Salutations, Henchmen!
You are probably expecting me to start this off by wishing you a happy spooky season, aren’t you? It’s not your fault- it is simply what we’ve been conditioned to expect from our favourite women of the internet during the month of October. Well, you shall not find such a benign greeting here! It is canon around these evil parts to reject “spooky season” and its commercialization. We are not amateurs of evil. I am an evil Overlord and you are evil henchmen (and henchwomen) and we embrace spookiness ALL YEAR ROUND, not just when we’re told to! Nevertheless, I will not allow my punk attitude towards spooky season to deprive you of additional spooky-themed erotica for the month of October, like costumed thirst traps and smashing pumpkins with a baseball bat. You can find such things (in a larger amount than usual) on my Fansly for your viewing pleasure.*
*I probably don’t need to point out that October is one of the best months to subscribe to yours truly for fun content. Buuuut I guess I just did. Hehe. What are you waiting for? An even more overt invitation? Go subscribe already!
I will admit that “spooky season” has one positive effect; it makes horror movies more widely accessible than any other time of the year. Over the past few years, I’ve used this opportunity to binge the entirety of the horror movie franchises available to me on Prime Video, including Friday the 13th. This year, I decided to spring for a Shudder subscription and finally get access to one of the quintessential slasher movie franchises that has managed to elude me thus far: the Halloween films. That’s right- until now, your Overlord has been unfamiliar with the exploits of the iconic Michael Myers. Now that I’ve spent about twenty hours of my life consuming his entire body of work, I feel like I am finally qualified to enter the discourse on the hottest debate in horror culture. I am ready to provide a definitive answer on the question of Michael Myers vs. Jason. Read on to see how one cold-blooded evil entity judges two others! Mwahahaha!
Who is “scarier”?
There is no doubt that both of these hulking men in masks with murderous inclinations are scary. Their smell after decades of murdering people with no indications of ever having showered is probably equally as scary. Yikes! Perhaps this question would be better discussed in terms of who is more likely to pose a mortal threat to you, personally. Consider this: if you were stranded alone in a forest, would you rather come across a bear or a wolf? Jason is like an angry bear. Both are big beasts capable of overwhelming brutality. Stumble into one unprepared and you’re pretty much toast. You can try to posture against a bear (or in Jason’s case, yell at him as if you were his Mommy…LOL) and you miiiight be able to escape with your life. Michael is smarter with his prey. Much like the wolf, he will stalk you quietly, waiting for the opportune time to strike. There is no posturing with him, only dodging. Although, dodging will only get you so far with Myers. He is relentless and goal oriented. Once you are in his sights, he will not stop…even if the task takes him a decade or two, or four. You may be able to escape for now but he will always come back. Meanwhile, Jason will probably forget about your existence if you manage to escape to safety.
Winner: Michael Myers. I like my chances of being able to outwit a dumb oaf like Jason. I don’t like my chances of being able to outlast Michael Myers. You only have to survive Jason for an evening or a weekend, at worst. You have to survive a lifetime of Michael Myers.
Who has the better mask?
Jason initially had a bit of a tough time in the mask department. Can we really blame him? Crafting a unique evil persona that suits your vibe is no easy task! After a total misfire (a sack? really?) he adopts his iconic hockey goaltender mask in the third film and never looks back.*
*Until he wakes up 450 years into the future after being cryogenically frozen in Jason X. It simply wouldn’t make sense to have a spare goaltender mask just laying around so far into the future. Yep, that’s the only thing that wouldn’t make sense about Jason X. LOL.
He has completely co-opted that specific type of goalie mask. It is more commonly associated with him than it is with goalies at this point. Forever tainting an ordinary item with your specific brand of evil is quite an accomplishment in the evil community. That’s a big up for Jason!
Like the Halloween IP itself, Michael’s mask has been riffed on to varying degrees of success. When done right, the mask perfectly exaggerates Michael’s emotionless indifference, adding to his overall mystery and creep factor. When done wrong, well, he looks like a buffoon.
I actually found myself chuckling when I saw Michael’s mask in H20. I mean, what’s with those eyebrows?? He looks like a Kardashian that applied eyebrow pencil while drunk and took the “neutral lip” trend a little too seriously. Having people laugh at something you intended to be scary is quite an embarrassment in the evil community. That’s a big L for Michael!
Winner: Jason. Am I perhaps a bit biased towards the crafty use of a hockey mask as a Canadian Evil Overlord? MaybEH. Hehe.
Who has the better origin story?
