Jason vs Michael Myers: who wins? DanCo picks Jason

Jason Voorhees against Michael Myers is a matchup between two of the most famous slasher killers in horror history. Both have enormous strength, both are almost impossible to kill, and both have spent decades slaughtering anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. I've gone through what each of them can do, and my verdict is that Jason wins. Michael can make it a hard fight, but I don't see a reliable way for him to finish Jason off.

Jason is the masked killer of the Friday the 13th films, which began in 1980. Michael Myers is the masked killer of the Halloween films, which began in 1978.

Jason Voorhees went from a bullied boy at Crystal Lake to an undead killer

Jason is without doubt one of the most famous killers in horror film history, but he wasn't always the huge, near unstoppable monster walking around with a hockey mask and a machete. Originally he was a young boy living near Camp Crystal Lake. He was born with severe facial deformities, and because of how he looked, other children bullied him constantly. His mother, Pamela Voorhees, was extremely protective of him.

In 1957, Jason supposedly drowned in Crystal Lake while the camp counselors weren't paying attention, and his mother blamed them for his death. Pamela began killing anyone who tried to reopen the camp. In fact, Jason wasn't the killer in the first Friday the 13th film at all. It was his mother. Pamela was eventually killed by Alice Hardy, one of the surviving counselors.

That's when Jason finally stepped into the picture. It turned out he had somehow survived his supposed drowning and spent years living in the woods around Camp Crystal Lake. After his mother's death, he devoted his whole life to killing anyone who came near his territory.

Even as a human, Jason was a skilled hunter

At first, Jason was still technically human. But I have to say that calling him a normal person would be a ridiculous understatement. Even back then, he was strong enough to crush a man's skull with his bare hands, popping the eyes out of their sockets. He could overpower adults as if they were children, and he somehow survived stabbings, a hanging and even an axe straight to the head.

He wasn't a mindless brute running around with a machete either, at least not then. He was a very skilled hunter. He knew how to track people through the woods, sneak up on his victims and set ambushes. His killing spree ended when young Tommy Jarvis managed to drive a machete into his head and killed him, and for a while Jason stayed dead.

Then Tommy made what is probably one of the worst decisions in any film. Years later he returned to Jason's grave, dug up the body and started stabbing it with a metal fence post. During a thunderstorm, lightning struck the post and somehow brought Jason back to life, which probably wasn't what Tommy had in mind.

Jason's undead strength, from the boxer to Jason X

From that moment on, Jason became something else entirely: an undead monster with strength and durability far beyond anything he had shown before. Right after his revival, he punched a man in the chest and tore out his heart. Later in the same film, he grabbed a man and bent him backwards until his body snapped in half.

One of my favorite Jason moments is his fight with a boxer. The boxer throws punch after punch at Jason, hitting him over and over, and none of it has any effect. Eventually the exhausted boxer tells Jason to give him his best shot. Jason knocks his head clean off his shoulders with a single punch. One punch was all it took.

Jason is incredibly strong, but honestly, I think his durability might be even more impressive. He has survived being shot repeatedly, stabbed, electrocuted, set on fire and even blown up, and somehow he always keeps coming back. In The New Blood, Tina Shepard uses her mental powers to throw Jason around, electrocute him and eventually set him on fire, and none of it is enough to stop him for good.

Of course, I think you can argue Jason isn't completely indestructible. We've seen him held underwater and temporarily disabled, and in Jason Goes to Hell, an FBI task force managed to blow his body apart. That wasn't enough to kill him permanently, though, because his supernatural spirit lived on and began possessing other people's bodies.

Then there's Jason X. By that point in the story, humanity had given up trying to execute Jason and decided to freeze him instead. That didn't work either, because centuries later he woke up on a spaceship, had his body torn apart, and was rebuilt with future technology into a stronger cyborg monster known as Uber Jason. More recently, the new Crystal Lake series gave yet another explanation for his strength and durability, revealing that its version of Jason was an experimental government test project. So I think, depending on which version you're talking about, Jason's powers range from a deformed government super soldier to a supernatural being who can survive the demons of hell.

What makes Jason frightening is his relentlessness

Really, though, I think the most terrifying thing about Jason isn't his strength, his durability or even the fact that he keeps coming back from the dead. It's how relentlessly determined he is. Jason doesn't need a complicated plan. He's a huge, super strong killer who knows how to stalk his victims and ambush them, and he never seems to intend to stop.

