Is Halloween or A Nightmare On Elm Street the greatest slasher-movie franchise of them all?
Round 5: It’s Freddy versus Michael Myers in the grand finale of our Ultimate Slasher Franchise Tournament
Image: Graphic: Natalie Peeples Film Features halloween
Having triumphed in the first, second, third, and fourth rounds, two franchises remain. Here, in the finals, the madman stalker of the ’70s takes on the quipping, deformed nightmare terrorizer of the ’80s. Who will take it home: the killer who never says a word, or the one who never shuts up? Keep reading to see which of these long-running series we name the winner of our Ultimate Slasher Franchise Tournament. And then scroll past those results to the readers poll, where you, the fans, have a chance to name a different winner.
Maybe it was always going to come down to these two. The unholy monsters of suburbia. The leading bogeymen of the box office. America’s favorite unkillable killers. One basically kicked off the whole slasher-movie craze of the ’80s—his was the blank, rubber William Shatner face that launched a thousand ships through a thousand bays of blood. The other arrived right when the subgenre was beginning to peter out, extending its life by introducing a different kind of homicidal villain: smaller frame, bigger mouth, powers his masked contemporaries couldn’t, uh, dream of.
With apologies to Jason Voorhees, whose series got knocked out of this tournament a couple rounds back, Michael Myers is the true strong and silent yin to Freddy Krueger’s yang. Mike is death personified. He just keeps coming and killing, a Duracell battery of malevolence. He has no pretensions, just unquenchable bloodlust. Freddy is his opposite number, the McEnroe to his Borg, the demonic clown to his pokerfaced straight man. He’s the rock star, the showman. He’ll make a whole production out of ripping out your insides. The two could be a classic comedy duo, a study in contrasts.
Their franchises, both spawned by all-time-classic originals from the respective minds of John Carpenter and Wes Craven, aren’t so different. At their worst, they follow standard slasher protocol, feeling like body counts in search of movies. They have hummable, instantly placeable main themes built on a simple repetition of notes—lullabies to traumatize. On a deeper level, both link their evil to the festering psychic underbelly of American small-town life, and to the mistakes of parents either absent or lawlessly vengeful. “There’s an Elm Street in every town,” Freddy croaks in the worst of his Nightmares, the falsely “final” one. Could that include sleepy Haddonfield?
Only Scream, Wes Craven’s other enduring slasher series, can boast a heroine with a longer life expectancy than those of Halloween and A Nightmare On Elm Street. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has come and gone, died and been brought back nearly as many times as her relentless stalker—she truly embodies Carol J. Clover’s theory that the Final Girl, not the killer, is our true point of identification in these movies. It’s only slightly less frequently that Elm Street has redrafted its own original scream queen, Nancy; she’s at the center of that franchise’s two most beloved entries—or three, if you count New Nightmare, which cast star Heather Langenkamp as herself.
Of course, neither of these series has been immune to the dangers of overexposure—the way a monster can become less scary the more we see him. This is one place where Michael has the edge. His stark simplicity as an icon—he’s practically a silhouette of evil, a sentient mask and knife—has vacuum-sealed his fearsomeness. The Halloween movies may get dumber along the way, and they certainly grow repetitive, but The Shape remains effectively scary in his single-minded deadliness. He’s the Coca-Cola Classic of modern screen terrors, unimprovable, always in vogue.
Freddy, on the other hand, is more like a hardcore band that lost its edge when it reached for the big-label big leagues. It’s conventional wisdom at this point that the Elm Street sequels zapped his power by turning him into a jokey court jester: The mass-murdering specter as hacky vaudeville comedian, tossing out one-liners so bad even Arnold would veto them on the set of a contemporaneous action vehicle. Freddy might be even more of a household name than Michael, but at what cost? His arc from shadowy menace into poster boy anti-hero of ’80s excess does him no favors here.
Yet undead Fred has other tricks up his striped angora sleeve. Halloween won the last round by virtue of relative variety—for the way the series has kept itself alive through offbeat execution and tweaks to its rather rigid formula of executions. But those movies look like interchangeable reruns compared to the built-in malleability of Elm Street.
