Monster Madness 2025: Champion Reveal

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Greetings and salutations, slashers, scream queens, and beautiful creatures of the night, welcome back to the finale of our 2025 Monster Madness Tournament. If you missed it all the way up until now and you skipped to the end, we here at Hackerslash have traded hoops for horror, brackets for brutality, and free throws for fatal blows. While the world was locked into the March Madness basketball frenzy, we were locked into something even deadlier, even bloodier, even better the Battle to Crown, the greatest horror villain of all time. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Monster Madness Mastermind and the demonic darling herself, Chell.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

After almost four weeks and six rounds of play, we've seen some of our mightiest monsters fall, some of our wonkiest villains enjoy dark horse runs, and a whole Discord channel filled with thought-provoking and eye-opening discourse around what it takes to be the best monster.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

We've had well-fought matchups that ended within a few points of each other, and we've seen massacres that have only been seen in productions of Hamlet. Woo! Such highs and lows are why we play the game, Chris. Why we showed up to fight and cheer and root for our favorite monsters. And like in all games, there must be winners and there must be losers.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

But today, today is for the winners. Or more accurately, a singular winner. Now, this villain who is taking the crown of the inaugural Monster Madness Tournament, this villain has haunted the nightmares of horror fans for as long as they have been part of the horror genre.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Even to those outside of the horror fandom, this monster is recognizable on site. You find their face on t-shirts, tattoos, memes. They are iconography in the horror and non-horror worlds.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

And I do have a tattoo of this monster. Now, the even better thing here is how remarkable their body count is. And actually, their body count even includes iconic heroes from their own franchise. Their violence knows no bounds and no one is safe.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

And Chris, they share that special bond that we love between Monster and Horror Fan. The promise of always coming back. Someday, somehow, they always find their way back to us.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and ghouls, on behalf of the Hackerslash Gaming Commission, we are proud to announce that the winner of the inaugural Monster Madness bracket tournament is none other than the one, the only Michael Myers. Wow. Is it a conspiracy? Absolutely not. The voters really turned out, and we have the receipts to prove it. But Monster Madness? Michael Myers, I feel like it was written, it was fate.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Absolutely. Michael Myers, I mean, you think of horror monsters, you think of Michael Myers first and foremost. Even if you don't know him by Michael Myers, maybe uh you just know him as that really scary guy you change the channel on because you know he's gonna be stabbing people. Michael Myers has such a gigantic presence and footprint in the horror world. There was no way he wasn't gonna stomp around a little bit and uh and crush some foes.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah, realistically, folks, this is the fucking boogeyman. What were y'all thinking he wouldn't win? Well, listen, I I get it. It was a tight race, and a lot of people voted for a lot of other people. No big deal. But my boy Mikey, he did it right. He did it right. He cruised through it.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

He is, we've talked about from the beginning, he doesn't have much flash, much style. He doesn't say a word. He didn't need all of the uh all of the fashion and the fun and all of the other um, you know, bombastic uh ways about him to win. He just showed up with knife in hand, slashing every day, and made his way pretty easily through the ranks to uh to earn this crown.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Listen, the reality is his competitor is the fucking guy at your job who just talks so damn much but barely puts in the weight, really just stumbles at the finish line. But Michael Myers, he's the one who shows up, clocks in, is locked in, does the job, does it exceptionally well, and really just pioneers a movement.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

He is the original monster of the when you think of slasher, so there there was just uh as great as Ghostface did, and Grace Ghostface had their own fantastic run, and even in the end, there it was there was a point uh about 12 hours before voting close that it was a literal tie. So Ghostface definitely put up a good fight in there, but you don't have Ghostface unless you have Michael Myers, and I think that let that be a lesson for all of us that sometimes the master is simply the master and we just get out of their way.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, I think the spyglass boycott of Scream 7, maybe, is what's gonna be the difference maker here in their turnout.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yes, absolutely. And yeah, there's and when you're talking Ghostface, you're talking identity crisis. You know, they always have people on the DL, they always are sw switching in uh new pitchers, new players, new slashers. Michael is diabolically solo in what he does, and he's not letting anything get in the way between him and his prize.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Absolutely. Ghostface may be out here playing small ball to get around the diamond, but Michael can hit for power and Michael can hit for average. He's the home run king, the triple crown winner, and a silver slugger. You just can't get around that kind of talent.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

