that, right? Blake, I don't think he was strong enough to fold a bed in half, right? But I will say that Gib is the only one who sees that scene of carnage. And so I think we're seeing it from her perspective and she has just imagined things to be much worse than they are. And I think that this is supported because when the police actually come to the house and they're walking downstairs, the police officer just says he was killed in bed. Now, if I saw someone who was literally folded in half, a bed that was just folded in half, I wouldn't be walking downstairs saying he was killed in bed. You know, that sounds like someone was just stabbed in bed. I would be like oh dude that bed was folded in half yeah the bed was the murder weapon so I'm saying I don't think the bed was actually folded in half that was just Gibb kind of uh exaggerating

in her mind because she was so freaked out about her boyfriend being dead I mean it's a pretty traumatizing scene for her to walk out to so and also when they run out of the house Lori is screaming Kia is screaming Gibb is screaming hysterically and what is Blake doing he's not screaming in fact he even stops to help up uh gib when she falls down he goes and he helps her get back on her feet like he's pretty calm about this whole thing he's trying to get her he's he's trying to win her heart i think i was just distracted because lachlan monroe was driving the cop car and i've you know he's so cool as an actor he was unforgiven and i've always been a big fan of his work and scary movie and stuff like that so i don't know i think i was more focused on him well But I mean, but Blake, Blake himself, yes, that he was just lining everything up to, you know, kill it. You know, you got to well, you got to you got to present that false front when you're a murderer.

Well, one more thing from the scene, like, why didn't anyone see Jason? He's a big guy. What did he jump out the window? Like, where did he go? You know, unless it was actually just Blake. Right. You know, and no one no one thought anything of that. He was already there. Right. Once again, Jason is not known for his subtlety. They go to the police station, they get kind of questioned by the police, whatever. But later on, Blake gets home and he seems to be dealing emotionally with the death of his best friend. He's on the porch drinking from his trusty flask. And when Blake's father comes out of the house, he looks a little bit nervous. I don't think he, well, he doesn't look like he's concerned for the mental well-being of his child. He comes out and has almost a stern but fearful look in his eye as he says, Blake, we have to talk. And I think this is because he knows about his son's homicidal tendencies and he suspects that Blake may have been the one who killed Trey.

Well, right. And I think actually this is supported by the fact that usually if you just witnessed like the murder of your best friend and your dad comes over to you and says, wow, we have to talk. You'd think it's like for counseling or like for comfort, but his dad just starts tearing into him. Like he's, Blake's dad just starts shouting, what the hell were you doing over there? You were supposed to be watching your sister. Were you drinking? And Blake has to stop him and say, my best friend was just killed, dad. Give me some space, right? Yeah, that was Brent. All this talk is making me miss all these actors that I used to work with. David, you have to, you have to do it. You have to write Freddy vs. Jason 2 so you can star in it. It can be Blake's revival. Yeah, I'm surprised they haven't actually done that yet because it seemed like they set it up for a sequel. They did. Well, they tried to get it off the ground

because like we said, Freddy vs. Jason did make money, but for some reason it just never materialized. They never got to do a sequel. And also, unfortunately, Robert Englund has officially retired from the Freddy make-up. He's hilarious. He's so much fun. He's just such a fun guy. I had that scene in the street where he tries to kill me. We had a day on set together that way. And of course, we're driving back and forth to the location in the van and whatnot. And he's cracking jokes about the goat. I think it was a goat, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It was totally trippy. He'd be sitting in the back of this van and Robert Englund is, you know, sitting in the front seat and he turns around and he's talking to us and it's fricking Freddy, you know? And it's like the Freddy that I've seen in shows before. It's the actual guy and the actual face and everything. So to see Freddy Krueger turn around in the seat and scene and start talking about a goat, you're like, oh.

It was pretty surreal. Literally the end of A Nightmare on Elm Street 1. They start driving away and the driver turns around and it's Freddy. It's Freddy. Oh, wow, yeah. That's hilarious. I had that exact experience. Because you were dreaming? Now, didn't Nightmare on Elm Street 1 have like Johnny Depp and Jennifer Aniston in it? Just Johnny Depp. Jennifer Aniston was in Leprechaun. Johnny Depp was in the first Nightmare on Elm Street. And he was in the Rachel Talalay one, which was Freddy's Dead. He briefly shows up in that one, which is actually crazy. When Wes Craven directed New Nightmare, it was another Freddy Krueger film. It takes place like in the real world. Like, Freddy is coming out into the real world and harassing, like, the real world actors who played those characters. Oh, wow. And he wanted to get Johnny Depp, but he, because Johnny Depp was a bigger star at that point, he was too afraid to ask.

