Halloween Head-To-Head Royale: Halloween vs. Friday the 13th vs A Nightmare on Elm Street. Halloween Hangover Recovery Episode..

 

Halloween season has officially ended. What follows now is the sugar induced hangover recovery that is the entirety of November. And now that the decorations are being pulled down and the candy stashes are being slowly depleted day by day, I'm back to writing these articles. And during my hiatus I spent my entire October incessantly studying the most classic of horror movies. Learning the clichés, tendencies, and stories of each horror staple. I emerge from the Halloween season with a newfound knowledge and liking  of horror films. And when you think of horror one of the first things that come to mind is the trifecta of Halloween, Friday the 13th, and a Nightmare on Elm Street. Horror's three biggest franchises are neck and neck in my mind. And I hate ties. So for the first episode of my Halloween Hangover Recovery series I have decided to pit the three movies against each other Head to head in a series of categories. Story, Quality, Scariness, and Opening Scene. I'm not going to make best killer a category in this article as that will inspire a whole article soon. Also, I will be pitting the original movies of each series against each other rather than the complete franchises as I haven't watched past the second movie of any of them.  

So without further unnecessarily prolonged introduction, let's settle the biggest debate in Horror history. 

The first category I'm going to use is for the best storyline.  Now I know horror movies tend to follow the same basic template when it comes to story building so I decided the best way to judge these plots is by their creativity. So Friday The 13th Fans, you already know how this one is going to play out. 

Friday The 13th has an interesting enough plot line. A mother driven to madness in a pursuit of vengeance for the loss of her son. And in doing so she starts the tradition of stalking and eventually murdering any counsellors foolish enough to try and reopen the camp. But that all is just Halloween in a summer camp. It's Speed to Die Hard. I'm all for surpassing the thing you are emulating. But in this case Friday The 13th's PLOT didn't cut it. 
The next plot we're going to cover is that of the Nirvana of slasher films, Halloween. you have to give credit where credit is due. I say how slasher films for the most part just follow the same basic template, Halloween wrote that template. Creepy guy in a mask (usually silently) stalking and killing teens or young adults in a remote place or time using a signature weapon of choice. It started the tropes that its endless lines of copycats turned into poor clichés. So that's a major plus in its direction. 

And finally we have A Nightmare On Elm street. During an 80s era filled with horrible sequels of Friday The 13th and Halloween along with the same slasher tropes made over and over again, Wes Craven brought us something different, a refreshing taste of creativity in a genre milked for all it was worth. (The first of two times Wes Craven saved horror. I should really write something about that). Nightmare on Elm Street does everything right in this category. The story building doesn't really have any flaws, the villain was written very nicely, and everything about the plot and premise was just a class by itself.  It and Halloween absolutely mutilate Friday The 13th in the story department. So this category has become a contest between two. 

Halloween made the slasher film a mainstream genre and was one of the most influential movies in history. So it would seem as though that gets it the win here. But in my mind it doesn't. A Nightmare On Elm Street came out in the post-Halloween 80s where everything looked like a cheap remake of Michael Myers and original ideas seemed dead. And then Wes Craven gave us this movie. Something unlike any of the slasher films that came out to that day. An Original plot with an original villain with a well written backstory. And I personally think that puts it above Halloween in this category.

Point: A Nightmare On Elm Street

Score: A Nightmare On Elm Street 1, Friday The 13th 0, and Halloween 0. 

Next up on the list we have the best quality category. In this contest I'll be analyzing the quality each movie in things like visuals and enjoyability. 

Friday The 13th was definitely the best imitation of Halloween the 80s gave us. And in the end the entire franchise gives Halloween a run for its money. But the fact that we keep using Halloween as a ceiling for how good it can be already puts it behind in the category. It's a good and enjoyable movie but it will always be known as the Scrappy-Doo version of Halloween. 

Speaking of which, let's talk about Halloween. Everything here was done damn near perfect. They picked the ideal form of horror movie for the 1970s special effects they were stuck with. Not requiring giant explosions or otherworldly creatures to get their message through. Also the suspense that Carpenter puts us through during the first two-thirds of the movie are on another level than the rest of these movies. The killing doesn't even start until the last 30 minutes and those are barely the scariest moments. Everything about the first hour is completely flawless. The opening scene, the way Michael is silently stalking Laurie all day, how many times you think someone's going to die but nothing happens. All of it is perfect. 

A Nightmare On Elm Street is next.  And It's been made with absolute amazing quality. But for me. Krueger's scenes aren't written near to the calibre of Michael Myers. He does way too much "Look at me!" prancing around. Instead of actually chasing his victims, he decides to cut off his fingers or slice open his shoulder and show maggots living inside of him. And to me that takes a bit of the quality points away from him. Making Halloween the clear winner here.

Winner: Halloween

Score: Halloween 1, Nightmare On Elm Street 1, Friday The 13th 0.

The third category is arguably the most important in any horror movie, Scariness. Which of these 3 provides the viewer with the most sleepless night after their viewing? 

Friday The 13th, no matter how much I have made it seem like I think of it as a bad movie, is a great movie and a classic in its own right. But since it's such a knock-off of Halloween everyone already knew what was going to happen already. The clichés were already exposed so it left no suspense or surprise left. Taking a huge toll on the scariness factor. 

Next up is Halloween. And I must say that they do an amazing job pacing the fear and making the viewer consistently petrified all throughout the hour-and a-half runtime. However, Michael Myers himself isn't particularly scary to me. I mean the guy's literally dressed as William Shatner in a cheap jumpsuit. No one's laying awake at night, terrified of that running through the door. 

Last is A Nightmare on Elm Street. And it looks like it has a clear highway to victory here. And I wish I could pull a twist and make that not the case but I can't. Nightmare is by far the scariest of these. Once you finish a horror movie and are turning in for the night, the covers, and the sanctuary of sleep are your safe space, where you can escape the fear you just felt. A Nightmare On Elm Street completely destroys that safe space. Freddy comes for you in your dreams. Your sanctuary. Nothing the other two have thrown at us is scarier than that. 

Winner: A Nightmare On Elm Street

Score: A Nightmare On Elm Street 2, Halloween 1, Friday The 13th 0.

Finally we have opening scene. Ever since I watched Scream I decided that the opening scene of a horror movie is the most important part of the whole thing. It's what starts off the movie to set the tempo and show you what type of movie you're going to see. It's been my favourite element of any horror movie since I first watched one. So anyways...

Friday The 13th's opening scene is yet again pretty basic. Just two counsellors being killed with no context whatsoever. If you're going to kill people in a slasher film please at least give us a reason or some originality. But no it's just a senseless double murder. 

Halloween's opening scene is good. While it is basically the same thing as Friday The 13th. Friday copied off of this so it has the originality that sort of cancels it out. I think it was a great twist in the starting when the person who killed that girl ended up being 6 year old Michael Myers instead of an adult killer but I'm not sure as the internet had spoiled that for me long before I watched the movie. 
Nightmare On Elm Street's opening scene is also decent. But all in all it was a pretty weak category between these three movies. It features a girl being chased in her dreams by Freddy Krueger in what I believe is a burning factory. It's not great. But in my mind, when you take away the fact that Halloween's opening scene started a genre and launched a franchise (Neither of which factor into the final score for the opening scene), it's not really that great. And A Nightmare On Elm Street just barely edges it out. 

Winner: Nightmare On Elm Street

After a pretty disappointing final category. A Nightmare on Elm Street proves to be the best movie out of these 3. And one of the best in horror history.