You can't you can't get around that old-fashioned talent as pretty and as fancy and as fun it is to watch the new people uh come around and try to redefine. You know, we had we had Art and Jennifer Czech and a lot of these folks throughout the tournament that are that new wave of horror, the the little bit, little bit wittier, more clever, more the small ball. But yeah, when you when you when you want the game and you have the game on the line, you want the heavy hitter, and you're gonna bring in the heavy hitter, which is Michael Myers. And Ghostface was left looking like a crispy fried motherfucker, in the words of Musta.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Trick-or-treat, motherfucker.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Of course, Ghostface will also, as the runner up, he will uh he will be given his own prize. He will be uh going on the next SpaceX mission, uh, which what could possibly go wrong? He only beat two of the greatest extraterrestrial monsters in buzzer beaters. I'm sure it'll be fine. It'll be great.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, Ghost Face. Ghost Space. Ghost Space. Space goes coast to coast. He's there.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

It's it we're sitting on a gold mine.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

You know what? You reach for the moon, you land among the stars.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Exactly. So Ghostface, and I'm sure all of our fallen foes will be preparing. You know, they're gonna take their losses, they're gonna take those lessons, and they're gonna come back swinging next year. I'm I'm thinking Monster Madness Part 2, Electric Boogaloo, is going to be even bloodier than round one.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah, that's the bit that I really wanted to get here because Ghostface stumbled at the finish line, but now you had the playoff experience. Maybe now you know how to get into the weight room, tighten it up a little bit, refine your form, refine your strategy. But the question here is, Chell, does he go up against Michael next time?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

You know, the f the first person that everyone's going to be turning to every year in a tournament like this is they're going after the big guy. Number one seed has the biggest target on their back. And I do think Michael has a chance, but I I don't know. I think it's going to be a tough go for him next year because if our Discord chats showed us anything, is there's a lot of love for people who were befallen by Michael and some of these mega horror monsters. So I think in the offseason we start we start seeing those those smaller factions start really buffing up.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah, I think what's hilarious though is that Ghostface did more damage. Michael didn't take out Jennifer Check. Jennifer Check had a movement, right? But Ghostface, Ghostface took out some wild fucking competitors that they had no business taking out. So I think everybody really is just looking at Michael Myers like he's the fucking Yankees of the MLB here. But in reality, Ghostface is just this little fucking scrappy dude who's just strolling through everybody.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

They are the 2004 Red Sox going up against the the big guys with the Yankees. Of course, the Red Sox won that year, but just the scrappiness and you know, even going up against again, Predator and Xenomorph. Uh, arguably some of the heavy hitters, especially in the sci-fi realm, and they have quite the the fan bases. And there were some Cinder I will call them Cinderella story upsets.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

With uh with Ghostface coming out on top and any given other given day, any other given game, Ghostface is done three rounds ago. So I think there's a lot to be said about that and a lot to learn from that from both sides.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah, okay. You mentioned the 2004 Red Sox. I also want to bring up the 2003 Marlins. The 2003 Marlins, my hometown team. You know, actually, as we talk, I have a little Marlins game going on in the corner. They're winning four-two against Mets. But when I look at this home bit, the 2003 Marlins really had the magic and the scrappiness, right? But for me, the 2003 Marlins would be more like Art the Clown coming through. New kids on the block, slightly unproven talent, but Miguel Cabrera is a rookie of the year. You know what I mean? I think there's some potential there.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, it's going to be, it's, it's going to be fun to see some of these, some of these new folks, even, I mean, let's let's talk Pearl. You know, she's she's a relative unknown outside of a lot of horror spaces, but she still went pretty far. I think, I think you position her in a different way with some different players. She's, you know, she's swinging for the fences again. I mean, what what what do we make of the Amityville House and just their absolutely iconic run? What do we say about that?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

That is like The Amityville House is the guy on your local rec team who played college baseball and is now in a big fish in a small pond. That's who the Amityville House is because the Amityville house got exposed once the game got serious.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yes, absolutely. Started to break down once everything wasn't perfectly going his way with the Deadites. Of course, nothing was gonna go your way with the Deadites. It's it's incredible just to just to see the game. The the game is kind of a level playing field for everyone. There's winners and there's losers. That's why we love it.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I can't wait to see how next year turns out, but for now, that closes the books on our 2025 Monster Madness Tournament. And while Michael may take the crown this season, the real winners, the true MVPs are all of you, even the dewdrops, the proud members of our Hackerslash community.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

You guys have showed up to play since round one and made this experience more fun and exciting than any of us here at Hackerslash could have ever predicted.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Now you can rest assured absolutely with certainty that the Monster Madness bracket or some variation of it will return next March, and we can't wait to hear about all the work you and your monsters are doing in the offseason to get ready for whatever's next. And from the bottom of our hearts, we really want to thank you for playing along, for bringing the party, for bringing the fun, for bringing the trash talk, and for being the best teammates we could ask for. We'll see you next time, folks, and remember evil never dies.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

It ain't over till it's over, and it's over.