Oh, wow, that's too bad. And then later on, he ran into Johnny Depp and told him about that. And Johnny was just like, oh, yeah, man, you should have asked. I would have done it. Yeah, it sounds like, it seems like Johnny would be the guy who would do something like that. He does, likes to do cameos, 21 Jump Street and all that kind of stuff. So back to the scene. Blake's dad is chewing him out. When he's done chewing him out, he starts to walk away, then looks back and angrily says, you watch yourself, boy, which is like, wow. I mean, why would you say that to your son? That's what caused him to pass out because it was at that moment he told me to watch myself and then that's when I passed out and was able to encounter Freddie in the middle of the street because when your dad's reaming you out, most people just faint. Yep. I know I do. That's a pretty normal reaction in his consciousness.

Yeah. No, I mean, you do bring up a good point. Like at this point in the film, it's unclear exactly when Blake falls asleep and sees Freddy, right? He's just sitting on the porch. He's talking to himself. He's saying, I'm going to get him for you, Trey. Cop let it slip. It was somebody named Freddy. I'm going to take him out myself, Trey. Oh, yeah. That was a hard line to deliver. kind of worked on that one for a while well see that's that's something i kind of wanted to talk about it's like so he's talking to himself now you could say that this is just you know you did an amazing job david but this could just be the writers being lazy and giving like exposition like why is he telling himself stuff he already knows or you could say this is the writers being genius and telling us this guy's crazy like why else would he be talking to himself and and and telling us these these things you know yeah i think it's very fight clubby uh i think

I think he's definitely talking to himself. I think the writers are definitely genius. Yep. Of course, of course. I also think it's important. He clearly has no hesitation about wanting to kill the guy who killed Trey. Like a normal person might be like, I want that person brought to justice. But Blake is very quick to being like jumping to violence, like saying, I'm going to take him out. But according to your theory, he himself is the guy who killed Trey. Exactly. What's he talking about here? Is he going to kill himself? Exactly. I have a question for you with your theory. I mean, what's with the goat? Yeah. I was going to ask the same thing. That's got to be symbolic for something. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. What's with the goat? So, yeah, yeah. Blake has like what can only be termed as a straight up hallucination while he's sitting on the porch. I don't think there's any logical reason why he would just fall asleep.

He's angry. He's full of adrenaline. You know, that's not really the time when you would fall asleep on the porch. He's also making plans to kill the guy who murdered his best friend. Then a goat shows up and then he walks out in the street and Freddy is there. I think the goat could represent, let me see. He was just talking to his father and there's like maybe a biblical, like a sacrificial thing going on there. Like if you kill a goat, you're absolving yourself of your sins. And I think he's kind of starting to realize maybe, because he's kind of, like you said, it's a fight club situation. He doesn't exactly know that he's the killer. He sort of goes into a dissociative state. And I think he's starting to realize his sins. And the goat represents sort of an absolution of those sins. Yeah, or an absolution of himself. Well, one other thing that I thought of when I was watching it is like, you know, you mentioned this might be something biblical, right?

Well, how is the devil usually portrayed? Goat hooves, goat legs, goat horns, right? You know, there's something devilish about a goat. So maybe he's seeing, this is his dream. He's seeing the devil in his own head and he's about to meet a literal devil in his own head when he goes and sees Freddy, right? So maybe there's something to do with that. I don't know. He walks out into the street and then Freddy shows up right in front of him. And I also think it's fun. Robert England in the commentary says this is actually his favorite shot in the whole movie is the shot of him standing. Well, I wanted to ask you. I was memorable to Robert Englund. The scene he had with me is the most memorable film moment he had. I like it. He specifically in the commentary talked about the effect where he had to stand there in front of you and then his shadow extends over to you and then pops up and slashes at you.