You can shoot him, stab him, maybe even manage to kill him. Sooner or later he'll find a way back, and when that happens, he'll pick up his machete and start killing all over again.

Michael Myers is The Shape, evil in human form

Michael Myers isn't just a slasher villain, a man with a knife or even a monster in a mask. He's a presence, a feeling given human form: The Shape, evil in the shape of a man. For the people of Haddonfield, he's the closest thing they have to a natural disaster, something that doesn't negotiate, doesn't hesitate, doesn't stop and never dies.

Born in 1957, Michael began his legacy of violence at only six years old, killing his sister with a cold, mechanical precision far beyond his age. From then on, every doctor who examined him, especially Dr. Loomis, agreed on one thing: Michael didn't think like a human and didn't feel like a human. Loomis described him as purely and simply evil.

That isn't just a metaphor. In both the Green and Thorn timelines, supernatural threads are tied to Michael's existence. In one, he's a human void incapable of empathy. In the other, he's literally driven by an ancient cult's curse that turns him into a demonic force of nature. Whichever version you pick, the foundation is the same: Michael Myers isn't bound by the limits of the human body.

Michael Myers' strength, durability, speed and stealth

Michael's strength is consistently superhuman. He crushes skulls with his bare hands, snaps necks effortlessly and lifts adults off the ground with one arm, including firefighters in heavy gear. He drives people through walls, punctures rib cages, breaks bones like they're nothing and overpowers big men with ease. In Halloween Kills, he wiped out an entire crew of trained firefighters by himself. In the Thorn timeline, his strength goes even higher, bending metal restraints and lifting people like dolls. These aren't one off displays. This is his normal output.

His durability is even more absurd. Michael has taken close range gunshots, explosions, stabbings, heavy impacts, building fires and electrocution, and he always gets back up. He survived an entire house fire and walked out unharmed. He survived being hit by a car, repeated shootings, stabs to the neck and spine and a brutal beating by a mob. In the Thorn timeline, he survived a close range explosion with no lasting injury, and in Halloween Kills his durability reaches something close to supernatural, where every wound only seems to make him stronger.

His speed is often overlooked because of his slow, creepy walk, but he's shockingly fast when he wants to be. Victims see him across the street, and seconds later he's already inside the house. Characters always describe it the same way: they turned around and he was simply there. Then there's his stealth. If Batman is the master of urban stealth, Michael Myers is the master of supernatural stealth. He makes no noise, appears in rooms people thought were safe, hides in shadows that shouldn't conceal a human body and moves through whole neighborhoods unnoticed, all while wearing a mask, carrying a knife and moving a large frame that shouldn't be able to vanish so efficiently.

Michael's real power is his will

Strength, durability and stealth are only half of what makes Michael terrifying. The real core of his power is his will. He never stops. He has no fear, no hesitation and no doubt. He doesn't speak, doesn't beg and doesn't react emotionally. Dr. Loomis spent decades studying him and concluded that Michael isn't a man but an entity, a blank slate filled only with the instinct to kill. That single drive lets him keep going through injuries that would cripple anyone else. Shot six times, hit by a car, burned alive or beaten by a mob, he gets up, and after the mob he gets up angrier.

In the Thorn timeline, this idea becomes literal: the curse makes him a chosen vessel of death, giving him near eternal life, superhuman strength and an unnatural obsession with wiping out the last of his bloodline. Even in the Green timeline, away from the cult, his determination and survival defy anything human. Laurie Strode describes him as a lifetime of fear in human form.

For all that brutality, Michael is intelligent in his own unsettling way. He stalks victims for hours unseen. He uses weapons from his surroundings, ambush tactics, misdirection and a predator's patience. He arranges bodies to spread terror, cuts the power, blocks exits and pushes people into isolation. His mind doesn't work like ours, but it works with frightening efficiency toward his goals. Whether he's a cursed vessel, a supernatural anomaly or simply evil incarnate, one thing holds true in every timeline: Michael Myers is The Shape, and The Shape always comes back.

