Horror movies, as well as suspense thrillers, tend to scare us but none can ever surmount the fact that these horror movie serial killers make the movie. They provide a chilling effect on how movies are deemed to be scary and frightening. Here are your top 5 chilling movie serial killers.
1. Ghostface
Ghostface appeared in the very first film of Wes Craven’s Scream. Scream is a horror teen slasher flick that centers around a group of high school kids who are suddenly hunted by a ferocious killer only known by Ghostface. Ghostface dresses as a heavily cloaked figure with a frightening ghastly face as a mask hence the name Ghostface. He prefers playing with his victims first before closing in for the kill. Most of the time, Ghostface harasses his victims with phone calls and lures them in a vulnerable state before killing them with his knife.
Most of Ghostface’s victims end up at the sharp pointy end of his knife. What sets Ghostface apart is that he has a knack for the pop culture and that his true identity differs from one movie to the next but he retains the same voice when he is speaking to his victims over the phone or in person.
2. Leatherface
Leatherface is a fictional character in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror film franchise. He is often depicted wielding a chainsaw with a mask made out of the skin of his victims. He is also known to be wearing a suit but in subsequent movies, his costume has changed into that of a butcher but still retains the skin mask and chainsaw. He engages in murder and cannibalism with the aid of his inbred family. Leatherface has been known to be inspired by the Wisconsin killer who is known to wear a mask made of his victim’s skin named Ed Gein. He is usually depicted as someone who is under the control of his family. He is usually ordered to kill anyone who trespasses or falls into the trap made by his family in order to consume people for their cannibalistic needs.
One scene even showed him having a crush on one of his victims and he ended pulling the skin of another to cover her face when his family was about to eat her. Truly a spectacular yet barbaric depiction of a horror movie icon, Leatherface continues to haunt people with the buzzing sound of the chainsaw.
3. Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th horror series. Jason first appeared in the first film but was not revealed as the killer was instead, her mother. It was until the last minutes of the film that Jason finally took it upon himself to exact revenge on the people who killed her mother in the first film. It was also by that time that the movie itself became a gold mine for the company. There are as many as ten films that featured this monstrous killer. Jason Voorhees is known to wear a hockey mask and uses a machete as his favorite weapon. Jason is depicted as a lonely and heavily disfigured child. He would use a hockey mask to hide his face and as a child, he was severely bullied. It was until he nearly drowned in the lake after a prank by teens at a summer camp in Crystal Lake that he realized that he had enough.
In the subsequent films, Jason Voorhees’ killing spree continued but along the lines between the third and fourth film, Jason returned supposedly for the last time but something in him changed. He was now considered indestructible and moved around like a living dead.
4. Michael Myers
Michael Myers is a fictional character of the Halloween movies. He is the titular serial killer with a blank white Shatner mask who yielded a butcher knife while stalking babysitters including one Laurie Strode which was played by Jamie Lee Curtis in the film.
There are about nine Halloween movies. Halloween III was the only movie that did not feature Myers.
5. Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger is a fictional character in the Nightmare On Elm Street horror movie franchise. He is described as a malevolent being who invades people’s dreams and murder them while they are dreaming. Oftentimes, Freddy is seen having knives as his fingers that are used to kill his victims in their dreams.
Other times, he bends the reality inside the dream world to murder his victims. He has a burned disfigured face but retains a cynical sense of humor. He often lures his victims in a false pretense of reality only to find out that they are already dreaming.
Freddy Krueger’s history has been told in a series of movies. He was a child sex offender of which he was convicted and imprisoned but the parents of the children who he abused took matters into their own hands and burned him alive. Although his physical body was destroyed, his soul remained and now attacks the young people in town.