Monster Madness 2025: Championship Preview

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Greetings and salutations, slashers, scream queens, and beautiful creatures of the night! Welcome back to our 2025 Monster Madness Tournament. If you missed it, we here at HackerSlash have traded hoops for horror, brackets for brutality, and free throws for fatal blows. While the world is locked into the March Madness basketball frenzy, we're locked into something even deadlier and better. The battle to crown the greatest horror villain of all time. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast, and this week I'm joined by the Monster Madness Mastermind and Demonic Darling, Chell.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

You've gotta eat lightning and you've gotta crap thunder!

SPEAKER_00 0:43

From 64 monsters down to two, this journey has been equal parts thrilling and devastating. Along the way, we've actually had to say goodbye to some true titans of terror. So before we crown our champion and see what awaits us in our final round, let's pour one out for the Fallen Legends for each round.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

In Memorium.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

As we go on. In the arms of an angel. Near Fa.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Wherever you are. Oh man, this first round, though, really set the tone for March Madness. I mean, as the game master, I was gonna be excited with about a dozen people playing with us and talking about it. But people right out the gate jumped in on this, and the bloodbath was shocking.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah. The draw of first blood, and honestly, the people who fell was as outrageous to me. Listen, Beetlejuice did not go have a fair fight with being matched up against Michael Myers, let's be real. But the Babaduok? I thought the Babadook had a chance.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

I was a Babaduk stan. I definitely thought he'd at least put up a fight against Pinhead, but it it wasn't even close. It was uh probably the biggest disappointment of this tournament.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Mm-hmm. And then who can forget the summer camp bracket?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

The summer camp bracket, yes. We had Angela Baker of Sleeway Camp against Jason Voorhees, and she put up some impressive numbers early that really established that Jason wasn't gonna just walk away with this one.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Mm-hmm. And of course, we saw the Amityville House do some wild things, and we'll discuss that here in a moment. But shout out to Leslie Vernon because I really was rooting for the underdogs. I thought Leslie Vernon, although a singular movie from 2006, I thought Leslie Vernon had a chance.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

I thought it was a great opportunity for Leslie Vernon to maybe become more part of the mainstream conversation about horror instead of this hidden gem. They had a lot of opportunity to really become that conversation piece and they fumbled it.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Who else did we lose in the first round?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yes, we uh I mean we lost the Sanderson Sisters to Candyman.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

And then we had the close race of the Mickey Mac proclaimed fuckable monster matchups. So if you recall, there were some interesting hear me out uh conversations going on, uh especially between Krampus and Pyramid Head.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

The naughty boys, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yes, and Pyramid Head did win out over by just a few points over Krampus. So that was kind of getting the conversation. And then you, of course, had the uh girthy graboid versus Winnie the Pooh, Bink's favorite. Oh no. And in that one, the Girthy Graboid did in fact uh penetrate the hole enough to beat Winnie the Pooh.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Oh, that's terrible, and I really cannot wait for Screamboat Willie to be around in the next bracket.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Oh, absolutely. And that I think is something we could also talk about. There were a lot of really great monsters that didn't make the bracket this year that I think we could see um showing up and making a debut in future tournaments.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

100%. Man, I wonder if we could have a whole David Howard Thornton bracket between the Grinch, Screamboat, and then Artha Clown.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Maybe. There is definitely an argument for the David Thor Howard Thornton bracket. And yeah, I mean, the killer clowns from Outer Space, they just missed it this year. But I think there's some opportunities in some of those areas and brackets to um cull the crowd and bring in some new blood.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Yeah, we also had Chucky go down, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Chucky went down a lot earlier than I thought he would. He was yeah, he he was definitely, I thought, more of a shore thing. And the uh the the pinhead, the pinhead group, which was very weirdly silent. We didn't hear much pinhead talk in Discord. Yeah. But pinhead was putting up numbers.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Pinhead was putting up numbers. I think it was no talk all bite, really, from that crowd. Maybe a silent confidence that said, I don't gotta talk about it, I just gotta be about it. That or people got to pinhead and said, Oh, pinhead looks cooler than anyone else they're up against.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

That's true. Or, you know, just the the sights that he has to show you. Sometimes that's a secret shame that you don't want to discuss. So he was definitely a secret, secret slayer in this one.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Mm-hmm. Not the dirty little secret scene invite. Okay, but we also have to talk about the spark that was Jennifer Check in this first round.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Absolutely mind-blowing.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Crusty, dusty old men.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

