And now for something absolutely no one asked for: my personal ranking of the entire Friday the 13th/Nightmare on Elm Street franchise! I used some quarantine time to go through and watch every movie in these slasher franchises so you don’t have to, so without further ado:

20. Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare- One of the worst movies I’ve ever watched. There’s virtually nothing redeemable about it. Bad acting, badly paced, a nonsense story, and it’s not even trying to be scary. Freddy has gone from sadistic quips to a full-blown cartoon character

19. Jason Goes to Hell- Another one of the worst movies I’ve seen. Loaded with exposition and lacking in Jason, this slog totally falls apart at the end. This legitimately almost ruins the whole Friday the 13th franchise with its ridiculously dumb “backstory” for Jason.

18. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child- The beginning of cartoonish Freddy marks the end of this franchise’s days as a horror series. With a nonsensical plot and kills that are more laughable than scary, this movie is painful to watch.

17. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master- This is the movie where this franchise falls off. The rules of Freddy never made sense, and spending half of the runtime trying to explain them doesn’t help, it just makes the movie boring. At least the kill scenes are ok

16. Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning- A by-the-numbers entry in a franchise that had already become too by-the-numbers, with a poorly executed twist ending and gratuitous drug use and nudity that make this one stand out only for the wrong reasons.

15. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan- It takes way too long to get to Manhattan and really fails to live up to its potential, but once it does reach the big apple, some of the self-aware sequences are pretty fun.

14. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)- This super dark remake isn’t very fun, but it avoids the overstuffed goofiness of most Elm Street sequels, and with higher production values. The extremely creepy Freddy here is effective to a fault.

13. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge- Sleeping walking as a form of possession was a brilliant approach to expanding this franchise. Not as sure about the whole “demonic possession as metaphor for repressed homosexuality” thing it has going on though.

12. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood- It loses the self-aware tone of its predecessor, but holds up well enough thanks to a likable protagonist who has one of the coolest final showdowns with Jason. Bonus points for the coolest looking Jason in the series

11. Freddy vs Jason- The crossover that ties it all together is... just ok. The action scenes are great, and the body count is adequately high, but the unnecessarily complicated plot suffers the same issues as the later Elm Street films.

10. Jason X- “Jason goes to space” sounds dumb, and it is, and this movie knows it. This is sci-fi first, comedy second, and horror third, but the result is definitely watchable if nothing else. They knew they weren’t making a good movie, so at least they made a fun movie.

9. Friday the 13th- The original has a special place in horror history, but a masterpiece it is not. It’s a low budget riff on what Halloween did better. The fact that it features a female killer is awesome, but at the end of the day this movie just isn’t terribly fun or unique.

8. Friday the 13th Part II- The second movie is very similar to the first, but this time we actually get Jason. It’s a refinement of the original formula that sets the standard for the rest of the franchise.

7. Friday the 13th Part III- The formula was admittedly becoming tired already at this point, but this movie is more entertaining than its predecessors, even if that may be somewhat unintentional. It’s a campy, fun time, complete with 3D gags that make the whole thing funnier

6. Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter- The third consecutive “Jason kills teens” movie added an appreciated dynamic with the Jarvis family. Characters we can root for go a long way, and the final portion has some surprises as it builds to a strong conclusion

5. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives!- This represents the peak of this franchise. Tommy Jarvis is the most well-developed lead character in any of these, and the film balances its self-aware tone well. The movie knows we came to see Jason, and gives us plenty of him.

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors- This movie manages to be engaging despite some seriously cheesy moments. A strong cast of characters, a few cleverly constructed sequences, and a staggering display of truly impressive practical effects make this movie worth a watch

3. Friday the 13th (2009)- I’ll stand by it. It’s hardly an achievement of filmmaking, but the production values are higher, and this Jason is intimidating. It condenses the first 4 films down into one storyline, but wins points for some interesting subversions in the 2nd half

2. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare- Conceptually brilliant, if a bit slow, this is a pretty good movie. It touches on interesting themes about fiction, and brings the franchise full circle, as the series that made us afraid to dream brings its monster into reality.

1. A Nightmare on Elm Street- This movie stands the test of time. The rules dont make sense, but they don’t need when dreams blend with reality. The concept of being killed in your dreams is brilliant. Id stop short of calling it a masterpiece but its worthy of its classic status

(Also I don’t have time right now to comment on the problematic aspects of these films that have not aged well at all, but oh boy I could make this thread twice as long)