At this point, it’s hard to even pin down a singular origin story for Michael Myers. Is it the original one where he murders his older sister at six years old and then patiently waits in a sanitarium for fifteen years before breaking out and attempting to kill his younger sister? Is it the weird 90s direct-to-video one where a young Paul Rudd (LOL) attempts to explain Michael’s immortality and evil nature by connecting him to an ancient druid curse (LOLOL)? Is it the one Rob Zombie made that basically suggests Michael is the product of a heartless modern America (also LOL)? WHO CARES! Personally, I like a man with a little mystery. The more they explain a man like Michael Myers the less scary he becomes! Less is more with this guy.
Jason has some sort of a consistent origin story, at least. We learn through his mother in the first movie that Jason was just an eight-year-old boy when he was tossed into the lake by a bunch of bullies at Camp Crystal Lake. The counselors on duty were too busy fucking in the woods to notice so Jason drowned (allegedly). Simple. Sympathetic. Sufficient. From there, each movie only has to explain how Jason survived the movie that came before it so the killing spree can resume. With each movie those explanations get more and more absurd; he is reanimated by lightning, risen from the bottom of a lake by a teenager with telekinesis, reanimated by electricity, transfers his spirit to other bodies, gets freed from hell by Freddy Krueger (yep) and finally, gets thawed after being cryogenically frozen. LOL. Hey, I appreciate the imagination! It’s better to dig out of plot holes with a bunch of wacky reanimations than it is to have the origin story redone again and again.
Winner: Jason. His consistent origin story lets us know that no matter what, we will always get the violent, vengeful Jason that we know and fear.
Who has the best kill?
To start, I’ve got to give Michael Myers some credit for having the most confirmed kills of any slasher villain, coming in at a bone-chilling total of 195 kills! He is certainly a creature of habit; a knife is always his first choice. His signature kill involves suspending his victim in the air by pinning them to a wall with a knife (or several knives).
Really though, is this even cool? Ignoring the laws of gravity and the fact that a stabbing like this most likely wouldn’t kill someone so instantaneously (if at all), it’s just… lackluster. Where’s the pageantry? Call me a sick freak but I prefer kills with a bit more pizzazz! With some artistry! Michael is a master with a knife…but that’s about it. When I try to come up with a best kill for Michael I have plenty of options to choose from but they’re all pretty underwhelming. The only one I can think of that has enough spectacle for my liking is the bannister kill from Halloween Kills.
Here he uses sheer brutality, takes his time, and ensures fatality. *chef’s kiss*
If Michael is the embodiment of quantity with his kills, Jason is the embodiment of quality. Jason will make use of anything and everything to get the job done. He isn’t afraid to get creative with his kills. He’s a true genius of his craft. You can tell he lives for this. Literally. Coming up with a best kill for Jason is a tough task as I’m overwhelmed with choice. Two in particular stand out above the rest. The first is the sleeping bag kill in Friday the 13th VII: New Blood:
ICONIC. Proof that Jason can use anything as a mortal weapon. True talent.
The second should come as no surprise. It’s none other than the liquid nitrogen kill in Jason X:
As a Canadian, the threat of freezing to death one day is very real. So yeah, this one hits home. I also just like to see things get smashed up. Hehe.
Winner: Jason. Hands down.
Who has the better franchise?
Honestly? They’re both overrated. I guess that’s what happens to franchises when Hollywood tries to retread already beaten paths every five years or so in order to wring out the most amount of money that it possibly can from an idea. Some forty years since their inception, they’ve become a mess! Why bother with any sort of continuity when you can simply retcon half of the films with every soft reboot? Or give the killer previously unseen magical powers to bring them back? Slashing doesn’t need to make sense, right? The degenerates who watch these movies only care about the nudity and gore, right? LOL. I digress. Suffice it to say that the staying power of these franchises in pop culture is definitely more of a quantity over quality thing. I understand that they are the originals and played a part in shaping the slasher genre as we know it today…but let’s not pretend they haven’t lost a lot of their “cred” since then with some massive flops*.
*Halloween: Resurrection, Halloween II (2009), Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan cannot be ignored. There’s nine hours of my life I’ll never get back.
Winner: The studios that figured out they could line their pockets by touting Jason and Michael Myers’ names.
Well that just about sums it up, doesn’t it? We’re all schmucks for continuing to buy in on mediocre franchises for nostalgia’s sake! Still, after all this discussion I have come to a definitive answer on the great slasher movie debate of our generation. *drum roll* When it comes to Jason vs. Michael Myers the winner is…neither! It’s time to give up the ghost on these franchises! Let’s move on to bigger, better, scarier things! Oh, were you actually expecting your Overlord to provide you with a final conclusion? Ha! This isn’t your typical essay! Your Overlord doesn’t follow the rules! EMBRACE THE CHAOS. Mwahahaha!
Happy Halloween, Henchmen! Enjoy yourselves, eat copious amounts of candy and scare some kids!