She was put on there kind of as a wild card. Thought, you know, maybe get some conversations, have a little bit of a fun run. But it became clear very quick like, oh, she's not fucking around, and neither are her fans.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

She wasn't fucking around, but we sure were finding out.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Oh, we were, absolutely. I mean, she absolutely dominated the classic monsters of Universal Horror.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Absolutely. Now, one monster who did pass through to the next round and surprised me was Frankenstein. Not because I doubt Frankenstein, but because of the cultural momentum of Five Nights at Freddy's.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

However, I think maybe our voters are just not quite young enough to be more about Freddy than they are about Frankie.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

And more on this universal horror monster massacre. Do we think if they had been put in different matchups, they would have done better? Or do we think that maybe just their game can't quite stack up to the current horror game right now?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Well, okay. So we look at this, we had Norman Bates and the Bride of Frankenstein. I think Bride of Frankenstein could have taken it over actually now at second glance. I don't know. She could have taken it over Annie Wilkes. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, she could have taken it over Annie Wilkes. I think she could have also taken it over Ooh, the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Aside from that, I mean, I I guess my concern is can we really reach the classic horror connoisseur population?

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Absolutely. That's a good question. I mean, we'll we'll have to bring uh Sean in for some more analysis on that. But I think the fact that they are so omnipresent, the mummy, the wolf man, even Frankenstein and Dracula, they're not new and exciting anymore. You know what you're getting with them. And it almost kind of seems like people wanted to see, okay, well, what if we threw a wrench into the plants? What if we didn't go with the things we've known forever?

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Okay. Maybe we need another horny bracket next year, and maybe instead of Dracula, because he's got to lick his wounds, maybe we put in Bill Scar's Guard's Noseratu. Well, Count Orlock.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

I I think that is a a strong opportunity for strategy.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Absolutely. I also loved, and I can't remember if it was in this round or a later round where we were talking about the worst versions of each monster up against each other.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yes, that was uh pretty deep in, but it really started challenging, you know, if you're gonna weigh on the best, you gotta include the worst.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Now, another one that really surprised me to go out as early as they did, and and honestly, I I guess it doesn't surprise me in the context of the matchup, but I thought the Blair Witch had more legs. Like in a world where we got the Amdeville House and we got the Deadites. Well, I mean, I know the Deadites are like cultural, right? But I really just thought the brand of Blair Witch could have gone a little bit further into the round.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

And that's a big um question is what if the matchups were different? What if the seating landed in a different way? We could be looking at a completely different bracket now and talking about completely different monsters. Yeah. But that's the way the game plays.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

What was also fascinating in you know, R.I.P. to the mon spile monster, R.I.P to the lipstick demon, R.I.P. to the barbarian titty mother. I mean, these are modern horror movies that are iconic, but they just couldn't hold her away against surprisingly Pearl, the collector coming back from irrelevance.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah, it's definitely it's definitely gonna be interesting how the losses are taken into future tournaments with the fandoms and the conversations. I mean, we saw Jigsaw take it pretty hard, they completely cancel the next movie.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Damn, that was so true.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

So it'll be it'll be interesting to see the longevity of this and and what these monsters in the offseason do to come back ready uh for the tournament next year, or see if they even make it. They might not even make the cut.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah, they're gonna have to do some really serious training.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

I think these are some of the monsters that we've seen that are the vets, so maybe they do a little bit of light work, but they mostly drink a few beers, have some barbecues with some friends, and then you had the young scrappy dogs who were just training all summer long, and I think that's the reality, right? We gotta put in a little bit more effort. And actually, that takes us into round two, because damn, it just got even deeper. This is the one where I felt like there were more upsets than even in some of the later rounds.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Oh, I definitely agree. There was kind of that sigh of relief, okay, the bloodshed of round one is done, and immediately started swinging again.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

I think what was ridiculous, and obviously we have our championship round to reveal tonight, but one of tonight's victors bested a xenomorph, which is fucking insane. I think if we all look back to the beginning of this competition, we had our money on xenomorph.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

