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The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 16

 

Original Fight 10

 

Leatherface vs Ghostface (Billy and Stu)

 

Welcome to the nadir of power levels.

 

No supernatural powers. No superscience. No magic. No martial arts.

 

We have two characters (actually three) who hide their human vulnerability behind cold, unfeeling masks. They fancy themselves hunters and butchers, but in the end their prey, nothing more than teenagers, get the better of them.

 

Both are from highly influential slasher films that influenced the genre for years. Leatherface is from Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) which along with Black Christmas (1974) started the slasher genre. Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Victor Crowley, they all owe a debt to Leatherface. Ghostface is from Scream (1996) which brought sly self-awareness to the slasher genre and influenced New Nightmare (1994), Candyman (1992), and Friday the 13th Part VI (1986).

 

Oh wait. You might notice something about those dates.

 

Yeah. Scream being credited as injecting self-awareness into the slasher genre is…inaccurate, to put it lightly.

 

So what was Scream’s influence?

 

Big budgets, beautiful stars, and the writer of Dawson’s Creek.

 

Scream was the gentrification of the slasher genre.

 

And if that’s true, then what could be more appropriate than having Scream’s slasher fight a humble meat farmer?

 

Because of the simplicity of this match’s fighters, we only have one category for judging them–their attacks. How good are they at attacking and killing people?

 

It’s two smartass city boys with an encyclopedic knowledge of horror movie trivia against a humble country boy that only knows his family needs him to put meat on the table. They like to scare their prey with phone calls and trivia challenges. He likes to butcher his prey quickly and efficiently like calves in a slaughterhouse.

 

Irony vs Sincerity. Sleek modernity vs Rural grit. Black robes vs bloody apron.

 

Who will survive and what will be left of them?

 

Leatherface

 

“My family’s always been in meat!”

–Hitchhiker

 

Screw the prequels. You know the correct origin for Leatherface? He is.

 

Screw all attempts at giving him a name. You know what Leatherface’s name is? Leatherface.

 

We learn all we need to know about Leatherface just from watching him. He’s a monster in the Frankenstein (1931) vein. He’s a violent monster. The audience isn’t allowed to forget the consequences of his violence. It’s shoved right in their faces. But the audience also has to feel sympathy for Leatherface. He’s obviously developmentally challenged. He’s a giant toddler trying to fit in the violent world his family raised him in. He only has his two psychotic, abusive brothers for family. He understands he’s lacking something in his life even if he can’t articulate it. He play-acts parental roles to try and ameliorate that lack. When he’s killing and butchering and bringing home the meat, he wears a man’s face and tie. When he’s making dinner for his brothers, he wears a woman’s face and makeup. He protects and nurtures his abusers because they are all he has in the world. It’s hard not to feel bad for him when one understands this.

 

The scene that best demonstrates Leatherface as a sympathetic monster is shortly after he kills Jerry. It’s the third time he’s killed a teenager that day. He freaks out. He paces nervously around the house. He stares out the window. Who are these people? Why are they coming into his home?

 

He sits down and slaps his head. He tries to think.

 

He’s just as scared as his victims are.

 

What makes Leatherface a pop-culture icon is the same thing that makes Frankenstein’s monster, King Kong, and Godzilla pop-culture icons–he combines, both in his immediate visual design and behavior, elements that elicit fear alongside pity.

 

Leatherface’s Attacks

 

–Lures Kirk by making piggy noises then drops him with a single sledgehammer to the head. Kirk’s still twitching but another blow and a door slamming shut ends one of the best scenes in the movie.

 

–In an attack that more or less inspired the gameplay of Dead by Daylight, Leatherface chases down Pam, grabs her just as she reaches the porch, carries her back inside his lair, and places her on a meathook. He gives no regard to her screams of pain as he takes a chainsaw and gets to work on Kirk’s corpse. The cold callousness of the scene makes this one of the best scenes in the movie.

 

–Quickly and efficiently kills Jerry by using both hands to bring his trusty sledgehammer down on his head. The sudden, unceremonious brutality of this scene makes it…well okay, all the kills in the film are really good. It’s like Friday the 13th part IV. Every kill is a winner.

 

–Sneaks up on Sally and Franklin in the dark with a roaring chainsaw and guts Franklin. Press F for Franklin.

 

I got no idea why people hate Franklin. Franklin was the perfect main character for the first half of the film. There’s a lot of brilliant elements to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and one of those brilliant elements is that the first half of the movie is terror and the second half is horror. The first half of the film is half-glimpsed weirdness and signs of danger. The second half is an in-your-face nightmare where dead corpses like Grandpa can suddenly spring to life if they taste your blood.

 

Franklin is our main character for the first half. He’s the one that notices things the other characters overlook. He’s the one that didn’t want to pick up Hitchhiker. He’s the one that didn’t want to go to the house. He’s the one that makes the right calls, but no one listens to him because they don’t like him. And he knows they don’t like him. It feeds his anxiety because he’s in a wheelchair and knows that if anything happens he’s absolutely helpless compared to everyone else.

 

Franklin is an audience surrogate. He knows more than the characters but is powerless to do anything but sit and watch.

 

Franklin is an awesome character.

 

–Chases Sally through a forest while carrying a chainsaw and never loses her. He only stops when she reaches the gas station Cook works at. Also, keep in mind Leatherface pulled off this chase after butchering two bodies. The guy has stamina!