Once derided for deviating too far from the original’s premise (by allowing Freddy to slaughter out of dreamland), the second Nightmare now looks like a provocative, interesting detour; while no one involved seems able to agree on how intentional the homoerotic subtext is, the fact remains that part two of the franchise has become a cornerstone of any queer-studies horror-movie curriculum. Part three, meanwhile, did what a Hollywood sequel ideally should, expanding the bedrock premise—look out, Freddy, here come the Dream Warriors—without sacrificing its appeal. Later, in New Nightmare, Craven used the framework of the franchise to meditate on the whole horror genre, with a film that plays today like a less sardonic dry run to his Scream. And let’s not discount the dumb fun of Freddy Vs. Jason, a toy-store collision that was pure hooting-and-hollering, pick-a-side bliss in theaters.
The remakes pose a more difficult challenge of evaluation. Fans aren’t particularly high on either. Objectively speaking, Rob Zombie’s extremely violent Halloween has to be seen as the more widely respected of the two. Say what you want about Zombie’s sensibilities, but he has a vision. And his experiment in expanding (and carnival-barker flavoring) the Myers backstory spawned a sequel that’s actually among the more visually striking entries in the dozen-movies-deep Halloween run. The Platinum Dunes Elm Street remake, by contrast, is roundly reviled by Freddy’s army of loyalists, partially for having the gall to put someone other than Robert Englund in the sweater, hat, and glove. But it’s a more interesting movie than the howling detractors have made it out to be. At least this writer thinks so.
Most slasher movies are rigorously simple in design and appeal: Introduce teens, knock them off, repeat. Michael Myers keeps things simpler than most. He may vary the weapon of choice, reaching for the occasional scythe or pitchfork or broken electrical tube, but his approach remains straightforward. Just how many times can we watch the guy stab, strangle, or bludgeon someone to death before growing numb to the effect?
Where Nightmare pulls ahead is in the sheer versatility and cracked imagination of its conceit. Elm Street is a landscape of the unconscious, and while no film in the series has quite tapped into the full possibilities of dream logic (in the way, say, David Lynch has), even the worst get some surrealistic imagery out of envisioning the architecture of a slumbering mind. Every set piece is an invitation to a foggy fantasy world; you won’t see this kind of pop-art psychedelia on the streets of Haddonfield.
What’s more, the Elm Street movies turn the most fundamental building block of the slasher movie—the kill scene—into a haunted playground for their filmmakers. It’s why even the jokiest sequels are worth watching: You’re guaranteed at least one inspired bit of high-concept gross-out lunacy, like a teen girl stuffed with food until she basically explodes. The effects in these movies, especially the ones made in the ’80s golden age of practical prosthetic work, are often eye-poppingly grand. Before he did the all-time revolting spectacle of Society, VFX maverick Screaming Mad George turned one unfortunate teen into a marionette operated by his own distended veins, and another into an oversized bug squished by Freddy in a roach motel.
However far it strayed from the dread of the original, however shaky the sequels got in the middle, Elm Street remained a franchise of high Grand Guignol style, with more graphic (in multiple definitions of the word) inspiration than the rudimentary killing sprees this moviemaking trend usually allows. The Halloween series, for all its enduring popularity, better-than-average performances, and periodic bumps in quality, just can’t compete in that arena. It’s workmanlike by comparison.
Look, the first Halloween has a primal power none of the slashers that followed can match. It’s a better movie than the first Elm Street. But this isn’t a contest between part ones. It’s a battle between the series they birthed. And pound for pound of flesh, kill for kill, entry for entry, what Craven conjured outpaces what Carpenter did. And so the subgenre, and the soul of America’s petrified, transgressing youth, belongs to Freddy.
Winner: A Nightmare On Elm Street
READERS POLL
But wait! There’s still time to name a different winner. Last round, the fans followed our lead—or maybe proved that we were always following theirs—by sending the same two slashers to the finals. We’ve put our tournament to rest. But it’s you who gets to decide how this parallel one ends. In other words: Grab your sharpest knives, Halloween fans, and vote below (or here).