There was a lot of talk about xenomorph. There were a lot of fan favorites that fell. This is the round that we said goodbye to Leatherface.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Well, fuck Leatherface.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Who came from behind to beat Sam from Trick or Treat in round one and had quite the campaign, a morality campaign. Yeah. And just couldn't quite bridge the gap.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Honestly, the propaganda for Leatherface and Sam was just outrageous. One thing that I love about our community is their creativity because holy shit, they were doing some heavy work. You could have ran political campaigns.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah, there could have been propaganda, there could have been uh commercials and stump speeches. So maybe in future years we we bring some ambassadors in to be the uh the face of their villains and and see what we can drum up.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Now I actually look back to that round and what was a nail biter for me personally, because of my personal stake in it, we had Art the Clown versus the Thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

This was a heartache. This was the first time we really split.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah, Art the Clown really came out on top, which was so exciting for me, and I was absolutely devastated and he was beaten later in the next round. But I was really impressed for an independent horror clown to really come out swinging on top of an iconic John Carpenter monster. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah, he is definitely the embodiment of the new game versus the quote unquote old game. He is the champion of that. He has mastered that in a way that most of the others have shown for a little bit, but he really runs the table with it.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Okay, so while we had some absolutely wild shit happening, things got even worse in the salty 16.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yes, the salty 16 is really when things started to get real. And it's always really jarring when you go from the great slashing of 32 down to the salty 16. You skip over the 20s, and it's just really jarring, and it really signals that this is serious. There's no more playing around. You really need to grit your teeth and start fighting, or else you're not gonna make it any further.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Yeah, I remember being devastated in this round because we lost some good ones. We really did, but one person we lost and that absolutely fucking gutted me was Billy from Black Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

And we we knew that it was gonna be a question of who was trapped with who in that in that scenario, and he still put up some decent numbers. Um Amityville only won by about 10 points, so it's it was still uh one of the closer, more admirable fights, but yeah, Amityville fandom just could not be denied.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah, my other devastating loss, I mentioned it a minute ago, Jason Voorhees and Artha Clown. That man, listen, of course we get an announcement about the Friday the 13th TV series Crystal Lake coming out. Finally, we get an announcement after Jason Vohees manages to fucking do something in this competition, but he still didn't deserve it.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Definitely not, and this is really when I think Godzilla's metal was put to the test. He he kind of did pretty decently in the first two rounds, but then it was the King of the Monsters versus King of the Dream World in Freddy Krueger. And there was a lot of speculation, it was gonna go either way. The 80s nostalgia versus the love of sci-fi and just this omnipresent character. We we weren't sure how it would land.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

We weren't, but I think we all had a sense of how Jennifer Chet going up against a yet another dusty, crusty old man would go because she stomped Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

It wasn't even a fight after at some point, just she she was done with the old, she had no time for them. She was just waiting to get to that next round, that next victim, just licking her chops and flicking her lighter.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, to be fair, she was just killing boys.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Just boys, really, just killing boys. Never had to face up against Bride of Frankenstein, which, you know, some girl on girl action really wasn't a lot that we got this tournament, really.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

So And this in Women's History Month, we love to see women supporting women.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Absolutely, no women cutting down women and really just challenging what it looks like to be a monster and a villain in this horror world.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Hell yeah. Now, sadly, she met her demise when we finally got down to the angry eight.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

The angry eight, yes. And Godzilla again really had to really focus to pull out this fight, King of the Monsters versus Queen of the Succubi. And Godzilla pulled it out, but any other day, any other time, it it was Jennifer's game. What really shocked me in the Angry Eight was how quickly and how surdively Jason, I'm gonna be honest, choked against Michael Myers.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, well, Michael Myers has a vastly bigger body count than Jason Voorhees, and people don't expect that. People underestimate that because that motherfucker went to space. But no, Jason was born into this world as a cash grab on the franchise, and he will always be in fucking second place to Michael.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Amen. And I definitely think we talked about just Michael Myers, you don't think about the body count because there have been so many movies that it spreads out over. It kind of doesn't seem as massive, but he has incredible amount of blood on his hands, and Jason Voorhees, until this announcement, wasn't doing anything in 2009.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Mm-hmm. Yeah, he really wasn't. He stopped being relevant. And listen, is his mask iconic? Sure. I have a you know a version of his mask on the desk behind me, but that doesn't mean he had any business stepping trying to step out of a shadow. Now, another heated matchup that we had with shocking results Ghostface versus Predator. I feel like Ghostface have been has been Scooby-Doo stumbling throughout this entire fucking competition and kind of lucking his way, like the stoner who makes it to the end of the horror movie.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah, I mean, this was the second time he has gone up against an extraterrestrial absolute powerhouse and barely eked by. I mean, he won by one vote in the Angry Eight.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

I smell rigging the vote.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

We'll have to dig into that.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

I smell something suspicious happening here, because listen.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Something fishy.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Everybody can vote however they want, but also it's a little suspicious.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

It begs the question: do we need to see Ghost Face in Space? You know what? Do we need to see, do we need that scream sequel?

