Slash of the Titans is the story of one film, two horror icons, and an army of screenwriters.
We broke the news last year that Phantasm: Exhumed scribe Dustin McNeill was working on a book chronicling the long and troubled process to bring Freddy vs. Jason to the screen, and today we bring along with us the update that it’s available to purchase. Titled Slash of the Titans: The Road to Freddy vs. Jason, the 248-page book from Harker Press was just released this past Monday, and it primarily explores ten wildly different directions considered for Freddy vs. Jason during its ten years in pre-production, with comments from many of the people involved.
If you’re a fan of Freddy vs. Jason, the book is needless to say a must-read, and we wanted to provide a little sneak peek for you today. We reached out to McNeill asking if he could provide us with some exclusive insight into the various unmade Freddy vs. Jason films he’s spent so much time researching, and he came up with a fun article idea that we instantly fell in love with.
McNeill explained to me that the various scripts written in the years between 1993 and 2003 contained some kill scenes so bonkers that he questioned the sanity of the writers he interviewed, so he put together a nice little list for us of the craziest of the crazy. According to McNeill, who knows this project better than anybody, these are the five craziest kills we never got to see.
Take it away, Dustin!
5. The Five Hundred Psycho Nightmare – Freddy vs Jason ‘96
In this draft, Freddy needs to harness a massive amount of dream power to enact an evil plan. To make that happen, a Freddy-obsessed cult secretly doses the population of a State Hospital for the Criminally Insane with a potent dream drug. As the medication takes effect, all five hundred inmates begin “twitching, moaning, tearing their hair out in huge clumps.” They then start to literally rip open their own heads as if to let something out. After several minutes of this, something does slither out from their horribly mangled craniums – five hundred dream demons like those first seen in Freddy’s Dead.
4. Nice Tattoos – Freddy vs Jason ‘94
In this draft’s final act, Freddy crosses over into reality and spends some time browsing the Elm Street Shopping Mall before turning it into one giant nightmare. Here an obnoxious group of punks decide to pick on the dream slasher. “Nice sweater!” Freddy turns to notice the lead punk’s tattoos, which depict snakes and tarantulas. “Nice tattoos.” With this, the images come alive and begin to attack the teen. “All of the tattoos on his body begin to writhe and move. We can see the outline of snakes slithering under his skin.The youth screams in agony and drops to his knees.”
3. Punting the Decapitated – Freddy vs Jason ‘98
A group of misbehaving teens travel to a shuttered Camp Crystal Lake. They spend the weekend pranking one another dressed as Freddy and Jason. It’s all fun and games until the real Jason Voorhees encounters the imposter Freddy. The hockey-masked titan quickly decapitates the startled cosplayer. Inspecting his kill, the teen’s head slips out of the Freddy mask and plops onto the ground. “Jason cocks his head to the side, confused.” Realizing the deception, he then lets out of “blood-curdling roar” and kicks the severed head far into the woods.
2. Beware the Jason Wedgie – Freddy vs Jason ‘93
A homicidal state trooper is about to kill the heroine when Jason steps in, lifting the bad cop up by his briefs in what the script calls a “Jason-wedgie.” Hoisting him off the floor, the slasher grabs the trooper’s shotgun and “jams it up his ass — right through the seat of his pants.” It’s shoved so far that the muzzle slams into the roof of his mouth. With this, Jason cocks the shotgun and BOOM. The trooper’s head and shoulders explode from his torso, leaving a broken spine sticking up out of his shirt.
1. The Anti-Drug Kills – Freddy vs Jason ’00
In this draft, Jason bursts into a hotel room where a drug dealing couple are hiding out with their newborn child. Furious at the obviously wasted mother, Jason slashes her “from sternum to crotch” before placing the baby inside the mother’s body. “Like he wanted to put it back,” as one character later notes. The also wasted father doesn’t fare much better. Jason uses his machete to slice off his arms and legs “like a golfer teeing off.” The titan next pours an entire bag of drugs down the man’s slashed-open throat.
From the author of Phantasm Exhumed comes SLASH OF THE TITANS, a revealing look at why it took New Line Cinema nearly ten years and four-million-dollars to find the right screenplay for Freddy vs Jason. Featuring new interviews with the original writers and filmmakers, SLASH details the production’s troubled history from the surprise ending of Jason Goes to Hell all the way to the crossover’s red carpet premiere. Read about the many rejected storylines and learn how the project was eventually able to escape from development hell. This is the story of one film, two horror icons and seventeen screenwriters!
SLASH OF THE TITANS includes:
- Comprehensive looks at ten different versions of the screenplay
- Info on early crossover attempts by Friday the 13th filmmakers
- Exclusive details on the never made Freddy vs Jason: Hell Unbound video game
- Insights from producers, executives and developers including Sean Cunningham
- An examination of why the Shannon/Swift script was finally greenlit
- Summaries of the four endings considered for the 2003 film
- Coverage of the never made Freddy vs Jason vs Ash sequel
- New comments from the titans themselves – Robert Englund and Ken Kirzinger
- Appendices full of story details including the outcomes of all ten versions
