How 7 Iconic Movie Characters Would Fare in a Slasher Movie

7 Ferris Bueller

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.

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.

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.

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.

6 Willy Wonka

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.

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.

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.

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.

5 Optimus Prime

Strengths:

Yes.

Weaknesses:

No.

The Outcome:

Optimus Prime (of Transformers: The Movie vintage) was born(?) to be a leader, and with two murders on the books, he will immediately take charge of the situation. With the camp's bus mysteriously disabled and no escape possible for the surviving movie characters, Optimus will decide to set up a secure shelter in one of the cabins, establishing a defensive perimeter and scheduling a series of guard shifts. Then, as the only one capable of turning into a truck, he'll turn into a truck and go get help.

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.

4 Freddy Krueger

Strengths:

As the Nightmare on Elm Street series has shown, Freddy Krueger is essentially unkillable in the world of dreams, with immense strength and a variety of supernatural powers. He's also got that glove with the finger blades, great for slashing and spreading soft cheeses and such.

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.

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."

He dies.

They're finally safe.

3 Amelie

Strengths:

As depicted in the film Amelie, Amelie is a young Frenchwoman with all the strength and stamina of a young Frenchwoman. And while that's not an especially impressive amount, she is, however, completely adorable, which if nothing else will make the killer regret killing her a bit more.

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.

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.

2 Rocky Balboa

Strengths:

Rocky's not in the shape he used to be, having retired eight or nine times during the Rocky series of films. Still, he's certainly among the strongest of the characters at camp this weekend that doesn't run on Energon.

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.

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.

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?

1 Ellen Ripley

Strengths:

Taking a break from all the troubles of space, Ripley (as seen in the Aliens franchise) certainly didn't expect to find herself tits deep in horror on her summer break, but now that she is, no one is better equipped to deal with it than her. Possessing physical toughness, resourcefulness, a mastery of robotic exoskeletons, and an iron will to survive, Ellen Ripley is who slashers fear when they go to summer camp.

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.

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'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.