SPEAKER_00 17:57

You know what? Listen, could we have Ghost Face in Space? Ghost Space?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Ghost Space.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Maybe. But we also have Space Ghost Coast to Coast. And I think that box is full. I think we don't need another ghost in space.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

I definitely agree. And again, any other day, any other time, Ghostface is down against the Xenomorph or the Predator. But just on this particular day, they managed to fumble their way out of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Pure luck. And then we also finally saw the Amneyville House lose out, which was fucking incredible. It's about goddamn time. I am surprised that it came at the hands of the Deadites.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Yeah, and with such a high score.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, not because of their power, but because the Amneyville House just seems like more broadly known than Evil Dead. Not to horror fans, but I feel like if people casually kind of stumbled upon this bracket, or maybe, you know, for example, me, I was having some debates at work and I would be talking about it with some of my co-workers, and someone'll say, Oh, I don't know what that is, but yeah, that pinhead guy. So you you know what I mean? Like people who may have gone to the link and submitted their votes, I thought would have gone Amityville.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah, I definitely agree. And I especially with the Deadites, I mean, they they can barely keep it together to go up against Ash. So how are they supposed to go up against a house with demons and such a long legacy and long roots? But they uh pulled it out.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Evil Dead Rise really put them back on the map.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Evil Dead Rise, definitely. So yeah, and unfortunately, Amityville House was evicted from this competition at that point.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Now, of course, that took us down to our frightening four.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Honestly, wasn't super shocked with who ended up here as we were kind of going forward, thrilled, disappointed at some, but seeing these four, I think the only one I was surprised about was the Deadites. They we didn't see much of them, they weren't very flashy, they kind of just did their game, did their thing, and somehow found to the final four.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah, yeah. You know, when you look at how iconic the other three are, when you think of Evil Dead, it's Ash who's iconic. Let's be real. I think you also can see Deade and examples and photos of Deadeites, but I don't think you're gonna look at Evil Dead, and most common folk are gonna say, yes, specifically the Deadeights, that's the shit I want. They're not gonna be there. But Ghostface, everybody's Ghostface for Halloween. You even got fucking, you know, not that it's the same, but you got fucking T-Rex Halloween costumes, or people fucking love Godzilla, have figures, collect the movies, etc. Michael Myers, come on, you d I say more. The Deadites are just kind of the odd folks out.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Kind of looking around, like, where did you come from? Mm-hmm. Where how did you get here? Especially with Pearl and the Amityville house. It was just, how did you get here? It was it was sort of a surprise. Like, oh, yeah, you know, sort of like Angela and Dwight when she just shows up at his elbow and he just Where did you come from? Which I guess is the Dead Eyes game.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, well, also when you look at this whole fucking late stage of the round and you look at the path that they took to get there, Ghostface, also, where the fuck did you come from? So in the in the bracket of where the fuck did you come from? Like, yeah, absolutely. And on the other side, you have the bracket of legacy and royalty. This like the major league versus the minor league, honestly, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

It really did shake out to be that. And there, yeah, there was a lot of attention focused on that first half of the bracket. And again, there were some just impressive games on this other side. Again, the Deadites making a championship run, and no one seemed to really register it until they were up against the Amityville.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah, it's crazy. But listen, obviously, I'm glad my boy Michael made it out over Godzilla.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

You know, I I I was rooting for Godzilla. I did call Godzilla to go all the way and take the win. I am, of course, thrilled to see Michael Myers uh in that spot, but I really. That Godzilla had it.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Hmm. Yeah. Well, Godzilla went down, so do the Dead Eyes. And now, here we are, the final cut. We have, and I guess it's fitting here, right? Two masked killers who defined generations of horror. But naturally, only one can claim our monster madness crown.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Of all the villains in the brackets, again, on both sides, we come down to two slashers. Why do we think that is, Chris?

