Why, yes, this is my reward for getting through Halloween: Resurrection. How ever did you guess?
I've saved the best for last on this one. Two titans of the slasher film genre, two iconic faces without a voice and with a ridiculously high body count between them. Sadly, due to rights issues, the two have never met and probably never will onscreen outside of fan films. But, thanks to my lovely series that definitely did not have it's entire premise ripped off from the Marvel Comics, I can set right what once went wrong and hope the next leap will bring an even higher body count.
. . .Quantum Leap was about Scott Bakula possessing serial killers across time and space, right?
. . .anyway, let's set up where our continuity lies, seeing as both the franchise have a bit of a "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to what's considered canon...Halloween admittedly more than Friday the 13th, although we've yet to see Michael follow Jason into space. Giving you a freebie there, Blumhouse!
For this What If, we're going with Halloween: Resurrection being the final film of the Halloween chronology - meaning that Halloween (1978), Halloween II (1981), Halloween H20 (1998) and Resurrection (2002) are the only ones in continuity.
For Friday, it's actually a lot more straightforward. The last film is Freddy vs. Jason (2003). So, everything is canon besides Jason X, since that can't have happened yet.
So, where do we begin? From where Resurrection ended. Michael's eyes snap open in the morgue after being kung fu'd and then burned alive in the Myers House. The medical examiner ends up getting stabbed with a scalpel and Michael slams the head of the one cop on duty against the door of one of the body lockers before leaving. Outside, a patrol call that gets called to the disturbance actually runs Michael down...and he proceeds to get up and kill both of the officers before stealing their patrol car.
Michael Body Count: 4
Yeah, I'm keeping score for this one. Since this film is essentially Michael vs. Jason, we might as well keep score.
After this, we get a short recap of the events of Freddy vs. Jason, Jason coming out of the lake with the head of Freddy Krueger. Some time later, a trio of hikers go traveling through Crystal Lake. In short order, Jason dispatches them all. One by impalement in a tree, one by impaling him on his own machete, and the third twisting his head three hundred and sixty degrees. The Wessex County Police Department get involved, the unsettling certainty that Jason has returned gripping him.
Jason Body Count: 3
A year after Freddy vs. Jason and two years after Resurrection (putting this in 2004), a blizzard has hit the Crystal Lake area hard. This hasn't stopped Adam Christie, distant cousin of Steve Christie from the original Friday the 13th, from trying to reopen Camp Crystal Lake. He has hired a handful of teenagers to assist him in repairing the old campgrounds and getting them ready for the upcoming summer. The teens are Johnny, Sara, Barry, Tina, Derek, Samantha, and Andrew.
As they first arrive and start to unpack, we're confronted with a figure we are supposed to believe is Jason, though he is never seen clearly by us and not seen at all by those he is stalking.
A snowstorm cuts the town of Crystal Lake off for the time being, making their job difficult and making them miserable. Luckily, boyfriend and girlfriend Derek and Samantha's decision to get amorous gets them out of the situation quickly. Namely because Jason finds them and kills both of them (Derek by bisection and Samantha by a hot poker to the face).
Jason Body Count: 5
We get some short scenes of cast interaction, learning a little bit about our victims to be in a way that early Friday the 13th films did well and seemed to forget about as they went on. Barry holds a torch for Sara, but won't say anything. Tina writes poetry and is really good at it and is a little embarrassed about it. Andrew is a bookish type with a penchant for bad jokes. And so on.
The next day, Paul heads back into town with Adam to get supplies. They learn that the town snow plow was sabotaged last night, meaning that the town isn't shoveling the way out any time soon. Paul gets the "see Michael in the mirror" jump scare, but otherwise nothing happens. As they leave, they miss a not at all conspicuous car left in the parking lot of the mechanic's shop. A car with an Illinois license plate.
Back at the camp, Barry tries to strike up a conversation with Sara but fails to get anywhere meaningful before she leaves the awkward situation. Andrew feels bad for him, consoling his friend and offering to help him out with his girl troubles. Think of him as a less douchebag-ish version of Teddy from The Final Chapter.
Tina heads out to get firewood after the power goes out. She meets Jason, who puts an axe into her back before crushing her skull with a stop.
Jason Body Count: 6
Paul and Adam return to the camp and find some of the others huddled together for warmth due to the power being out. When Adam goes to check the wiring, he finds himself at the mercy of Michael Myers, who puts a knife through his gut several times, leaving blood splatter all over the fuse box and the accompanying wall.
Michael Body Count: 5
When Adam doesn't come back, Paul, Barry, Sara, and Andrew are left confused. Then Jason makes himself known by throwing Tina's mangled body through the window. Terrified, the group attempts to flee - Barry going first and getting run through with the machete, dying right there on the floor.
Jason Body Count: 7
The remaining three people make a break for it, each going off in a different direction from the cabin. Paul makes his way out, not realizing he is heading right out toward the frozen over Crystal Lake. He loses his footing and begins sliding, colliding right into the form of Michael Myers, who he recognizes from the jump scare back in town. However, when Michael attempts to kill him off while he's prone, there is suddenly the loud ringing of a shotgun as Michael crumbles to the ice. It cracks under his weight, pulling him under the water as Paul scoots back right into...
John Tate from Halloween H20, having been the figure stalking around the camp earlier. He helps Paul to his feet and tells him to move - Michael isn't down for the count. The two make it back to John's truck and drive off quickly. At the lake, Michael's hand reaches up through the freezing water to grasp the edge of the hole.