74 Comments
We should award points for above average films and deduct for below average. For me:Halloween gets points for 1, 2, and 3, 4’s a 0, deductions for 5 and 6. So +1Nightmare gets points for 1, 3, and New Nightmare, deductions for 2 (it might be interesting as a sociological time capsule but have you watched recently? A garbage movie), 4, and 6. Total of 0, Halloween’s ahead.H20 is mediocre, the Zombies are deductions, Halloween is a point, Halloween Kills a deduction. -2, so -1 overall.Platinum Dunes Freddy a deduction. Freddy v. Jason has some solid Freddy stuff so let’s give him half a point for that. So -.5 for those two, and -.5 overall.By my flawless and inarguable mathematics, Freddy wins by a hair.
I bet you take forever at the grocery store.
Look, I’d still take Halloween over Nightmare regardless, but you forgot to deduct a point for Halloween: Resurrection. I’d be tempted to deduct 2 for it, but Busta Rhymes front kicking Michael was pretty funny.
Oh man! It was so bad I didn’t even remember to include it. Yes it definitely gets unintentional humor points but as far as a movie that’s definitely a deduction.
The shit of it is that it was directed by the same guy who did II, so we went in, opening night, without watching trailers and expected it to be good… it is unequivocally the nadir of the series. At least with 6 you get a fun performance from Paul “Stephen” Rudd.
It’s arguably the nadir of ANY series.
Halloween 3 isn’t a slasher movie.
Oh also, Nightmare should get a bit of credit for the Simpsons Halloween Special segment. That legitimately scared me as a kid! And some of those lines were better than Freddy’s in his worst movies. “You’ve mastered a dead tongue, but can you handle a live one?” “They’ll have to do a compost mortem.”
I agree that Freddy’s Revenge isn’t very good; very clunky and sloppy filmmaking, and a story with little to no internal logic. It’s part of the letterboxd generation wave of revisionism where people realise “there’s some interesting stuff here” and instead of going to “this has a little more going on than critics realised at the time” they jump straight to “this is a masterpiecegenre classic”. See also; Rob Zombie’s Halloween II.
On the subject of Final Girls, this was a great take on that trope, such a shame it didn’t get a sequel to date.
I hope more people than I think have seen The Final Girls as it’s a cool movie and a fun premise. Shame I had to accidentally stumble upon it a few years ago rather than have it celebrated more regularly.
Ohh yeeaaah that was a pretty fun and funny one. Yet surprisingly had a lot of emotional beats that mostly land. Angela Trimbur (yes had to look it up) stole it for me though, why is that woman not in more things?
There was also Hack/Slash, the comic although it did veer a bit too much into T&A fan service. But on balance a fun comic about slashers, the rules of slasher movies and Final Girls.
This was like a much better version of FREAKY for me. Both obviously inspired by Friday the 13th, but this one did it justice.
The Final Girls was hampered by a restriction to a PG-13 rating.
How did I miss that film when it came? I’m not even sure it’s made its way onto UK telly, weirdly.That looks so good, I’m surprised it wasn’t a big hit.
I love The Final Girls & have it on blu ray, though kind of a bare bones editionI thought Alia Shawkat stole it as she steals everything she is in, but the whole cast is great
Alia Shawkat is easily one of the underused and underrated actors of her generation. Green Room sold me on her talent. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always love her in AD, but even the Borg couldn’t kill Patrick Stewart.
