Why Are Horror Movie Slashers So Slow? – Armessa Movie News

Pull any slasher movie villain’s name out of a hat, and chances are it’ll be someone who is known for their slow walking and menacing stalking. That’s all well and good, but perhaps it’s time for our horror icons to pick up the pace. A common cliché and stereotype in horror cinema is the slow, masked killer subtly chasing a defenseless protagonist. This always raises the question of how this menacing killer is able to kill so many people despite moving slower than a snail. Having a menacing shape make its way closer and closer to you undeterred is certainly unsettling as far as visuals are concerned, but it gets less intimidating the more one thinks about it. The list of fast horror villains is surprisingly low, but those who practice their cardio are the real ones to be feared.

Slow-Moving Horror Movie Villains Have Their Place in the Genre

It would be pretty ludicrous to suggest that slow horror movie characters don’t have their place in the genre, especially since they’re very much the norm. Sometimes, all a compelling horror story needs is someone who will bide their time and wait for the perfect kill, not even considering the possibility that their victim will escape. Horror villains who have more supernatural abilities are also quite notorious for playing with their food, so to speak. No better example is the nightmare-haunting killer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) from the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, with the knife-gloved sadist taking his time in torturing his teenage victims. Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgård) from the It movies can be considered the antithesis of Freddy. Sure, Pennywise also takes his time scaring his victims, but does it partly out of necessity to survive since fear is the eldritch being’s primary food source.

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Obviously, one of the all-time best examples of slow-paced villains can be seen in the film that started it all, Halloween, with the methodical Michael Myers (Tony Moran) becoming notorious for biding his time and waiting for local babysitters to be at their most vulnerable. Michael is often credited as the character who inspired just about every modern slasher villain that one can possibly think of. One of these is the hockey-masked villain from Friday the 13th, but that iconic foe got a pretty significant facelift in the obligatory franchise reboot. (More on that later.)

Slow Slasher Villains Become a Lot Less Scary

The biggest problem with slower slasher villains is the same problem with the zombies from The Walking Dead: How do these villains kill anybody if they’re so darn slow? Sure, this statement doesn’t really apply to tight and enclosed spaces like derelict cabins or dark and mysterious houses. But outside that very specific horror cliché, these villains almost automatically become a lot less scary. Yes, horror films, especially ones that contain immortal serial killers, require a good amount of suspension of disbelief, but that can only go so far.

One of the rare times a killer’s lack of cardio led to their defeat was in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The iconic ending sees Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) flailing his chainsaw around all because he couldn’t keep up with Sally (Marilyn Burns), who escapes the massacre in the back of a pickup truck. Granted, Leatherface isn’t the sharpest chainsaw in the shed, but the more a killer is evaded, the less scary he becomes. The same goes for characters like Chucky (Brad Dourif) and Leprechaun (Warwick Davis), who become a lot less scary when you realize they can be outrun pretty easily.

The Faster the Killer, the Harder It Is To Escape

The slasher genre has certainly slowed down a bit in recent years, with much of the horror genre being focused on smaller-scale existential projects like Hereditary, Talk to Me, and more. That’s not to say the genre has completely disappeared, as Blumhouse is still a pioneer in the genre with films like Happy Death Day, Freaky, Totally Killer, and more. Those are all great films, but they also all feel like self-aware satires of the slasher genre as well. Most slasher films these days seem obsessed with rehashing the same tropes and gimmicks of past entries, with a prime example being David Gordon Green‘s Halloween reboot trilogy.

The malignant, vengeful undead being Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears) gets a deadly update in his cinematic reimagining, and we’re not talking about the time he became a cyborg in Jason X. As far as the much-maligned subgenre of horror remakes goes, Friday the 13th (2009) is one of the better examples. The film falls into a lot of familiar tropes, but it still delivers on the elements the Friday the 13th franchise is known for, mainly featuring plenty of creative kills and a terrifying new version of Jason. The Jason Voorhees we all know and love from the first ten films is another killer who took his time stalking the foolish counselors of Camp Crystal Lake and beyond. 2009’s Jason also hunts frisky teens, but he is so much more efficient about it. The moments when this new Jason sees a target in his sights, he wastes absolutely no time in descending upon them. There are several scenes in which Jason sprints full speed toward his targets, thus giving even more stopping power to his legendary machete.

Scream’s Ghostface Is Both Goofy and Terrifying

A good middle line between both a satirical and goofy yet swift and deadly killer is Ghostface from the Scream films. As fantastic and consistent as the self-aware and meta Scream franchise is, Ghostface is an effective killer who isn’t always super intimidating. That’s almost ironic as the mere idea of Ghostface is rather terrifying, especially since it is a concept rather than one individual killer. Ghostface is not an immortal killer who keeps coming back, but a toxic idea that infects new hosts who want to continue the legacy of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). Compared to most horror franchises, the Scream films have always had more levity and humor attached to them, and that sometimes comes in during Ghostface’s many chases. The Ghostface killers always seem able to keep up with their targeted victims, but sometimes their speed can be a bit of a detriment. Especially when it comes to killing final girls Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), Ghostface consistently seems to trip on their own cloak.

Is there such a thing as a horror movie villain that is too fast? Well, logistically, not really, as a faster slasher is going to be an objectively bigger threat than a slower one. However, narratively speaking, the slower classics like Michael Myers and pre-reboot Jason have a methodical confidence to them that is tense and suspenseful. They may be more effectively scary in an enclosed space, but if we were given the real-world choice of a slow but methodical killer or a fast and ravenous one, the latter would be much scarier.