Meanwhile, Sara finds her way to a bunch of old cabins and plays hide and seek with Jason. When it seems she's about to be killed by him, she manages to fend him off with a fire extinguisher and escape, although Jason remains in hot pursuit.
Andrew, meanwhile, gets to the boat house and finds a waterlogged Michael sitting next to a fire. Unaware of who he and not able to see his face, he approaches asking if Michael needs help. Grabbing him, Michael forces his head into the flames. He screams as he's burned to death, Michael eventually leaving his lifeless body in the burn barrel...
Michael Body Count: 6
Sara gets picked up by John and Paul, John explaining his backstory. After H20, he stayed on the move and in hiding to avoid Michael's notice. In his traveling, he looked into his family records and discovered he had family in the Crystal Lake area. Specifically, a woman named Pamela was his grandfather's sister...and she married a man with the last name of Voorhees.
This means that John Tate, Laurie Strode, and Michael Myers are all cousins to none other than Jason Voorhees.
Yeah, I'm going there.
Elsewhere, Jason tends to a pair of parkour enthusiasts who have decided to fuck around and find out.
Jason Body Count: 9
John gets Paul and Sara up to speed on Halloween lore, explaining who Michael is and why he does what he does. He also speaks about learning of the Voorhees dagger from Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday, and his knowledge that Jason was indeed slain by it in the hand of someone from his bloodline and he believes he can finally do so with Michael. To do this, however, they have to leave the camp behind and head into town - specifically to the still-standing Voorhees House, the last location that the dagger was known to be in.
It is here, at last, that we finally have Michael and Jason meet onscreen as Paul gets killed by Michael...
Michael Body Count: 7
With the scoreboard tied up, the two titans of terror finally go at it while John and Sara scramble to find the dagger. Eventually they find it buried in the sand outside the house where it was last used on Jason. True to the stories about it, as soon as it comes into John's hand, it morphs into the near short sword of a weapon that once sent Jason to Hell. With it, he's determined to send both Michael and Jason back into Hell forever this time.
That's when Jason and Michael make themselves known, crashing down from an upper window and into the front yard. John tries to ram the blade into Michael's chest first, but Jason grabs him and tosses him away after stabbing him in the stomach with his machete. The dagger falls to the ground and returns to normal, becoming its bladed form once more when Jason picks it up. Needless to say, Jason looks more than confused at the weapon and that gives Michael the advantage to strike and knock it out of his grip. The two get back to fighting and John, mortally wounded, tells Sara that one of them has to get the dagger. Jason has to get the dagger and kill Michael.
Then, John dies from his wounds.
Michael picks up the dagger only seconds later, it too turning into the short sword. With a better grasp of his mental faculties, Michael attacks Jason with it. Jason, wary of the thing after the last time he was run through with it, manages to block him off. It is at this point that the Wessex County Police Department arrives, with now-Sheriff Rick from Jason Lives leading the pack. While Sara tries to explain things, Rick has her shoved into a car while he and his deputies open fire on the two killers. Jason and Michael are eventually both overwhelmed and their deaths are called.
Sara is brought to the police station, where she insists that neither killer is dead and that they need to get that dagger so that Jason can kill Michael. Rick rebukes her, locking the dagger away in evidence and telling her that both Michael and Jason will be cremated.
So, needless to say, it's a bit of a problem when Rick gets to the morgue to find Jason and Michael gone with three morgue attendants having been chopped up and spread all across the morgue.
We see Jason, carrying the body of Michael into the woods. Rick sees this and goes back to Sara, getting her out of the cell and taking the dagger out of evidence. Also, since we know who did the killing...
Jason Body Count: 10
He drops Michael into a gore pile near the skeletal remnants of Mrs. Voorhees' head in his little shack and walks away. As he does, Michael's fingers begin to twitch. As Jason is about to leave, Michael rises up and picks up an axe, raising it for a kill strike...that Jason blocks with his machete. The next round seems ready to start when the duo hear sirens blaring outside. Rick and Sara have arrived. Rick attempts to fight Michael off with a shotgun, but soon gets the business end of that axe.
Michael Body Count: 8
Sara tosses the dagger, trying to get it to Jason, who doesn't seem to understand. Michael yanks his axe out of (what's left of) Rick's skull and goes after Sara...only for Jason, surprisingly, to come to her rescue, the dagger/short sword in hand. The two begin the final fight of the film and it seems that Jason has the advantage with the dagger. Sara, getting away from the pair, finds herself outside just as more cops from Wessex County roll up. When they enter, we have a brutal slaughter as - for a brief moment - the film becomes a team up as the two masked killers turn their attentions on the cops. Despite some superior fire power, the cops stand no chance.
Jason Body Count: 13
Michael Body Count: 11
At the last, it seems like Jason is about to finally end Michael Myers once and for all. Suddenly, he grunts and his body jerks forward. The camera pans down as Jason looks down and Michael looks up to see an certain bladed glove has torn its way through Jason's undead stomach. Over Jason's shoulder, there's a familiar, scarred face that has a single sentence to say...
"You are both my children now!"
We end on Freddy Krueger's iconic laughter and...an inconclusive ending. Oops! Although, if we're going by kill count - Jason wins. But at least the kill count is a little more even in that both of them actually got kills instead of how Freddy vs. Jason did it.
Will this lead into Jason X? Will we ever get a conclusive ending to this fight? Am I just stalling in order to pad out the blog post?
One of the questions can be answered with yes.
No, I'm not going to say which one.
There it is, the final "What If...?" of Horror Month 2021! Maybe next year we'll do this again! Next time we look into paths not taken, we'll be covering a brand new area for the very first time...
See you then!
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