I might have agreed, but I was compelled to rewatch Rick Rosenthal’s Halloween II this evening, and I came way up on that entry, which tips it for me.I think, on the whole, A Nightmare on Elm Street has a strong formula that makes for five good-to-great movies (the original, Freddy’s Revenge, Dream warriors, Dream Child (this is a minority opinion, but this one rules), New Nightmare), and four really bad ones (Dream Master, Freddy’s Dead, Freddy vs. Jason, and the remake). Seriously. I cannot state how bankrupt the remake is, and how dysfunctional it is as a movie. It’s the worst film between the two franchises. Halloween throws a wrench in the pretty quickly by becoming about family, and it leads to some strange digressions. Yet, I find its unwieldiness to be thrilling. Yes, Revenge of Michael Myers and Curse of Michael Myers squander the promise and lose the fun of Return of Michael Myers, but they are at least trying some wild things. I actually love H20, because Steve Miner is an underrated director, and Jamie Lee Curtis is giving one of her best performances. Even though Resurrection is maybe one of the most ill-conceived slashers of all time, its fascination with true crime and reality television are on the verge of a clever idea. Also, Season of the Witch is a lot of fun.I contend that Rob Zombie’s re-imagination of Halloween are well worth any slasher fan’s time. I can take or leave the origin story, but the relentless nihilism of those films are fascinating and appropriate for that character. The director’s cut of his Halloween II, in particular, is one of the best (and maybe the best) horror film of the 2000s. It’s definitely a big ask as a Halloween film, but is an experience unlike any other.David Gordon Green’s two films are great, because they get back to the fundamental blankness of Michael Myers. In some ways, they try too hard to be every Halloween before it, but as legacy sequels, they’re way more thoughtful than people give them credit for. Right now, I can’t call Halloween Kills a great movie, but people are going to reclaim that one, especially as a reflection of post-9/11 and Trump-era America. They take the next logical step in expressing the core terror of the Shape, as people flounder for meaning and project understanding where none can be found. All of which leads to my central thesis: Even when A Nightmare on Elm Street has a better grasp on its central character and what kinds of stories you can tell with Freddy Krueger, it is rarely as ambitious or un-precious with its own mythology—which, granted, is often made up on the fly. Halloween is the malleable, messy, always interesting franchise. Even its dysfunctional lows are a bevy of discussion. They leave a lot more than some of Nightmare’s best entries.
I’m with you on Halloween over Nightmare. I don’t like the Zombie films (opinion – I think he’s a shoddy hack and his takes on them add nothing but wasting Malcolm McDowell) but the first THREE Halloweens are pretty great (I’ll shout my love of the insane mess that is “Silver Shamrock!”) and the David Gordon Green films are pretty good as well. There’s some junk, but other than the first and third Nightmare I never thought that series was that great.
I think if we’re basing it on the original movies in each franchise, Halloween probably edges out NOES. But going by the sequels, I’d say NOES is more interesting, creative and artful. Some of the Halloween sequels (namely, 2, 4 and 2018) definitely have more atmosphere, but I think the level of creativity that goes into (most) of the NOES sequels is more noteworthy and impressive. It’s only recently that I’ve come to terms with how cheap and shoddily made the F13 franchise is compared to the other two.
Also, I absolutely hated Halloween Kills and I’m shocked and disappointed it was by the same creative team as the 2018 movie. I cannot get over how badly structured the script was, something that became clear to me by the third scene of the movie (at the bar).
I love the cheapness and shoddiness of the Friday the 13th movies. Last time I tried to watch some of the later Nightmare on Elm Street movies it struck me that they were loud and nihilistic (and a little rapey), but they were also pretentious. Friday the 13th movies also take place in a surreal alternate reality, but none of the characters ever seem to realize it.
Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy the F13 movies (nostalgia!) and I could rewatch the shit out of them endlessly (except for the New Line movies and the remake). I just never noticed how, for example, F13 Part 1 is quite poorly directed when compared to Part 1 NOES and Halloween. There’s like a 3 minute shot of Alice making instant coffee that always makes me lol.
Agreed
Halloween (2018) was a fine sequel/soft reboot of the original. It had its problems but overall, seemed to understand the material.Halloween Kills was just awful. Sure it’s brutal and ramps up the gore but it’s also cynical and cruel and yet we still root for Michael because none of the thinly written characters are remotely likeable.The opening re-enactment of the final moments from 1978’s Halloween, digital Loomis and all, was actually pretty decent. It was all downhill after that.
I agree that the flashbacks were technically impressive (the Loomis look-a-like was so cool), but my complaint was that, in the context of the movie as a whole, they caused its momentum to shudder to a halt. And I didn’t see the point of the overwrought ‘I shot my partner in the neck’ thing, given that Hawkins’ guilt seemed to stem from his failure to kill Myers when he had an opportunity to do so? And, bizarrely, I was more interested in the tertiary characters like the Johns and the older interracial couple than in the secondary characters the movie chose to focus on. Except they were so badly integrated into the movie that they did very little other than show up and immediately die, without impacting or advancing the plot in any way (the older couple), or take away from the momentum of the movie through cutaway filler until they died, also without impacting or advancing the plot (Johns).
