Halloween is here and so are the slash-fest movies that horror buffs live for. But this week we’re not going to look at the bad guys who make butchering look badass, we’re going to look at the villains who are the most ridiculous, the most laughably stupid, the most unrealistic. Because nothing ruins what could’ve been an awesome horror movie more than a killer who is less scary than your aunt Mildred’s applesauce.
10. Santa in Santa’s Slay
I need to provide the disclaimer that this movie is, in fact, trying to be funny. Still, the idea of Santa Claus (played by wrestler Bill Goldberg) being a demon who lost a curling competition a thousand years ago who is forced to spread cheer and goodwill for the next millennium, only to revert back to his murderous ways once he’s made good on the terms of the bet he lost, is really uninspiring. The only good part about the movie is the first scene, where Santa massacres a family of gentiles enjoying a Christmas dinner. I mean, any time James Caan is getting killed, it’s going to be cool—the man knows how to die. Nonetheless, even in a comedic slasher it’s pretty hard to get amped about a Santa who slaughters. Thanks but no thanks.
9. The lawnmower man in The Lawnmower Man
This less-than-faithful adaptation of Stephen King’s short story gives us Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), a mentally disabled gardener, as the killer. With a regimen of mind-altering drugs and virtual reality training, thanks to Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan), Jobe gains super intelligence and uses it to kill anyone who gets in his way. Which is, apparently, everyone. He doesn’t just kill people in real life, he kills them in Angelo’s virtual world, too. And he also likes to use his lawn mower. *Yawn* No wonder King wanted his name taken off this project. Most people don’t think of super smart nerds when they think of horrifying killers, especially ones who use the internet as their great get-away plan. The only people this would scare would be the people who work at Comcast.
8. The snowman in Jack Frost
It’s hard to imagine a less frightening killer than a snow man, but that’s exactly the killer we have on our hands in Jack Frost (not to be mistaken with the film of the same name that came out two years later and was a strange children’s movie about a father who becomes reincarnated as a snow man to spend time with his son). A serial killer gets magically mutated during his car ride to get executed, then puts all his snow man energies into killing the sheriff who caught him in the first place. Here are some weapons I would use to combat this holiday-friendly foe: a blow dryer; a portable space heater; a microwave; an electric blanket; a trip to Florida. This is not brain science. This is just stupid.
7. The gingerbread man in The Gingerdead Man
Gary Busey must have been tripping on something pretty strong when he signed up to play the lead in The Gingerdead Man. Busey plays Millard Findlemeyer, a killer who dies in the electric chair, only to come back to life when his soul inhabits the body of a gingerbread man. Dead-set on exacting revenge on the girl who put him there, he goes on a spree of what can only be called extremely cute murders. Once again, it seems as if everyone actually confronted by the Gingerdead Man would have a lot of easy, even enjoyable, options at their disposal: cover him in frosting; put him on your Christmas tree; put him in a tin of other gingerbread men and give him away as a gift (with a warning, of course); eat him. This killer seems less of a problem for law enforcement and more of a homemaking opportunity for Martha Stewart.
6. The Serial Insane Clown Killer in S.I.C.K.
A group of five people take off for a weekend of camping and proceed to have copious amounts of sex. The filmmakers of this movie managed to squeeze in a little time for their Serial Insane Clown Killer, who picks off the campers one by one. Clowns are, by and large, pretty scary all by themselves, and thus this movie might have done alright in more competent hands. The problem is that there’s more sex than murder in S.I.C.K., and the murder that does happen is overshadowed by the fact that Stephen King already wrote the scariest book, which became the scariest movie, about clowns of all time: It. There is simply no way any clown can ever compete with Pennywise the Clown. It's just not going to happen. Rumor is there’s a remake of It in the works – now that’s a movie I’ll be in line to see.
