January 17th, 2004

With the immense success of Freddy Vs. Jason this past summer, you can bet your entire collection of horror DVDs and merchandise that there's due to be more pairings of all the horror icons you grew-up with. Don't be surprised if the rumoured Michael Myers meets Pinhead movie doesn't come true. Or maybe they can pair-up "The Creeper" (from Jeepers Creepers) against the bugs from Mimic. The possibilites are endless (granting you can get all the licences together).

So with that in mind, here's three horror team-ups (one obvious) that has occurred, so you can spend an evening watching characters from multiple movies, in one.

Dollman Vs. The Demonic Toys [1993] was Full Moon's first attempt at crossing over characters within their movies (sort of like the "comic book" that founder Charles Band always wanted his films to be) as they took Tim Thomerson's Dollman character from the 1991 movie of the same name, crossed him with the evil Demonic Toys and even threw in a character from 1992's Bad Channels for good measure.

In what clocks in at barely over an hour, we have our mini-sized hero Dollman having to save a shrunken nurse (from Bad Channels) from those nasty Demonic Toys (with our personal favourite, the evil clown jack-in-the-box) who are holed-up in a warehouse.

Nowadays I'm sure people involved in this are embarassed; but if you're looking for a brief blast of cheese then this will certainly fill that appetite.

Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV [2001] could be considered Troma's best movie of the decade so far - and since it's a return to all the vulgar, un-politically correct goodness of their past efforts, I'd have to agree.

Troma has been bringing "cross-pollination" to there mascot characters loosely for years now and it's not a surprise to see the Toxic Avenger and Sgt. Kabukiman in the same film (they're the two most recognizable Troma icons). But once the story about alternate dimension versions of themselves duking it out appears it's an all-out battle.

Sure, the team-up thing might only be a sub-plot and isn't touched upon that much really; but it's there and it's fun. Plus, there's really not that many team-up movies in recent memory that fit the bill.

If you want a night of tasteless entertaining with extreme violence and vulgarity - get this latest sequel. Just don't tell your co-workers all about it the next day unless you want some weird looks.

Freddy Vs. Jason [2003] is the obvious entry here. After being hinted on at the end of 1993's Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday, producer Sean S. Cunningham finally managed to pull the project together and get every horror fan's dream to the screen.

When Freddy decides to use Jason to his advantage from Hell (the kids forget him, hence he is powerless) things go all wrong when it turns out our claw-handed baddie just can't control the lumbering hockey-masked killer. Eventually they're in a massive battle for horror movie surpremacy.

Director Ronny Yu has given fans an entertaining movie - sure, it might not soar to the lofty expectations a lot of us had going in - that manages to breathe new life into both franchises (sort of like he did with Bride Of Chucky) while giving us a final battle that had a smile plastered all over our faces.