I could rant about this movie all day 😉
Is Dream Child the fifth one? If so, I stand with your minority opinion, I quite liked that one. In general the odd-numbered entries are all good, and for the even-numbered there’s only 2 that has much merit, but for a different sensibility.
Yes! Dream Child is my favorite Elm Street too. But really all the sequels are great for awesome creative effects.
There’s no universe where a franchise that contains Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is the best of all time.
I’ll be the Bhlam! of Freddy’s Dead, because I love that movie. Yes, I know, I thought it was pretty terrible on my first viewing too. I’m not sure it’s not pretty terrible now. But I get a kick out of the cartoony tone and the unique feel, accentuated by the sudden and somewhat baffling (slightly prophetic?) switch from Glam Metal and Rap soundtracks to a bunch of generic college rock songs. I’m of the school of thought that if you’re going to do something you might as well go all the way. With the increasingly silly Freddy I feel by Part 6 you might as well make him literally Evil Bugs Bunny hat kid from The Wizard. And they do! Similarly, while I wouldn’t say I’m exactly a fan of Halloween 6 I do like the Thorn Cult stuff. I won’t ever think of it when I’m watching the first or even the fourth, but by Part 6, sure, why not?
This was the year I tried Season of the Witch.There was about 7 minutes of something interesting there. It was surrounded by 1h32m of very bad movie.
I can’t quite agree with you on The Dream Child, but I’ve always wanted to, it’s got great visual style. Stephen Hopkins is clearly very talented, he might be my favourite director who has never made an above average film.
I quite enjoyed Freddy vs Jason. It’s was pretty much everything you could’ve hoped for a Freddy vs Jason movie and that fact that it exists at all is a feat unto itself.
was hoping for this result for exactly the reason listed. even the worst Nightmare movies have at a bare medium one inspired kill or memorably bananas sequence (Freddy’s Dead is garbage, but the sequence where the protagonists arrive in town to find out *all* the kids are dead and the parents are insane with guilt is super unsettling). and scary or funny, Robert Englund is fantastic every time, the reliable heart of the series you always know will be great even if the movie isn’t Halloween and F13 (the only actual competition here, if we’re being real) have plenty of individual strengths. but they’d already started cannibalising themselves by the second or third entries and become repetitive and cloying retreads any further than that. exceptions here are the genuinely great Season of the Witch and something watchable but still retreading the original like Hallow18; neither touches the batshit brilliance of New Nightmare if you ask me.finally, scary as they might be, Jason and Myers are both in essence just cyphers who can be swapped between actors and moulded to the filmmaker’s design. Freddy is always Freddy, it’s why he’s the most iconic and memorable villain of them all. sorry folks, but it’s Elm Street all the way here
I saw Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time just a few days ago as a 30-something and was thoroughly underwhelmed. Actual, physical beings are the only thing with the ability to kill other physical beings IRL—for my money, that makes Halloween the winner, even if all slashers require a certain suspension of disbelief.Do you pose a greater threat to yourself than approximately 8 billion others? It’s a deeply philosophical question, but in general, I think the math/history is relatively straightforward.
To be clear—I realize that suicide rates are higher than homicide rates in a lot of countries at the moment, and I get that metaphor is a thing. But when it comes to violent intentions, I’m a lot more scared of another person wielding a weapon than I am myself.
My one big criticism on Nightmare 1 is that the ending is a bit of a mess, mostly because it was tacked on at the last minute at the behest of New Line Executives. Nightmare 3 implies the ending was actually Nancy’s mom’s dream before Freddy killed her. But outside of that it’s never really addressed ever again.
True story, I caught the end of Nightmare 1 on tv once and assumed it must be a later sequel because the end was so silly. Think that’s also a big reason why I’m okay with a lot of the movies going big and comedic.
your critique of a movie is that it isn’t realistic? are you 16?
