DON'T BLINK. This weekend Lynn Hershman Leeson's wild romp of a sci-fi fantasy, Teknolust, hits town – opening Friday at S.F.'s Opera Plaza Cinema and Berkeley's Shattuck Cinemas – and if ever there were a homegrown movie perfect for smart folks hiding out from summer blockbusters and gubernatorial recall shenanigans, this is it. Hershman wrote the script as a lark when funding failed to materialize for a long-planned female Frankenstein film. Here a different kind of mad scientist, played by Tilda Swinton, downloads herself into her research and creates ... three Tildas. Swinton has admitted to cribbing the film's SRA (self-replicating automaton) language patterns from her then-two-year-old twins. "She wanted something alien-sounding, not quite of this earth," Hershman recalls.

Swinton herself made a promotional trek to San Francisco earlier this month, on a break from Thumbsucker, now in production in suburban Oregon where she resides with the aforementioned twins. No word yet on what their influence on this suspiciously titled opus might be. Those of you in need of a further Swinton fix, after seeing four of her in Teknolust, should watch for Young Adam, a Scottish film that stars her and heartthrob Ewan McGregor. She's also just wrapped a Nazi-hunting drama for Norman Jewison. Hmmm, maybe Swinton has cloned herself?

Swinton kicked up a bit of dust on the festival trail over the past year with Teknolust, too, which debuted at Sundance and drew huge audiences and frenzied applause at the Toronto International Film Festival. At the Berlin Film Festival, a thousand people were turned away. Teknolust is a great emissary for the San Francisco way of life, what with choreography by Charlie Moulton (danced by all the Tilda clones) and cinematography by the legendary Hiro Narita.

Having Karen Black in the cast also doesn't hurt. "She wrote her own part," Hershman says modestly. Originally, Black's character, based on a real-life person, was a rogue FBI agent, a hippie who drops out to become a private eye. But Black wanted to revisit her transsexual research for Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, so Hershman rewrote the agent as a transsexual remade in the image of her favorite actress: Karen Black. Keep an eye out for the real Black in town for the opening.

Rumor has it the distributor is waiting to see how San Francisco reacts to Teknolust before deciding its fate, so don't sit at home. Besides, given last week's news reports on the latest genetic hybrid (a rabbit crossed with a human), there may not be much time left before the film loses its sci-fi status. (B. Ruby Rich)

Slash, counterslash

Johnny Ray Huston: A good starting point for a Freddy vs. Jason discussion might be a quick update of past highlights. To me, the original Nightmare on Elm Street is still the best, but I'll also endorse the coming-out story – S-M gym showers and something called Probe in the hero's closet – of the much maligned first sequel. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is my favorite Jason film, simply because of the mini-cult icons he dispatches: Shazam star Peter Barton and a Crispin Glover who was just beginning to get his freak on. Why, oh why, though, does Corey Feldman survive?

Cheryl Eddy: The sad truth is, Feldman had to survive so his character, Tommy Jarvis, could go on to fight Jason in parts five [A New Beginning] and six [Jason Lives]. This was the mid '80s, though, so Feldman himself isn't in those films – he was too busy making cinema history with The Goonies, Stand by Me, The Lost Boys, and License to Drive. But anyway ... I have to put a plug in for Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. That movie truly has it all, including a cameo by Zsa Zsa Gabor, a theme song by Dokken, and what's probably Freddy's most-quoted line, "Welcome to prime time, bitch!" I feel like the Nightmare films were better tuned into pop culture, which is why they're more entertaining than the Friday films – I ain't hating on Jason, I'm just sayin'. Plus, Jason was mostly locked into the stalk-and-kill pattern, whereas Freddy could invade your head and really fuck with you, get all surreal, and turn you into a comic book character or a giant cockroach or even a human marionette, before sending you to your death with a cutting wisecrack, of course.

JRH: Amnesia springs eternal in Freddy vs. Jason's Springwood, and patriarchs in particular get no love, except for one: the movie pays tribute to Freddy's Dead – and Freddy's dad – by having the gloved one speak in Alice Cooper song titles. Director Ronny Yu also brings back the social and political stabs of Wes Craven's early work. Pharmaceutical companies, the police, and George W. Bush all receive not-so-subtle mockery. But since the movie is essentially a dueling-psychopaths showcase, the teens are bland clones. I spied a Brittany Murphy type, a Jena Malone type, and a Jason Mewes "Jay" type. Destiny's middle child, Kelly Rowland, is given the showiest speeches, though I noticed she had trouble speaking the word "faggot" while taunting Freddy.

CE: She also said "fuck" way more than any other character, for some reason. Troubled teens in institutions is definitely a recurring motif for both series, as is the hedonism-will-get-you-killed idea – naturally, Freddy vs. Jason's lead girl is a virgin ... snore. But Yu – god bless him – also realizes that the main reason we're sitting in the theater is to see spurting arteries, bones cracking, beheadings, and oozing pools of blood. Not to mention the title fight to end all title fights.

JRH: Yu's Bride with White Hair hints at what to expect from that face-off. I also liked the chunks of flesh that turn into the credit sequence's font. Freddy's opening monologue providing the dramatic setup is like a kid's feverish fantasy of a movie, and – as an action-packed sporting event, if not a scary horror film – what follows lives up to his hyperbole. Next, I'd like to see Michael Myers, Leatherface, and others join Freddy and Jason in a war-of-the-franchises scenario. No teens, just a battle royale of homicidal maniacs. The big axes could begin by knocking off their derivative straight-to-video counterparts. For instance, Robert Englund could puree Warwick Davis of Leprechaun.