And then I had a bad dub there too, where I was running off the street. I'm okay. I'm okay. I mean, I was never a liar in the script. They just had me add that. And it really sounds like I'm saying that out of nowhere with a different voice. It doesn't blend entirely all that well, but hey. It was a very good scene, though. I love that scene. Yeah, that was a fun scene. Freddie's about to kill Blake, but then he slashes right through you and you're okay. I do like that I had a memorable death. That was pretty fun. So Blake wakes up on the porch. Clearly, he has lost some time here. And his dad is sitting next to him. You don't see any cut on his dad's neck. But then his dad's head falls off. And I believe that this part is still part of Blake's hallucination, because Blake then catches his dad's head. And I think that's when he's truly waking up. I think that he chopped off his own dad's head because he's psychotic and his dad was just yelling at him. And when he comes out of his dissociative state, he's holding his dad's head that he just chopped off. David, what was it like holding a severed head?

they did a good job on that thing I mean we were at that at that point we weren't on location anymore we were in a studio and they kind of you know recreated the porch in a studio and that's you know a place to spray all the blood and everything and and I just you know was sitting there on this stage and they put the thing on his head and then I think they had like a little piece of fishing line attached to it or something they just pulled it off into my lap and and and then shot blood everywhere it was uh I was gonna ask you so that entire thing was the with Blake's dad's head falling off that was completely practical because it looked great yeah yeah they actually pulled a head off a dummy that's amazing it's kind of funny because i'm there i'm holding brent's head and i was like well they did a really good job uh recreating it's real good his head every actor is always trying to get that head at the end right like uh one of my buddy torrence he has the head

uh his head was uh chopped off in the tutors and then he got to keep the head so uh that was pretty cool. Dude, you could fake your own death. Until they start to examine the head. So after this point, when he's holding his father's severed head, that's when Jason shows up and swings his machete and slashes at him. And Blake kind of holds up the head almost as a shield. But then we just see a lot of blood in the scene cuts. I actually believe that Blake does exactly what he said he was going to do moments before i think he takes out the guy who killed trey i.e he kills himself yes it's fight club this is actually supported very much by the movie itself the next day at school the three young ladies are talking and i believe it's kia she says the police are blaming everything on blake like it's some kind of columbine thing or something they're saying he went crazy killed trey killed his dad and then took his own life so there it is i mean like

confirmation from the police right like that's what they like and another interesting thing is there's another point at which the police say he was stabbed to death now what we see is someone slashing with a machete that's not a stabbing motion so no matter what happened to Blake it's different than what we saw and so I think that's evidence to support that Blake did actually kill himself the police actually were doing their job Jason never showed up in Springwood why would he do that. That's not his MO. No, I agree. It was 100% Blake. You've convinced me. So then after that, when Jason shows up, this is the real Jason that we see at the rave in the field. It just took him a long time to walk there. Is that right? Yeah, that's what I see. And a cornfield is much more Jason's MO. I buy that he showed up in a cornfield because he's always showing up at lakes and, you know, out-of-town, woodsy kind of places.

Cornfield, I think, fits pretty well. And the one time we saw him in, I forget which one it was, the seventh Jason film, Jason Takes Manhattan. Like, he shows up in Manhattan and he runs amok. Like, he kills a lot of different people, you know? So I think if he showed up in Springwood, it would have been a little more like Jason Takes Manhattan. But it wasn't. Only three people died, and they were three people who were connected, right? Like, Jason doesn't hunt down, like, why would he have gone to Blake's house to kill Blake? That doesn't make any sense. Blake presumably didn't live right next to Laurie. No, it makes a lot more sense for him to show up in the cornfield and, like you said, run amok, which he does. Yeah. He goes crazy, kills a lot of teens. That's actually starting to make a lot more sense because Jason's whole thing is kind of his Frankenstein-ness, right? Like, he's this huge thing that tromps along and, you know, chases people really, really slowly.

We don't actually see him walk until the cornfield. All we see is his face in the beginning. And then all of a sudden you see him stabbing Trey into bed. And then you don't even see him really, you know, with the Blake dad scene. You only see him start walking, which is his thing, in the cornfield. You got it. Walking around on fire. That's such a good scene, I just got to say. Him walking through that cornfield, just trailing fire behind him. And the overhead shot they got of it with the teen cowering before him. In my opinion, it's the best Jason scene in any movie. Like, it's amazing. He goes crazy. What's interesting, though, is that when he shows up, this kid splashes alcohol on him, then sets him on fire. But then what eventually puts Jason out when he's on fire is he gets splashed with more alcohol. it must have been a lower, lower proof than the other stuff. This is also where we get Catherine and Isabel's death scene. And I think it's one of the best