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Uh, well, you know, don't let my bias show, but slashers are fucking great. But also, slashers are like the date movie, right? They're the things that you go out and you're like, whoa, oh my gosh, you appear normal, like we had Valek from the conjuring conjuring in here. People were afraid to go see those movies. Slashers, they're a little scary to some, but they're also really fucking fun. So I think when you think of the momentum that that genre has, you know, I think to a point, right, it is more accessible.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah, I do think that a lot of people, their first entries into horror are those slashers, Jason Voorhees, Freddie Krueger, Michael Myers. You know, because you can come in at any time. Yes, there's a lot of lore, and you can talk about the Thorne trilogy and all of those things, but you can just come in to a Halloween movie and just say, oh, those are some pretty fucking awesome kills.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Mm-hmm. You absolutely can. And I think the other part of this is are we afraid of supernatural monsters? Okay, I know I just said a moment ago that people are afraid to see those movies, but when you think about the appeal of these movies, when you're looking down into evil, some of the scariest shit are the people right beside you. I know that's why I fell in love with Halloween and I was also terrified of Halloween. That's why Michael Myers is the only fictional thing that I've ever had a nightmare of. Like I've had like, you know, flashback nightmares that are terrifying or nightmares about like falling from great heights. But in terms of a fictional character, it's only ever been Michael Myers. And it's because he was just the cute little boy next door who absolutely was a vessel of evil. Sometimes it's not the big scary monster that's obviously something you should be afraid of. Sometimes it's the fucking person beside you.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

I think that hits the nail right on the head. I mean, even uh also a cute boy next door, Billy, the original ghost face. I mean, he talked about that. Just that's the scariest motive of all is just man wanting to kill. We are the apex predator.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Sometimes it really be your own people. But I think we should break it down. We have in this corner, Michael Myers, the boogeyman himself. Ding ding. Yeah, he's a one-man killing machine. He has a weapon of choice that is so basic, it's terrifying. And of course we see him get more inventive as time goes on. No words, no motive, no need to fucking pull focus, no need to have a big moment or a big show about it. His pride never cometh before his fall. Just the slow, creeping inevitability of death, of evil pursuing you relentlessly.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

I just got chills. Woo! Absolutely, and just breaking down to some of those stats. I mean, 12 films across 45 years. Season of the Witch being a standalone, you know, but there's an ad there. So well, you know, we're we're cool with that. And, you know, a star maker for a lot of a lot of folks. Jamie Lee Curtis.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Jamie Lee Curtis, her first real film. And she also provided her own wardrobe for that film. So we love to see that. We also had Nancy Keys in that film. This is John Carpenter and Deborah Hill together making magic happen. This movie is fucking legendary. And that spawned this entire franchise, which is absolutely wild. I also just recently finished finally the Halloween ends audiobook, Chef's Kiss, would have made the movie that much better had they actually kept all that extra shit.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

And I know there's always conversations about who started the final girl, who was the first final girl, but I think without Michael Myers, the final girl as we know it and love it today does not happen. So even for those um who are against Michael Myers, you gotta respect what he's brought to the industry, the world, the realm, even in the light of who our heroes are that we look to in these horror movies.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, absolutely. So I think we can look back to some past slashers, right? We say some of the first modern accepted slashers were in Peeping Tom, right? The first movie where we get the killer's POV. That man targets some very specific women. Yes. Okay, and they're not like the prototypical final girls that you would see. So there's that. We then have Leatherface and Sally Hardesty. Okay, well, no, still not the final girl that we see. And also when that bitch came back around in the 2022 Texas Chansaw Masker remix, we saw how much she tried to be Lori Strode. No fucking thank you. Jess is an incredible final girl from Black Christmas, but she was a woman of agency. She wasn't the Cardinal Virgin. She wasn't the woman who was supposed to seem like this fragile, um, maybe mousy, maybe a little introverted thing, maybe not so pure, but she was fucking incredible. Jess, I honestly, her and Lori are tied as my favorite final girls. But then you have Lori, the young babysitter. She's not a woo girl, she's not out here partying. She is honestly someone who only survives because she's not distracted. Even John Carpenter and Deborah Hill talk about how she only survived because she wasn't distracted. They weren't saying anything about sex.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Kind of going back to the stats, Michael Myers, 160 plus confirmed kills on screen.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Oh yeah. Across 12 fucking films, absolutely. Now, what's great is that you have the diversity in the body count there because you have some films where it's just a few, and then you have some films like Halloween Kills or Rob Zombies Halloween, where that shit is up in the double digits.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

