For decades now, horror movie killers have been haunting us every Halloween. When October creeps around, they start to reappear in stores, theaters, and even within our neighbors’ Halloween decorations.
Michael Myers, Freddy Kreuger, Jason Voorhees, and countless other Hallow’s Eve assassins have instilled irreversible trauma into the hearts of many children, including me.
These spooky icons can reach through our screens and come to life in our nightmares, which made me ask myself a burning question; If these nightmares were real and I was the protagonist fighting for my life against these infamous killers, would I survive, or would I succumb to their cold, dead hands?
I would like to begin by saying that I am not the brightest or most athletic, but I can fend for myself and make quick decisions, and will most likely not trip and fall if the killer just so happens to be right behind me.
A lot of horror movie protagonists are, for a lack of better words, dumb. This may seem cruel, but when you are watching someone stand frozen in place as they are being approached by a murderer, very slowly might I add, you would probably call them dumb too.
A lot of these killers have it easy. Would they be so frightening if they were hunting down somebody competent like me? Well, no! All you need is the tiniest bit of proficiency and chances are you will come out alive.
Michael Myers from the “Halloween” series and Jason Voorhees from “Friday the 13th” are two of the most well-known characters in the horror universe. They may be intimidating with their eerie masks and sharp knives, but when everything’s boiled down, both are just large clumsy men who walk at the pace of a snail.
The two of them are also very susceptible to damage, and despite being described as “unkillable”, both meet their match in their respectable series.
Myers’ case is quite interesting since despite being such a lame killer, it takes his favorite victim, Laurie Strode, 13 movies and multiple decades to annihilate her stalker, a task that could’ve been completed in 10 minutes if I was in her place.
I would classify both Voorhes and Myers as extremely easy to defeat due to their lack of supernatural ability. Any weapon would do, and if violence isn’t your style, you can just run away. It’s not like either can catch you. Besides their disturbing fashion choices and chilling theme songs, there’s not a lot going for Michael Myers and Jason Voorhes. Yikes.
Dolls such as Chucky and Annabelle are also popular throughout horror movies, and I confidently believe that I could survive them and any doll from any movie. Not only are they weak, but they also have zero intimidation. Do you expect to scare me while standing at three feet tall? As if. One drop-kick through a window is all it takes to defeat a doll.
As we move away from dolls or human killers and move into the paranormal assassins, things become more iffy. I immediately outrule any chances of surviving entities like Pennywise or Freddy Kreuger, who not only are incredibly intimidating, but have petrifying abilities to go along with it. I also give myself extremely low chances of outliving anything that can possess someone, like Malthus in “The Conjuring” or Pazuzu in “The Exorcist”.
Horror movies are a huge part of the culture that surrounds Halloween. For decades, these movies have terrorized us, leaving us afraid to turn our lights off at night. However, some of these famed antagonists do not deserve their status, and instead prove that not everyone is fit to become a manslaughterer. Next time you are watching your favorite Halloween thriller, ask yourself this: if the protagonist wasn’t so inadequate, would the villain be so scary?