LIVING FILMS: EVIL DUO FAIL TO SLAY AUDIENCE.

Byline: RICHARD WILLIAMSON

FREDDY Vs JASON (18)

MY idea of a nightmare is to be trapped in an endless cycle of gruesome slash-and-stalk sequels -and this week that nightmare has come terrifyingly true.

Freddy Vs Jason brings together two of Hollywood's favourite bogeymen: Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare On Elm Street series and Jason Voorhees, the bloodsoaked avenger of Friday the 13th movies.

But the fact that they have now notched up 17 movies between them is likely to thrill the studio accountants rather more than film fans.

Freddy has to find a new way of getting to the teenagers of Elm Street, who are blocking him out of their dreams with drugs.

His solution is to resurrect Jason from Hell and send him on a killing spree.

The clever kids respond by turning the two monsters on each other in a battle to the well, what? Neither can be killed, at least, not until the the box-office boys decide to drive a stake through their hearts.

It's the usual catalogue of grisly violence, with some even more gratuitous nudity thrown in.

Much blood is spilt as ice hockey-masked Jason wields his machete once more while the scar-faced Freddy sharpens up his steel claws.

The prey is a group of teenagers led by the lovely Lori (Monica Keena) whose principle asset in the battle against evil is a heaving bosom that rarely seems to be out of camera shot.

All the usual daft things happen. For instance, how do the kids react to a couple of their number being butchered? By going to a party in the middle of a field where they're totally vulnerable, of course.

But absurdity is part of a teenagers-in-jeopardy formula that long ago dispensed with subtlety or even anything remotely suspenseful and scary.