And then kind of in a more um localized uh stats, Michael Myers has scored 211 points total in this tournament, averaging about 42.2 points per round. Wow. Not many matchups where there's a close game when you're racking up 42 points.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Not at all. Not at all. This man just has been mowing everyone down. He can't be stopped.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

He he can't be stopped and completely unfazed. There was no faltering. He went up against, again, Jason Voorhees, completely unfazed.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Not even uh a blink of the eye.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Mm-hmm. Listen, I would honestly have even taken Jason over Michael's competitor in this round, Ghostface. But I think it's honestly because Michael represents the purity of horror. He is simplicity. He is not the fanciful, I gotta talk about it, I gotta make a statement, I gotta be fanatic about it. He's the one who just shows up and does it. He's the one who just gets the job done. Primal fear. Imagine being hunted by something unstoppable, unknowable. He survived reboots, recons, retcons, remakes, and he is still one of the most feared figures in horror. Ah, I just fucking love it so much.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

And on the other side, we of course have Ghostface, the masked meta killer, who is almost when side by side with Michael Myers, the complete antithesis. Mm-hmm. You talked about how Michael Myers never speaks. He doesn't need to send a message. Every scream movie is identified one by that iconic voice.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

The hi, Sydney.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Hello, Sydney.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

That's right there. Sets him apart.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

What's your favorite scary movie?

SPEAKER_01 29:55

And every scream movie has a message about society and media and violence in the media. It has something to say, which for some are great. I respond to that a lot. I like a I like a little show with my with my slash, but sometimes you don't want to be challenged on that. And I think that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

When you put them up against each other, that's one of the big questions.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Yeah, and I'm gonna say something. I know I just went on and on and on about Michael Myers because obviously I love him. But I will say that there isn't a single bad scream movie, but there are bad Halloween movies. And I can say that from a place of unconditional love and recognizing it, it is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Oh, we are gonna get blown up in the chat for that.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

I know. There's not a bad scream movie, but there is a bad Halloween movie.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Care to say which one? Or do you want to save some face?

SPEAKER_00 30:48

I think we're gonna talk about it this October with a special project we have coming up because I and I actually, you know what? I bet everybody who listens to this will be able to fucking know what Halloween movie I'm talking about. I said, I think I made it plural a second ago just to be vague. No, there's a bad Halloween movie that is just it's not even fun to watch. And I think there it is what it is. When you have 12 films across 45 fucking years of Michael Myers, there's bound to be at least one stinker. But scream, there's no bad movie. But I'm gonna just earn my street cred back here. There are absolutely bad ghost faces.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Okay, that is a very important distinction. Because yeah, there are I would say, yeah, there there are some lesser scream movies, but there are no bad ones. But there are some ghost faces that I could do without.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Yeah, fuck them. Terrible. Don't like them. Could get the fucking mask on. If you had kept the mask on, would have been fine. Or often we get a tandem of killers. I'd prefer one of them. The other one can go fuck themselves.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

All right. And again, we kind of talked about just the numbers of it, seven films and a TV show with very few misses.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Yeah, yeah. Now, the the TV show is so interesting because we had multiple seasons of it, and only in a later eventual season do you still get the same ghost face mask. But the Scream TV series, I think, was even at its best when it didn't have that ghost face mask. But you know, the seventh film is being made, and I can't wait to see where that goes. Although questionable at best. I know that there's a lot of controversy there, but man, within those films, Ghostface is racking up plus some body counts.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Yeah, we've got 60 plus confirmed kills through throughout the whole franchise. So it kind of goes back to what you're talking about, Chris, where 12 films, 45 years for Halloween, you're bound to be making mistakes. You know, it's it's the law of averages. But the tighter, tighter frame of Ghostface and the fact that they have just the accuracy and pinpointness of not many misses, I think is what could help if if there's a bit of a fumble in the game with Myers this time around. I I think just that perfection and making less mistakes, that's what we say a lot in baseball is the winning team's the one that made the less mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

I th I think if uh there's some mistakes made, Ghostface can take it.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Maybe, maybe. I'm still gonna count on the fact that when you look at the body counts versus the number of films, sure, you might say it could be easier for Michael Myers to have had more kills because there are more movies, but Michael averages 13.3 kills per movie. When you divide it up over 12 films, Ghostface has like a little over eight.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

