How 7 Iconic Movie Characters Would Fare in a Slasher Movie

Strengths:

The titular character of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ferris' greatest strength is the incredibly charmed life he leads. He has the hottest girlfriend. He has the raddest computer. He has the friend with the biggest mental issues. Everything breaks Ferris' way, and it would be a surprising, even shocking thing indeed if he ended up brutally murdered in the first 10 minutes of this story.

Life is about to stop moving pretty fast.

Weaknesses:

Unfortunately for Ferris, he's in that 16-to-23 demographic that fares very poorly during slasher movies. Psychopaths love murdering teenagers, giving in to the urges we all feel but rarely act on.

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Teens are right to be mistrustful of grown-ups, detecting the faint but very real desire we all have to murder them.

Also, Ferris is kind of a smug little shit, isn't he? In some of the more postmodern slasher varieties, where the audience actually roots for people to die, the smug little shits are among the first to go.

The Outcome:

Ferris will instantly become the most popular kid at Shriekaway Camp, but in doing so will sow the seeds of his own ruin. His antics that first night (singing "Louie Louie" in a variety of places, talking directly to the camera) will grate on more than a few people, and all will be relieved when he decides to sleep in his own cabin that night.

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This should end well.

The next day Ferris will be found strangled to death on a complicated series of strings and pulleys that he'd seemingly been trying to deploy to trick anyone entering the cabin into thinking that he was still in bed, singing "Louie Louie." It's pretty grim, but as it was obviously an accident and no one else was using that cabin anyways, everyone will agree to just quietly shut the door and get on with their weekend.

Strengths:

Taking a break from his work as a chocolatier, Willy Wonka (from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) isn't the strongest person at camp this weekend, but he will quite likely have a number of trick candies on his person that can produce a variety of unlikely effects as the plot necessitates. In terms of other skills, he's very capable of coming up with terrible names for candy, and he also has an extensive (some would say troubling) knowledge of slave management practices.

He's also a passably good choreographer.

Weaknesses:

Wonka's away from his home turf here and, lacking the traps and child-imperiling devices in his factory, his power is greatly diminished. Honestly, if confronted by a murderer, Wonka's options for self-defense are pretty limited, unless of course he can convince the killer to eat something he hands them.

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FDA WARNING: "Wazzo Smizzlers" contain 90 percent flunitrazepam.

The Outcome:

Wonka will take special interest in Ferris Bueller's death, and while the rest of the movie characters are playing horseshoes, he'll sneak back into the cabin and try to harvest some of Ferris' body fluids to form the basis of a new flavor delight.

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There's an awful lot of flavor in lymph.

Strangely, going off on his own doesn't work out too well for Wonka, as the others discover later that morning when they find his body in one of the outhouses, where he apparently ate candy until he burst. And although this does seem a bit like him, all will agree that the handcuffs and restraints probably rule out natural causes. Something is afoot.

It's death. Death's afoot.

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Sure.

The next morning he'll be found dead, just outside of camp, shot in the chest with an energy cannon. This will, understandably, leave the rest of the survivors shaken. If the bravest and strongest of them can fall, what hope can the rest of them have?

So begins their darkest hour.

Weaknesses:

Unfortunately, the camp isn't in the land of dreams, instead being in the plodding land of reality, which limits Krueger's strength somewhat. What he'll need to do is fall asleep somewhere where the killer can find him, he'll ... no, actually, that won't work. Hmmm.

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This is not a good martial art.

It turns out that, without the ability to enter people's dreams, Krueger is just a guy with an ugly sweater and a fedora, basically a hipster with a knife glove. And, like all hipsters, knife gloved or not, everyone around him hates him. Krueger's reputation precedes him, and when tensions rise, it's likely he'll catch a lot of the blame for these deaths.

The Outcome:

"IT'S NOT ME, GUYS. I SWEAR," Freddy will yell as the others push him into a fire. "NO, NOT THIS. I HATE BURNING MORE THAN ANYTHING."

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"IT'S IN MY HAIR IT'S IN MY HAIR."

He dies.

They're finally safe.

Weaknesses:

Amelie is notable for its lack of scenes showing the title character doing chin-ups or working a speed bag, suggesting that she will be among the least capable of the characters at defending herself physically. Additionally, Amelie is highly prone to daydreams and fanciful notions, suggesting that she's as likely to get distracted meddling in the lives of her campmates and murderers as she is to take the time to properly barricade a room.

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Although she did take a surprising interest in creating the elaborate series of pranks that lured Freddy Krueger to his death.

The Outcome:

Amelie will find herself in the camp kitchen, baking a cake to celebrate how everyone's now safe. There will be a noise behind her, which is probably nothing, that she ignores as she finishes frosting onto her cake a heartwarming little depiction of the death of Freddy Krueger.

Then she'll be impaled from behind on a pretty old baguette.

Shit's realness is escalating.

Rocky also has notoriously high endurance and is capable of getting punched in the face seven or eight thousand times without suffering any ill effects. Except for the way he speaks, we guess. That can't be normal.

Weaknesses:

Rocky has to keep his hands up. Getting punched seven or eight thousand times a match is really setting him back on points in the early rounds.

This is also not a very useful martial art.

Beyond that, Rocky regularly finds himself unmotivated, lacking the will to win, and often has to spend minutes at a time soul searching and remembering past events. There simply isn't time for that now, unless there was some way to depict a long passage of time in a short sequence.

The Outcome:

Oh wait.

Now that all seems lost and there's nothing left to lose and losing isn't an option, Rocky embarks on an improvised training regimen to get himself back into peak not-losing shape. He splits wood and throws rocks at other rocks and empties the lake one bucket at a time and generally just inspires the hell out of anyone watching to be their best.

Like, unfortunately, the masked killer, who emerges from the woods, motivated as hell to murder Rocky mid-montage.

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Despite the encumbering cloak, the mask, and the lack of visible fists, the killer is still, somehow, a better boxer than Rocky.

Rocky tries to slow down the killer for as long as possible for the last survivor to escape, using his own face to absorb the killer's attacks. Millions of punches and kicks and slashes and energy cannon blasts thud into Rocky's ruined head, but he refuses to go down or is too stupid to do so.

But will it be enough?

Weaknesses:

She doesn't have any exoskeletons nearby.

The Outcome:

OR DOES SHE?

While Rocky's impossible face distracts the killer, Ripley retreats back to the corpse of Optimus Prime and puts him on like a suit. This works, because let's not ask any hard questions, and she rushes back to the lake. But Rocky is down! Ripley charges the killer and they fight in an extremely gripping and only slightly choreographed way, with much back and forth and reversals of fortune and so on.

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Imagine tennis, but if it didn't suck.

Eventually Ripley wins, because this is Ripley wearing Optimus Prime as a suit. Slowly, afraid of what she might find, knowing she must, she peels off the killer's mask.

It turns out that a man who lives alone and plans elaborate revenge on children is exactly the kind of person who will become a serial killer.

It's Willy Wonka! He faked his own death using a Choco Candy Cadaver, or some bullshit. Rocky walks over, having somehow found an American flag to drape over himself, and says something heartfelt and completely unintelligible. Ripley climbs out of her Optimus Prime suit and consoles him. Everything's going to be all right.

Because a person who faked his death once could never do that again.

Chris Bucholz is a Cracked columnist and has faked his death 12 times, mainly just to see what people say about him. Join him on Facebook or Twitter to participate in one of the many ongoing memorials celebrating his lives.