Watching horror movies this October doesn’t have the same edge that it used to. When revisiting some of my favorite horror movies, I realized that everything we’ve been through this year has made it so that no demon, knife wielding masked killer, nor ghost can be as scary as they used to be. In the most scientific list I have ever devised, I will be comparing three horror movie villains with three 2020 difficulties to decide which is truly scarier.

Ghostface vs. Murder Hornets

We start off our analysis with a very easy choice. Ghostface in the Scream franchise is a pretty scary villain; a masked killer who relentlessly attacks his victims. However, in nearly all the Scream movies, Ghostface ends up being some dumb kid who is arrested due to their own stupidity. You know what’s already scarier than Ghostface? A hornet. You know what’s scarier than a hornet? A murder hornet (which is like a regular hornet that’s going through a slaughter phase). How many times this year were students at LFA forced to fight off relentless hornets as they tried to eat their food? Now imagine if those hornets had been murder hornets. The madness that would have occurred outside of the Student Center would have been unimaginable. Not once did Ghostface have the evilness inside of him to bother students at lunch, hornets have no such moral compass (murder hornets even less so).

Scarier: Murder Hornets

The Babadook vs. Forgetting to Mute on Zoom

For those who are unaware, in simplest terms, The Babadook is a monster that haunts people after reading a seemingly innocent children’s book bearing his name. Do you know the biggest flaw in this villain’s plan to terrorize? It is incredibly easy to not read a book. How many times have you accidentally read a book? Such an event is not possible. If I had the Babadook’s book, I would never read it. I could not be in less danger. In fact, not reading the Babadook’s book would be the easiest thing I would do on any given day. On the other hand, no matter how many times I check to make sure I’m on mute on Zoom, accidents still occur. You don’t even have to do anything bad when not muted for it to be scary, just the idea of people being able to hear you move around in an otherwise quiet meeting is horrifying enough. Accidentally reading a book = impossible; Accidentally not muting on Zoom = very common. The math is straightforward.

Scarier: Forgetting to Mute on Zoom

Freddy Kreuger vs. Coronavirus

Freddy Kreuger has always terrified me. A villain who attacks his victims where they are most vulnerable: their dreams. Now, it may appear that with his knife fingers and ability to kill people in their dreams, causing them to die in real life as well, that Kreuger may have a slight advantage over the Coronavirus, but this is just not the case. All you have to do to escape Freddy Kreuger is to not fall asleep. That’s easy. Drink a Redbull or a coffee, splash cold water on your face, or stay awake through electrical shocks. Do any of these things and Freddy has no shot. I don’t have bags under my eyes due to a shotty sleep schedule, they are there out of self-defense. You know how else you could beat Kreuger? Don’t fall asleep on Elm Street. Freddy Kreuger can be easily beaten by a technicality. Kruger exists in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. He is only effective on Elm Street. Do I even need to explain why the Coronavirus is scarier?

Scarier: Coronavirus

In a clear and brutal defeat, 2020 has come out on top as being far scarier than any horror movie villain.