That's true. That's true, but do but those do those kills account more? Are are is Michael just shooting every layup while uh Ghostface is shooting threes? It's it's the quality of those shots that are being taken as opposed to the number.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Okay, now this may be a bold statement. I don't think it's actually that bold. I feel like I'm I'm like 98% confident on this. Michael Myers has more brutal, vicious, and also creative kills than Ghostface does.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

I will I will give that to you. I do think that Ghostface has a couple moves that they're able to do, kind of taking people by surprise, some cheap shots.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Whereas, yeah, Michael, he he thinks his place through a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah, I think about Casey Becker in the first film, incredible. Tatum really did it to herself with the garage door. I mean, yeah, he she kind of handed him that one. That one fell into his lap. Uh, some gunshots, some stabs, sure. I mean, listen, do we need to roll it back to Halloween kills and the way Michael Myers took out that entire fucking group of firefighters?

SPEAKER_01 34:53

You're right. You're right. Again, he has a a small playbook, but it works well, and he he plays fair. That's the thing with Ghostface. Cheap shots, they don't always play fair.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

And Ghostface runs. Who has the energy for that?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

And that's the thing. Michael doesn't need to run and he is still sinking threes.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Yeah, absolute professional. Now I'm curious about what's gonna be like the performance differentiator here. So you mentioned the points that Michael scored being 42.2. That sounds pretty fucking impressive.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Yeah, and Ghostface is still up there too, putting up numbers, 195 total points in the tournament, an average about 39 per game, which is good, but we did have in rounds where 39 and a nickel wasn't gonna get you a cup of coffee. So when you just look at the numbers, I mean they're comparable, but there is a very clear line of demarcation where that um Ghostface is gonna have to make up that difference, and I don't know if he has the energy or or the stamina after all the fights and the I don't think this is a buzzer beater win.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Yeah. I think the reality is he's been punching above his weight class this entire game, and Michael Myers has been cruising. So I think there's plenty of energy here. If this were a real basketball tournament with multiple games, I think that Michael would be four and out.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Oh, absolutely. He's he's fresh, he's ready. Again, and just not even that much pressure, not thinking of the past games and the mistakes that Ghostface had made to give up some points, you know, it doesn't have as much following or haunting him.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Now I will say that Ghostface has quite a bit going for them in the fact that Ghostface is a product of the genre that Michael Myers built. So I think there's that. I think again, going back to just what Scream as a franchise means to horror, there's a reason why it has so much real estate on my arm, right? We absolutely love Scream. And I think, especially with a modern audience and thinking about okay, maybe our voters weren't so new that they're voting Freddie Fazbear over everyone. But Ghostface has some brand recognition, so I'm curious to see how it turns out. Although I don't want to be too curious, I want to have faith that Michael Myers will come out.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

But you gotta have faith. Ooh, ooh. Momentum again, yeah, Ghostface has gotten that wave. So if they're able to really dig down and kind of propel themselves across the finish line, I think I can see it happen. But yeah, it's it's the coach versus the player at this point, the the master and the student who who wins out here because yeah, Michael Myers is built the game that they are playing right now. No one knows the game better than Michael, which is why I don't think he's broke a sweat.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Mm-hmm. Hell yeah. Listen, I I'm gonna just give Ghostface a little bit more here. And I'm also gonna say there's there while there hasn't really been a completely terrible Michael, there has absolutely been some terrible Michael masks. Oh and Ghostface is fortunate enough to have not had that issue.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

And we're going back to the worst.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Yeah, yeah. Okay, well listen. One day maybe we can have a fun little thing where we think about the look at all the skeletons that are in the closets. But I cannot wait to see what happens in our championship brown. And for now, there you have it, folks. The stage is set, the blades are sharpened, and only one slasher is gonna be left standing. Now our championship brown is here, and it's up to you to crown the ultimate horror icon. Will it be the silent force of nature, Michael Myers, or the ever-evolving embodiment of Meta Slasher's Ghostface? Our voting opens at midnight on Friday, March 28th. You can find a link to cast your votes in our show notes because your voice is gonna be the one that decides it all.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

And don't forget, it is not too late to join in the chaos of the Monster Madness Discord. There's a lot of debates and really great conversation about all of the contenders, and that's where you're gonna get the minute by minute updates and commentary. It's a great place to be. It's going to be a vibe in this final showdown, and I wouldn't want to miss it. I don't think you should miss it either.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, evil never dies.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

Evil dies tonight.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Love lives today.