Last year’s biggest horror hit was, without a doubt, the modern-day retelling of Stephen King’s Locus and World Fantasy Awards-nominated horror novel “It”. Is Pennywise the scariest clown ever created? It might be – in this story, King builds on the “evil clown” character that’s been around for ages, adding quite a bit of supernatural to the mix. Thus, Pennywise doesn’t need any tools to kill – it feeds on children in his own supernatural ways.
Over the years, in turn, there were many other major movie monsters that have become forever tied to their distinctive tools. After all, not all movie monsters are supernatural – some of them need cold, hard steel to be able to perform their preferred action: slaughtering and/or dismembering their victims. Let’s take a look at a few of them below.
Jason Voorhees
The first machete kill in the “Friday the 13th” series isn’t tied to Jason himself – it is performed by his mother, Pamela, toward the end of the film. In later iterations of the series, the machete becomes as much an integral part of the character as his iconic hockey mask: in the second film, two victims are killed by this means, while in the 2009 reboot, the number goes up to seven. And he uses it in pretty creative ways at times.
Freddy Krueger
The bladed glove worn by Freddy Krueger in all of his movies is perhaps the best-known “tool” ever used by a movie monster. And it was a completely original idea. In a 2014 interview, Wes Craven revealed that he was, for a long time, contemplating on what tool Freddy should use to do his horrific trade on the screen. He finally reached back to the primeval times when tooth and claw were the only weapons used, and this gave him the idea to equip his iconic monster with a clawed glove.
Candyman
Without trying to turn all this into a “who wore it best” contest: yes, the killer in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” also used a hook. But Clive Barker’s “Candyman” came first – and it went beyond simple supernatural flicks and teen scream movies. Besides, it has Tony Todd, one of the well-known faces forever tied to horror films.
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