Halloween is awful after the excellent first movie. Elm is pretty bad after the first outside of 3 and New Nightmare. I wish Elm had stayed dark, it just got way too silly. Of these two I’ll vote Elm top to bottom. These are great finalists for best first movie but there are better franchises.
I think Halloween 2 and 4 are unimaginative, sure, but certainly not awful. (Skipping 3 not because I think it’s awful but because it’s a Halloween film in name only.)I’ve not seen as much of the Elm Street franchise as I should have, but I can’t say that even the consensus highpoints (1 and New Nightmare) rank that highly for me.
New Nightmare is just so fucking fabulous and ahead of its time. I remember it getting roasted by critics when it came out for being boring (!)
Clearly I need to rewatch it. It certainly wasn’t boring, but maybe suffered from me bingeing the Scream films shortly before – maybe its prescience is lost if you’ve already had your fill of what it led towards
As a movie New Nightmare has a few really good sequences (the husband in the car, the kid watching an unplugged TV, the earthquake), but the last act is tedious. And, in keeping with the franchise’s reason of being, it’s really pretentious.
My problem with New Nightmare is it throws out a lot of interesting meta ideas: Freddy tormenting a movie set, Robert Englund facing off against his own character, John Saxon becoming his character, Nancy being sucked into the movie!
But then it mostly settles on being a boring creepy kid movie.
Boring! I’m shook.
This is why if I’m ranking franchises instead of single MVP films, I’m still going with Friday the 13th. Yes there are a couple of ridiculous high-concept entries, but pretty much all of them up to Jason Takes Manhattan are excellent slasher flicks (which is what we’re doing here, right?).
Slight O/T but GOD DAMN the original Myers mask they used in H20 (in the lead photo) looked terrible. With the budget and talent at their disposal, how did they fuck it up so badly? Not that the weird CGI looking montrosity they ended up using was any better, but wow.
One glaring flaw with the Halloween franchise is it’s sh1tty continuity and I excuse Season Of The Witch which was just “Halloween” in name only, actually a good film, but not a slasher at all (more Videodrome). Not counting Rob Zombie’s remakes as well, Halloween STILL has 3 separate continuities, one of which, Laurie Strode is killed! It has TWO modern reboots, both stemming from the first film and using the same protagonist as the original.
3 continuities, 1 reimagining, 1 in name only
I don’t think either is. Both were extremely good movies that were diminished by gradually worse and worse sequels.
Definitely agree with this take. Even the worst NoES sequels have some cool creative stuff going on. The worst Halloween sequels have terrible plot contrivances and even some boring kills. But when Halloween hits, it hits. I’m a huge fan of Zombie’s Halloween II, especially the director’s cut, and that and the first Carpenter film alone make this a titan of a franchise to be reckoned with.
My own choice is the Halloween pictures, despite the wild variation in quality. I think the first NOES is a terrific little movie, the second one is interesting, the third one is fun (snuck, underaged, into the theatre with some friends to see that one, and boy was that a blast), and then it drops precipitously in quality, except for New Nightmare, which I enjoyed at the time but ought to rewatch. I guess what it comes down to is I don’t like garrulous killers trading in lousy wordplay, or else, when the writers can’t think of a pun, just say “bitch.” And don’t forget that the guy’s a child molester/killer, which takes a lot of the supposed “fun” away from the series.Halloween, on the other hand, has pumpkins and lots of ‘em, and my all-time favourite donkey girlscout, Laurie Strode.
I liked the third Nightmare on Elm Street movie when I first saw it, but these days it’s almost unwatchable (even the part where John Saxon battles a stop-motion skeleton). It lays on the petty nihilism pretty thick, and it absolutely sets the tone for the rest of the series where Freddy drops a lame dad-joke whenever someone gets killed. What really gets me, though, is that they conjure up the image of a nun being gang-raped and then turn it into a punchline (“the bastard son of a thousand maniacs”). The Elm Street movies are awfully demure about exactly what kind of “child murderer” Freddy was, but they’ll provide an extended reference to sexual violence as long as it’s crass and glib enough.