scenes in the film because you're, you're kind of on the edge of your seat. One thing that people don't realize a lot of time about slashers is it's not about the kills themselves. That's not what makes a slasher interesting it's about the struggle for life like the you're on the edge of your seat thinking maybe this person will get away yeah it's the lead up katherine isabel scene is great because she she falls asleep she goes to the dream boiler room then she hides in a locker you're like maybe she's going to escape maybe and then there's a good reversal where jason kills her right before freddie can which i think is fun no it's a good scene all around because it really showcases both freddy and jason at the same time jason's doing what he does best just slaughtering teens in a cornfield well freddy's doing what he does best hunting down a girl in her dream in some kind of boiler room right is really good and i love that they pulled that at the end to cheat

freddy out of his kill which makes you mad as the audience because you wanted to see freddy kill her and then freddy gets mad and then you're like yeah go hunt down jason go get him freddy yeah The most memorable thing of the movie, I think, wasn't it Kia had her back against a tree or something and she was telling Freddie that he has no power if she's not afraid of him and all that kind of stuff and then he just wastes her? In the first Freddie movie, this is kind of how you sort of defeat Freddie, is you tell him that he has no power because you're not afraid of him. And then as she's saying that to Freddie, Jason just shows up and stabs her. Oh, it was Jason who stabbed her. That was hilarious. I mean, she was lovely to work with, and we're hanging out off set, and my girlfriend, who's now my wife, was chatting with her, and they were chatting about, you know, whatever, those long shots and long breaks on set.

And then she said, oh, I'm in a band, and Brandy said to her, she goes, oh, yeah, you're in a band? Like, anything I'd know? She goes, well, it's Destiny's Child. And we were all like, oh, I didn't, we're working with a girl from Destiny's Child. I didn't even know that until, like, halfway through the shoot. I didn't know that either. Yeah. After the cornfield is when they kind of introduce the two boys in the insane asylum. Will and Mark. They eventually decide to go to Weston Hills, which is an insane asylum. This is actually a continuation of the previous film, which was done in like 1991, I think, directed by Rachel Talalay, called Freddy's Dead. And in that movie, they go to Springwood and there are no kids like they have gotten rid of all the kids and the people in town are like actually insane like there's a teacher who is teaching a class full of empty seats because there are no kids oh no well in that case i mean this town actually recovered pretty well from

from that yeah so what this movie suggests and it's actually kind of interesting because just watching freddy versus jason you wouldn't really know this but it suggests that what happened was they took all the kids who remembered freddy they committed them all to an insane asylum and then the remaining kids who didn't remember freddy were given well all of them were given hypnosil which is a drug that makes it so you can't dream and so that's how they managed to get rid of freddy is that everyone who remembered him is now at an insane asylum and they can't talk about him anymore and the remaining kids don't remember him and no one dreams anymore okay laurie's father his name is dr campbell he works at weston hills so will the character will was sent to an insane asylum because he saw laurie's father killing her mother we later on find out that dr campbell is psychotic enough that he is inducing this untested medication hypnosil

into 11 people and he's put them into permanent comas so dr campbell is he's psychotic he's crazy so later on laurie has this weird like dream where she's like oh freddie is actually the one who killed my mom that doesn't make any sense because will said he climbed up to her window he looked in and he saw her dad killing her mom if right will was not dreaming then that actually happened you know right no he the way he describes it and the way we see it in the flashback is that he climbs up to a window and her dad's just stalking around the house with a big old knife and then he goes up to the mom and is gonna kill her and uh yeah like you said if if that's what happened then it definitely wasn't freddie right and then at the part of the film where laurie actually tells will this she's like he killed my mother will it was freddie my dad covered it up to protect me he didn't do it doesn't make any sense well also during that

scene you get a reaction shot from will and he's just kind of looking at her confused and then he says nothing well and it just doesn't make any sense at all because he covered it up by saying it's a car crash so why would he have gone and stalked around the house with a knife in front of her boyfriend how would that help cover it up darn it i remember none of this it's actually not that important to the film no it's not important at all yeah all i remember is uh you know it was a sag contract so they were flying me up first class well the first flight i was sitting next to hallie berry she was coming up for uh x-men dang so we got to kind of you know shoot the breeze about a few things and it was kind of fun wow that's pretty cool so they go to weston hills and i just want to talk briefly about what i think is the turning point of this movie from where it goes to being like a really good

