Film
Anton Chigurh
No Country for Old Men · 2007
Violence with a rulebook nobody else can read
Threat index 81
Slasher · Film
Jason Voorhees
The hockey mask that became shorthand for horror itself
Attribute scores
Power84
Intellect35
Menace85
Fear factor87
Cultural impact89
Charisma28
Editorial estimates on a 0–100 scale, calibrated against every other character in the index. Not official canon.
Who they are
Jason is not even the killer in the first film, and he does not put on the hockey mask until the third. That accidental evolution produced one of the most recognizable silhouettes in cinema. He is a machete, a mask, and an inexhaustible grudge attached to a specific patch of woods, and the franchise has never needed him to be more than that.
Defining traits
Immense physical strengthRegenerates from lethal damageMachete signatureTerritorial obsessionTotal silence
What makes them dangerous
He is a force of habit with a machete, and the lake keeps bringing him back.
And what undoes them
He is slow, easily lured, and has been drowned, burned and frozen more times than anyone can count.
Things you might not know
- He appears in the original film only as a child in a hallucination; his mother is the killer.
- The hockey mask arrived in the third entry almost by accident during a lighting test.
- The stalking sound heard throughout the series is a whispered vocal effect, not an instrument.
Why number 20 in Scariest
Pure momentum. There is no reasoning, no speed and no stopping, and the woods do not end.
Why number 23 in Most Iconic
The hockey mask arrived by accident in a third sequel and became one of the three or four most recognizable objects in horror.
If you like this villain
Film
Norman Bates
Psycho · 1960
The nervous young man who invented the modern horror villain
Threat index 70
Film