After a week and nearly 1500 votes, ComingSoon.net’s poll for who is the greatest horror slasher icon has closed and despite a roster chock-full of variety to choose from, there was one clear winner whose arrival is infamously paired with the Halloween season. Check out the results from the poll below!
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POLL RESULTS: Who is the Greatest Slasher Icon?
Top Five
- Michael Myers (Halloween) (30%, 423 votes)
- Freddy Krueger (Nightmare on Elm Street) (28%, 395 votes)
- Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th) (25%, 362 votes)
- Ghostface (Scream) (4%, 51 votes)
- Hannibal Lecter (Thomas Harris adaptations) (2%, 30 votes)
With the slasher genre generally being cited as having started in the 1960s with films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, we’d be remiss not to reflect on the terrors that were Norman Bates and Mark Lewis, even if they didn’t deliver as many bloody thrills as their competitors. As time progressed and the exploitation genre started making a rise, audiences were introduced to the likes of Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper’s chainsaw-wielding Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Phantom Killer from The Town That Dreaded Sundown and based on the real killer of the same name, Black Christmas‘ Billy and John Carpenter’s Michael Myers of Halloween.
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The rest of the results are as follows:
- Pinhead (Hellraiser) (2%, 23 votes)
- Chucky (Child’s Play) (1%, 21 votes)
- Pennywise (IT) (1%, 18 votes)
- Jigsaw (Saw) (1%, 17 votes)
- Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw) (1%, 16 votes)
- Norman Bates (Psycho) (1%, 15 votes)
- Victor Crowley (Hatchet) (1%, 9 votes)
- Candyman (1%, 8 votes)
- Mark Lewis (Peeping Tom) (0%, 7 votes)
- Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) (0%, 6 votes)
- Tall Man (Phantasm) (0%, 6 votes)
- The Firefly Family (Rob Zombie Trilogy) (0%, 5 votes)
- Art the Clown (Terrifier) (0%, 5 votes)
- Leprechaun (0%, 4 votes)
- Leslie Vernon (Behind the Mask) (0%, 3 votes)
- Billy (Black Christmas) (0%, 2 votes)
- The Phantom (The Town That Dreaded Sundown) (0%, 2 votes)
- The Fisherman (I Know What You Did Last Summer) (0%, 1 vote)
- Maniac Cop (0%, 1 vote)
- Frank Zito (Maniac) (0%, 0 votes)
- The Stepfather (0%, 0 votes)
- The Miner (My Bloody Valentine) (0%, 0 votes)
The slasher genre would then enter what became known as the Golden Age and see the world introduced to the eventually hockey mask-wearing Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th, Harry Warden aka The Miner from My Bloody Valentine and Wes Craven’s Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. While the late ’80s and early ’90s would start to see fatigue hit the genre and struggle to rekindle the early streak of hits, it would still deliver some fan-favorite villains in Terry O’Quinn’s eponymous The Stepfather, Robert Z’Dar’s eponymous Maniac Cop, Don Mancini’s Chucky from Child’s Play and Clive Barker’s eponymous Candyman and Pinhead of Hellraiser.
Going into the late ’90s to the present, better known as the post-modern era, the genre would see a rollercoaster of varying quality entries and debuting new slashers including Kevin Williamson’s Ghostface of Scream and Ben Willis aka The Fisherman of I Know What You Did Last Summer, Rob Zombie’s Firefly Family from House of 1000 Corpses and its sequels, cult favorite Leslie Vernon from mockumentary Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Adam Green’s Victor Crowley of Hatchet, James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s Jigsaw of the Saw series and Damien Leone and Shawn Moreau’s Art the Clown of Terrifier.
