What If... Freddy Krueger had never resurrected Jason Voorhees? (Part 3)

Last time... well, you all clearly read the description I gave last week, right? I mashed together multiple horror franchises with gleefully reckless abandon like I was a child playing with action figures.

But, the forces of darkness are powerful, but splintered...Freddy getting his monster mash on and Pinhead getting lost in the Necronomicon Ex Mortis. The good guys are not, even though they are currently running on just two and a head number of members (that last one most unwillingly) and have no clue where to go from where they are.

So, I know what you're all thinking... what happens next?

Well, we pick up with our heroes, where we last left them. Ash explains to Maggie who he is and what his connection to events is - namely, recapping the events of the original Evil Dead trilogy. He's been all around, hunting down leads on the Necronomicon, which led him to her bedside at the hospital. Maggie gets him up to speed on what's been going on - namely the re-emergence of her father and how Pinhead now possesses the book he's been looking for.

Definitely not groovy.

The two, unfortunately, have no idea where to start with both the Necronomicon and the Lament Configuration gone.

In Hell, Freddy is just looking for a few evil men and dredges up the soul of Esther Coleman and puts her to work on Earth giving Maggie a big wake up call. Apparently, Freddy remains a fan of extreme irony after all this time. Unfortunately, the head of one Charles Lee Ray - being a thing animated by voodoo magic - is able to detect when something is supernaturally awry and thus she finds Ash and Maggie ready and waiting for her. Taking her down, the two question her on Freddy, but she remains tight-lipped and only tells them that Freddy is planning to go head to head with Pinhead one last time... and win! She taunts them over the fact that Freddy is going to swallow their souls. Ash, naturally, is ready to off her.

MAGGIE: We can't kill her. She's a little girl.

ASH: Can't kill her if she's already dead, sweetheart.

Boomstick goes boom, as you might expect and Esther is once more dead. When she returns to Hell, reporting in to Freddy that everything went exactly to plan. He's overjoyed... and begins to look into more people he can resurrect and put to work in the interest of gathering souls.

Ash and Maggie make their way back to Springwood, where things are still looking pretty rough as they

were back during Freddy's Dead. While the teenage population has miraculously repopulated in the last few years (as seen in Freddy vs. Jason), it's still a pretty rundown place. They run into (now former) Deputy Stubbs, still recovering from the his previous battle with Freddy and the Cenobites. Ash gives the man a pep talk in about the most assholish way he can (he is Ash, after all), but Stubbs is a bit too scarred from it all and refuses... until he's told about the others who have come out from Hell at Freddy's direction. Knowing that Freddy with that much power is definitely a bad thing, he agrees to help out where he can.

Ash explains a bit of his own history - basically the first three Evil Dead movies - and the significance of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis. The thing is most definitely bad news and shouldn't be in the hands of either Pinhead or Freddy. The trio look through some of Agent Marcus' case files that were left during the Freeburg investigation, learning about the network of individuals that the Cenobites use to distribute the Lament Configurations across the world to the people who seek the pain and pleasure that they bring. With the head of Chucky, him being essentially a supernatural divining rod, Ash thinks they can use him to track down one of the boxes. When they attempt this, Chucky gets overloaded by the energy from portals having been opened here before and leaving an echo, which gets the attention of both Freddy and Pinhead.

Freddy arrives back in Springwood, utilizing the power of the souls that he's gathered to force his army of damned souls into the real world and it's a massive slaughter. With time running out, Stubbs hunts down and steals the Lament Configuration out of the evidence locker at the Springwood PD and opens it, bringing back Pinhead. 

In the Labyrinth, Pinhead has been studying the Necronomicon Ex Mortis and deciding how best to use it. Certain spells within can be used to put down wayward spirits like Freddy Krueger's for good, but almost all of them come at a terrible cost. The Cenobite also doesn't know that the longer that the book is in his possession, both he and the domain of the Labyrinth are becoming corrupted irrevocably. Another Lament Configuration is activated and Pinhead leaves to fulfill his position as the Lead Cenobite...

He and Ash get into a knockdown, drag out brawl that only ends when Ash actually manages to cut off someone else's hand for a change and separates Pinhead from the Necronomicon. A tense alliance is formed between Pinhead and Ash, Maggie, and Stubbs and the former party is able to reveal that he did find a passage in the book that will banish an individual into the deepest pits of Hell, a place where they will be most unlikely to return from ever again. With no other plan, they get to work. The Cenobites battle the souls that Freddy has conjured, taking them down and dragging them back into the Labyrinth with them for their punishments.

At the last, it comes down to a fight between Ash, Maggie, and Pinhead versus Freddy. Freddy more than meets his match in terms of wisecracks from Ash, although the Dream Demon still holds far more power than he should in the waking world... at least until the Cenobites coach Stubbs through using the Lament Configuration to close the portal, cutting Freddy off from his power supply and any reinforcements he might have cooked up.

Maggie uses the book, chanting the Sumerian incantation to send her father deep, deep down into Hell for what - she hopes - will be the final time. Rather than banishing him, as she believes it will, it instead does something far worse - renders Freddy mortal. Taking the opportunity, Pinhead is quick to riddle the Springwood Slasher with chains aplenty, promising him a great deal more pain and suffering than he has yet endured at the hands of the Cenobites. Or, as he puts it...

PINHEAD: We have such sights to show you...

Pinhead attempts to claim custody of the Necronomicon once more, but Ash refuses. Rather than break their truce, the Lead Cenobite relents and returns with his fellows to the Labyrinth. He does warn them though that, the next time they meet, they will be enemies. Stubbs sees to it that the Lament Configuration will be destroyed much as Ash intends to do with the Necronomicon. For now, however, the battle is over... for now, at least...

In the Labyrinth, Pinhead enjoys the torment of one Frederick Krueger, powerless and afraid as he is torn apart again and again and again down to the last of his body's fibers.

In Hell, the spirits that Freddy scrounged up are rip-roaring mad and looking for a way out. Unfortunately for them, they don't have long to think about it before something starts taking them all out one by one by one... something that is far angrier and far more destructive than all of them...

Something that is trying to come back...

...and that's where we're going to leave off on this one. This was a fun What If to do, but I think this will be the final part of this one unless I can think of a good continuation. As it stands, I think this one has gone as far as I can take it without stretching. Freddy is dead, for real this time, and Pinhead is back to doing what he does best. And, it seems, there's a ruckus going on in Hell for extra fun.

...and I just wanted to put the Savini Jason skin to use again, eat me. It looks amazing!

Next time, we'll be hitting up one of the parallel universes of Supernatural as we take another stab at the question - What if the Trickster never reset the Timeline?. 

Be there!