 

–Is defeated by trucker-with-wrench after Sally escapes his family and runs to the hallway. 

 

Leather gives chase along with his brother Hitchhiker. Hitchhiker gets mowed down by a trucker that sees him cutting on Sally. The trucker stops, Leatherface arrives and chases Sally and the trucker, and the trucker drops him by throwing a wrench at his head. Bad form! You don’t disrespect the mask! 

 

Leather falls and cuts open his leg with his own chainsaw, but he’s tough enough to hobble to his feet and chase after the trucker, who gets away on foot, and Sally, who gets away when a passing pickup comes along to rescue her. Leatherface still tries to chase her, but he’s not going to keep up with a car, and he’s left slinging around his chainsaw in a tantrum as the movie ends.

 

Sure, Leatherface was defeated. But he survived. Not many slashers can say that–including his opponents.

 

Ghostface

 

“Sid, don’t you blame the movies! Movies didn’t create psychos, movies made psychos more creative!”

–Billy 

 

“My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me…”

–Stu

 

Spoilers for a film from the aeon of AOL: Ghostface isn’t one person. He’s a tag-team of two high school psychos named Billy and Stu.

 

Think Ice Climbers but they’re homicidal hipsters.

 

Billy is the brains of the team and Stu is the hapless toadie. They work together to cover Ghostface’s identity. “It can’t be me, I saw Ghostface when I was with you!”

 

Billy and Stu are thrill seekers. They delight in torturing those weaker than themselves and getting away with it. The greatest weapon of the Ghostface team is their meticulous planning. They plan their kills like a director staging scenes in a slasher film and carry them out like professional actors cast in a role. 

 

How very meta! 

 

Ghostface’s Attacks

 

–Captures and subdues a jock off-screen. Ghostface then guts him when his girlfriend fails to correctly answer who the killer in the first Friday the 13th was. 

 

Let that be a lesson. If your girl isn’t up on her slasher films, she isn’t worth your time.

 

–Chases down and stabs a girl. Then stabs her again. But she knees him and stuns him long enough to try and cry out for her parents–easily the most emotionally impactful scene in the film. But she can’t make more than a squeak because her throat is slit, so several stabs later her corpse is hung from a tree.

 

–Attacks Sydney in the girls’ bathroom. Hey, you guys aren’t supposed to be in there! She easily escapes by sliding on the floor and Ghostface ends up eating sink.

 

–Fails to kill Sydney again due to a kick and a locked door.

 

–Stabs Principal Himby in the gut killing him. Rest in Peace Fonzie.

 

–Gets his ass beat by a high school girl named Tatum. She slams a fridge door in his face, pelts him with beer bottles, and even flips him over her back. If she didn’t try and escape through a pet door setting herself up to get killed by a mechanical garage door (I doubt that could happen in real life) I think she could have beaten him.

 

–Kills a cameraman by cutting his throat.

 

–Gets the drop of Sydney inside a car from behind and still can’t kill her.

 

Holy shit, what is she, teflon? Grab her. She’s like the golden snitch of slasher movie characters.

 

–Stu dies after getting beat up by Sydney, stunned by a vase, and crushed by a television.

 

This was a 90’s television, not one of those modern picture portrait things. It had some serious heft.

 

To be fair to Stu, he was a little woozy after Billy stabbed him in the side a couple of times. You see, their master plan was to inflict flesh wounds on each other, place the blame on Sydney’s dad, and act like Ghostface attacked them.

 

–Billy goes down after taking a knife to the side from Stu (see above for an explanation) and  several stabs to the chest delivered by Sydney wielding an umbrella. He was able to get back up only to be shot by a reporter. Then he gets back up again for one final scare only for Sydney to shoot him in the head and finish off Billy forever–but not Ghostface as the sequel will attest.

 

These days, you got to have a sequel!

 

Who Wins?

 

I got to give it to Leatherface. Even two against one Leatherface is such a better killer than Billy and Stu that he takes it.

 

Leatherface is going to get the drop on the boys. You might think that Leatherface wouldn’t be stealthier considering he’s most known for running like a spaz and flinging around a chainsaw, but his kills show that he can actually be very quiet when he needs to be. 

 

Leatherface is also going to have the psychological edge on Billy and Stu. They’re horror movie junkies. They’ve seen every Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They’re going to be freaking out that Leatherface is real and is trying to murder them while Leatherface won’t particularly care what Billy and Stu look like. He needs to murder them, so he murders them. Leatherface is too simple to wonder why they’re wearing masks.

 

In a straight fight, Billy and Stu are dead meat. Dead, seasoned meat. Billy and Stu had trouble fighting teenage girls. You know what would have happened to Sydney if she had gone up against Leatherface? The same thing that happened to Pam.

 

Leatherface also kills his victims in one or two blows. He can down one and then quickly move on to the next.  Billy and Stu are more like Leatherface’s brother Hitchhiker. It takes them a few tries to get the job done.

 

And as we all know, a real man can kill a steer with one blow of a sledgehammer–just like Grandpa.

 

But what about Billy coming back for one last scare after taking a killing blow? 

 

So what? Leatherface is familiar with the double tap. If the meat moves, hit it until it doesn’t move.

 

Billy and Stu are hipster chilli. Order up!