movie. So there's this stoner kid. Where'd they pick him up? Because he wasn't one of their friends or anything. They've just picked him up randomly at the cornfield. And he actually has one of the best lines in the movie because when they leave the cornfield he says, man, that goalie was pissed. Referring to Jason. Oh yeah, yeah. I think that was a good line. That's Tyler Labine's little brother. Kyle Labine. Kyle Labine. There you go. His character was named Bill. In my opinion, Kyle also has the best death in the entire movie because uh so he he gets high he starts hallucinating he sees this ridiculously ugly freddy caterpillar thing and then uh he follows it into the room with the coma patients and they all start whispering to him with bleeding eyes telling him to dump all the hypnosil in the sink and he's really calm about this he's just like what i can't do that we need the hypnosil. I'm like, dude, you're handling this very well. So, it's at this point

that the Freddy Caterpillar jumps into Bill's mouth and possesses him. And from that point on, he is Bill Freddy. He's being possessed by Freddy Krueger. And he dumps all the hypnosil. He fills up two giant syringes with a tranquilizer. And then he goes to face down with Jason as everyone else is fleeing for their lives i just love they run past him they're all like bill bill come on let's go because they don't know he's possessed and bill just turns to them and he says let me handle this bitch and i love that line it's so good he's so freaking cool and then jason walks up to him and he just slams the two tranquilizers into jason's neck as jason chops him in half i think bill got the best death he he got possessed by freddie he got to take out jason and he got chopped in half what a good death i just love that scene i think that's the like one of the most epic things that freddie does in the whole movie is so good just his because

like freddie can't do anything in the real world right but how he manages to still fight jason despite the fact that he can't do anything in the real world he manages to not only fight jason but also to stop the kids from using the one thing that would have completely incapacitated him the hypnosil he dumps it all like this major plot point that would have defeated him completely is no longer in the movie because he gets rid of all of it just like that he dumps all the hypnosil yeah so yeah way to go freddie why doesn't he just find some new kids to kill i mean that aren't on hypnosil yeah it's it's actually not very well defined but freddie doesn't seem to be able to kill kids who don't live in springwood and well freddie is uh injecting jason with tranquilizer he says these are my children jason so maybe he's just very possessive and maybe he can't kill people outside of springwood this is uh the point in the movie that i think the movie

gets like i said really amazing like it's got that epic moment where freddie possesses bill to inject jason with tranquilizer and knock him unconscious that's when freddie gets into jason's dreams because now Jason is unconscious. Do you have anything to say about that dream fight, Torvald? Oh, I mean, just that it was really good. You get to see Freddy in his element, you know, using all of his power to just beat down Jason, like completely just mop the floor with him. He curb stomps Jason. Jason doesn't stand a chance in his dreams, of course, because it's Freddy. He's the master of dreams, right? And at the same time as Freddy's doing this in jason's dreams um the teens decide to drive unconscious jason out to camp crystal lake because they think that if he's there not only will he maybe be more powerful and able to beat freddie but also that he'll stay there and he won't come back to kill them if they leave him

there we're getting close to the end uh so this is where i'm going to start trying to prove that that you know freddie is the true winner here so they get to camp crystal lake jason wakes up and that's when we get some of the best scenes in the whole movie of freddie and jason actually fighting in the house that's on fire which is really good they fight in the burning house jason uh pushes freddy's head through all the windows every single window in the house they they go out of the house and freddy strikes back with like a giant swinging thing i don't know what it is like it is just a big swinging piece of metal that he keeps swinging at jason um he He rains rebar down on Jason, which is a really good scene. It impales him and impales the ground around him. There's so many good, man, the fight scene between Freddy and Jason is just top notch. I love the reversal when Freddy, he's getting chopped up by Jason as, you know, on the pier as they go further and further towards the lake.

But then Freddy chops Jason's fingers off. So now Jason can't hold his machete anymore. Freddy takes it and starts chopping up Jason. But then Jason, he rips off Freddy's claw arm and starts chopping up Freddy with his own claw. So they're each using the other one's weapon. It's just so good, man. What a great versus. Like I just, I can't gush enough about how great the scene is. But when they switch weapons, that's just so great. So in the lore of Nightmare on Elm Street, anything you are holding on to while dreaming, you will have when you wake up. And so what they do in the first movie and in this movie is they hug Freddie and then they wake up and now he's in the real world where he's not all powerful and he's not invincible. Freddie, when he's in the real world, can be hurt by anything. Like he's basically just a normal human with maybe some slightly heightened strength. I don't know.

