Who really is the scariest slasher killer in recent horror history?

With the recent release of “Scream (2022),” a reboot of the original franchise, many people have Ghostface and his terrifying rampages on their minds. The real question is whether or not ‘Father Death’ is truly the most terrifying movie serial killer out there.

So many horror franchises have their own individual killers, Wes Craven creating some of the most memorable. Killers like Ghostface, Freddy Kreuger and Michael Myers have haunted movie audiences for years. People are easy to leave treacherous masked murderers like Jason Voorhees and Leatherface behind in the dust. 

Senior Ryan Thompson is a big horror movie fan. When asked about his favorite horror movie killer, the first person that came to his mind was Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lambs,” “He’s very strange… I definitely would not want to be in a room with him,” said Thompson. The cannibalistic savage has many tricks up his sleeve, playing a much more psychological role in producing horror and fear in his audience.

My personal favorite horror movie killer has got to be Jason Voorhees from the “Friday the 13th” franchise. So many horror tropes have stemmed from the terror the original low budget film encapsulated. From a group of teens out alone in the woods, to a brooding unstoppable monster leaving behind destruction in his path. 

“Friday the 13th” is home to some of the most brutal kills in cinema history. A classic that remains unsettling and disturbing to this day. I know that I’ll never go swimming alone in a lake after seeing the terrible things Jason’s mother unleashed upon Camp Crystal Lake in 1980. 

Senior Aaron Reijerse, said his favorite horror movie killer was also Jason Voorhees. “My favorite version is Freddy v. Jason. He’s a trade-A killer, there’s no stopping him. First off, he can’t die. What are you going to do about that? And second, he just teleports. Not like Michael Myers speed-walking, he actually teleports,” said Reijerse. The sheer power that Jason holds is mind-boggling. He really is an unstoppable killing machine.

Another classic that has been left behind after consistently terrible reboots is “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”.

Leatherface from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was a new taste in the boundaries that would push killer flicks into the wild west they are in now. The most memorable scene in all horror franchises has to be Leatherface running around with his chainsaw after losing his final survivor in the original movie. No scene has had quite the impact of this one on an entire genre after the fact.

Horror movies had previously stuck to a trope of keeping the villain hidden, leaving the terror up to your imagination.

While this is definitely a great strategy in keeping the watcher guessing and anxious for the next act of terror, bringing out these killers and shoving them in your face until you can’t get their image out of your brain was something that no films had ever attempted before. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” had me looking behind my shower curtain when I’d get ready for bed, and “Friday the 13th” was the first movie to result in me closing my blinds to make sure no killer could see what I was up to in the middle of the night. That’s why I think Jason Voorhees takes the cake. He is, in my opinion, cinema’s scariest serial killer.