The third one conjures up the image and the fifth one, which I recently re-watched, shows it happening, though coyly. That gets to one of my other gripes: they introduce this stuff but don’t have the guts to really follow through. Not that I want them to – child molestation and gang rape are not what I’m after in my horror movies – but that they’re so patently gutless and try to wallpaper that gutlessness over by having Freddy repeatedly use the word “bitch,” just makes them seem kind of pathetic. Plus outside of a few examples – the gooey stairs, the Escher stuff in part 5 – none of the dreams seem like dreams any human would ever have, but instead a bunch of malarkey designed to goose the 14 year olds in the audience.
It’s always amazing when someone calls good movies unwatchable. Some of the reasons you give have nothing to do with the movie itself.
You’re saying Freddy is the Al Jolson of horror?
This was a waste of a column. The original Halloween makes this a totally unfair comparison. That is a legitimately great and influential film, not just within the horror genre. Additionally, if you were to rank all the films between the two franchises, Halloween would have 4 of the top 5 in my opinion.
Halloween wins, hands down. A Nightmare on Elm Street is a big deal if you’re a Gen Xer (like myself), but both the movies and the idea are extremely dated.
Hey AV Club, wanna send us a guest coach for season 4 of Macabre Madness? The one, the only, the original horror movie bracket tourneyhttps://macabrebros.wordpress.com/2021/03/09/macabre-madness-2021-the-bracket-draw-podcast/
While we’re at it, let’s see how these guys can team up…
“I’m Scary Terry, BITCH!”
I don’t think I have enough IQ to understand this comment.
You obvi haven’t been mainlining McDonald’s Szechuan sauce
Freddie talks too much and tends to get his ass kicked rather easily. He’s not scary in the least and comes across far too cartoonish to cause any dread.To be honest, it’s a bit of a joke Elm Street has made it this far.
GTFO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I lost so much respect for Dowd, seriously Freddy is fucking overrated and the darling of jackasses who are 30-40 years old. Fuck off man.Michael Myers all the way baby, we spend sunday all listing out for the Halloween music when we walk down the block. I don’t have nightmares about Freddy, I have them about Bruce the shark, leather face, demons, Jason, Michael. Freddy I would beat the fuck out of as a big man. Well maybe not if he learned Kung Fu like he somehow did in that awful Freddy vs. jason.I’m 48 and old enough to remember when both of these movies 1st came out and again Fuck off!
I wonder if Dowd is trying to manipulate the results by using a thumbnail with one of the worst versions of Michael Myers’ mask.
I think Scream is all around my favourite, plus the acting in Scream is really great.
If Nightmare is the winner, that’s all well and good, but it’s a bit weird that Halloween was up comfortably all day, and then right before the deadline, Nightmare leapfrogs it. I guess things happen, but if someone did throw a wrench, that would be an incredibly lame, weenie move.Whatever. I love both anyway.
I mean by the evening things started to get close between the two or maybe perhaps Dowd unleashed his colleagues to all vote for Nightmare lol.
CLASSIC DOWD.
It seems to me that best here just means the least shitty.
The original Halloween 1 AND 2 are the greatest 1-2 punch in the history of Horror films. Both films are clear, concise and keep the story moving. Between both movies there is a clear arch the ending of the first has a quality cliffhanger and the ending of Part 2 is incredibly satisfying.
I know this is beating a dead horse, but it amazes me how broken the AVC site is these days. I’m on here at least 2-4 times a week, and I’ve never seen this column at all until today. I’m on furlough until the day after Turkey Day, you think I have anything better to do with my life aside from post random (unoffensive) comments on pop culture??
Hmmm…it’s really hard to say which was the greatest since both franchises got terribly bad with it’s sequels. The kills got a bit more creative but Freddy wasn’t as scary as Michael. For me, being stalked my someone in real life and not a dream is scary. Knowing that someone is hunting you creeps me out all to hell. But I do give Elm St. props on creativity for it’s kills. I didn’t think they were at all gory like some of the kills in Halloween.
Freddy was my own personal boogie man hiding in every shadow, but when my not at all horror-savvy, easily scared pre-teen children watched the original Nightmare on Elm Street with me a few years ago they spent the entire movie laughing at how deeply silly Freddy is. They were not even mildly frightened by him or the movie—if anything they were emboldened. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