Yeah, and a messed up face. If you look at these two actors together, like Ken Kersinger's 6'5", Robert Englund is, I don't know, 5'10 or something? Yeah, he's towering over Freddy. Right. Like, Jason should actually be winning in this fight a lot more than he does. Like, he does win more than we've seen him previously, but, like, he's actually still getting beaten up a lot. So at one point toward the end of this fight, a bunch of propane tanks explode. And I believe that all four surviving characters are knocked unconscious. That means Freddy, Jason, Will, and Laurie are all knocked unconscious at this point. Now, the movie would have us believe they're all just blasted into the lake and they're kind of floating there or whatever. But I think all of them are unconscious. And when Freddy is close to someone who is unconscious, he can go back into the dream world. That's true. You're right.

I think that at this point, we are now in the dream world for the rest of the film. And Freddy doesn't actually know that he's in the dream world, which is why he's not doing anything, like, super weird, you know? And also, we know that Freddy, even though he's all-powerful in the dream world, he's not omniscient. Like, people can hide from him and stuff like that. So he doesn't know everything. Right. I do think that it makes sense this is a dream because Laurie chops off Freddy's head. Now, that would take a lot of strength, and I just don't know that Laurie had that much upper body strength to chop off a man's head. And so, at the very end of the movie, a lot of people, Jason fans, which I like Jason, I love Jason, I'm clearly more of a Freddy fan, though. A lot of people argue that at the end of the film, because Jason walks out of the lake holding Freddy's severed head, and a lot of people will say that's why Jason won.

but then freddy's severed head looks at the camera and winks now it is not possible for freddy to do anything supernatural in the real world so if he can wink with a severed head that means we are in the dream world which means he is the winner because he's all powerful there right he can do whatever he wants now and that actually makes a lot of sense because i never thought about the fact that yeah they all get knocked out in an explosion and as soon as they're knocked out Freddie becomes basically, like you said, a god. He becomes all-powerful. So, yeah, he's clearly the winner. Yeah, you proved that one. One really weird thing, though, is it seems like Laurie really seems to have it out for Freddie with a vengeance because she believes he killed her mother, which, as I've proven, he did not. But she is kind of overly friendly toward Jason, and she's not particularly mad at him, even though he has killed not one, not two, but five of her friends.

He killed Trey. He killed Blake. He killed Gibb. He killed Kia. No, no, Blake killed Trey. Blake killed Blake. All right, all right. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, no, you're right. I'm messing up my own theory. Sorry. He did not kill Trey or Blake. He was doing her a favor because they were all bugging her and telling her to screw this guy and drink that and whatever and lighten up and, you know. It just seems a little odd that Laurie doesn't care that Jason has killed Gibb. He's killed Kia. He's killed that like nerdy friend they had. He killed Bill, the stoner kid. I don't think Freddy kills a single person in this whole movie. He kills Mark. Oh, yeah. Okay. So that's the one. Yeah, he kills Mark in the tub scene. And all the other kills go to Blake. Yeah, that's true. Blake killed three, four people. No, three people. If we're going in terms of kill count and we're ranking it that way, then Jason is the winner.

Second place is Blake. Third place is Freddy. There you go. I'll take it. One last thing before we end. We're getting close to the end here. At the end of the commentary, the director, Ronnie Yu, says, you can interpret it in any way you want. And I think that this confirms all of my theories. All right. There you go. I mean, I think I can buy all of your theories, but only if the great David Kopp can also confirm these theories. What do you think, David? Yes. I completely back up Leif in anything that he says or does. he's my buddy he's my fellow so um i'm on board with him well that's enough proof for me there you go you've done it you you've proven that blake was the real killer freddie actually didn't kill laurie's mom it was her dad and that freddie won that's enough that's you've done it it couldn't be clearer thank you so much for joining us uh david cop oh thank you for having me theory it

was great to have you. This has been amazing. And I loved hearing your side of how things went while filming Freddy versus Jason. I just I just have to ask, did you have any interesting interactions or stories? We heard about Robert Englund when you were driving with him. But what about Ken Kierzinger? Did you get to hang out with him at all during this? Yeah, I mean, I think it was on the house stuff. He was sitting out by the monitors and you go up and you say hi and have a chat. And he's just this really soft-spoken, nice guy. And, you know, that's, that's, it's just a totally different world when the camera's not rolling, right? It's a bunch of people who are collaborating and working together and, and, and having a good time. So he was great. Robert was great. Ronnie was great. Everything was a lot of fun. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences. Oh, absolutely. Anytime. Would you want to play us out?

Sure. And listeners, remember that popcorn isn't real.