Strength: I think Jason wins this category easily

Both of them are basically horror super soldiers. Michael can lift grown people off the ground with one hand, snap necks with ease and dominate anyone who falls into his grip. In Halloween 4, he drove his thumb straight into a man's forehead, and he crushed another head under his foot. In Halloween Kills, he overpowered a whole group of firefighters before slaughtering a mob of armed townspeople.

But I think Jason wins this category easily. Right after his revival in Part 6, he punched through a man's body and ripped out his heart. He has crushed skulls with his bare hands, thrown grown men around as if they weighed nothing and taken off a head with a single blow. Then there's Freddy vs. Jason, where Jason repeatedly overpowered Freddy, throwing him and smashing him around the room, and even managed to flip a massive tank weighing tons that was on top of him. So while Michael is extremely strong, Jason's feats are simply better.

Durability is closer, but I still give it to Jason

I think durability is a closer call, because Michael has survived some insane injuries. In the original Halloween, he was stabbed, shot multiple times and fell from a second floor balcony. In Halloween 2, he was shot in both eyes before being caught in a huge hospital explosion, and somehow survived that too. In Halloween 4, he was hit by a truck, shot repeatedly by police and fell into a mine, and even after the mine was blown up, he survived.

I actually think his most impressive showing came in Halloween Kills. He survived being trapped in Laurie's burning house, fought his way through a group of firefighters and then took a brutal beating from an angry mob. They shot him, stabbed him and hit him with bats and other weapons, and somehow he got up and started slaughtering them. That does sound crazy.

Just like strength, though, I think Jason's durability is more impressive. In Part 6, bullets and gunfire practically had no effect on him. In Part 7, Tina used her powers to throw him, electrocute him and set him on fire. In Freddy vs. Jason, he was stabbed, cut up and beaten throughout their fight, but kept going. Here's what I think the biggest difference is: Michael is very tough, but he still gets hurt and needs time to heal and recover. We've seen him in a hospital, unconscious and very weak for a long time. Jason, on the other hand, is literally a walking corpse, so he can keep fighting through injuries that would take Michael out of the fight. I have to give Jason the edge here.

Michael has the edge in speed and intelligence, Jason in brutality

It's a little funny to talk about two killers' speed or fighting ability, because neither is exactly known for being fast. What I would say is that both have surprisingly quick reflexes, especially Michael. He can catch people off guard, as we saw against the firefighters and the mob, and that's without getting into the possibility that he might be able to teleport. I think you could say the same about Jason, but not to Michael's level.

On top of that, I'd say Michael is more patient and calculating overall, and very good at stalking his victims and setting ambushes. So Michael has the advantage in speed and intelligence. When it comes to pure lethality, though, that belongs to Jason. Michael's kills are certainly brutal, but Jason has punched through bodies, torn victims apart, smashed skulls and taken off heads with a single blow.

Supernatural powers and resurrections may be the most important part

That brings us to what's probably the most important part of the whole matchup: their supernatural abilities and their returns from the dead. Starting with Michael, there's the Curse of Thorn, where he's tied to an ancient curse that compels him to kill his family members. Then in Halloween Kills, Laurie suggests Michael actually gets stronger the more he kills. It's hard to say whether that's literally true, but there's a recurring idea in the films that Michael Myers is more than just an ordinary human.

Jason's supernatural powers are much more obvious. He was killed by Tommy, then accidentally brought back by Tommy, and from that point on he was an undead monster. It gets crazier in Jason Goes to Hell, where Jason was literally blown to pieces in an FBI ambush and his body was completely destroyed. Instead of dying for good, his spirit lived on and began possessing other people, moving from one person to the next, until he eventually got his original body back through a member of the Voorhees family. The fact that Jason can survive the complete destruction of his body makes him extremely hard to get rid of.

The fight: why I think Jason Voorhees wins

Michael is smart enough to realize Jason isn't an ordinary victim. He would probably try to catch him off guard, attack from behind or use the environment for any advantage he can get. And with Michael's strength and durability, I don't think Jason would be able to take him down easily.

In the end, though, as superhumanly strong as Michael is, Jason is stronger. Michael can survive horrific injuries, but Jason can take worse. Michael has come back from injuries that should have killed him, while Jason has kept existing even after his body was completely destroyed. So what can Michael do? Stabbing Jason won't stop him. Shooting him probably won't work. Trying to overpower him head on is close to impossible.

Eventually Jason would be able to crush Michael, do serious damage to him and maybe kill him as well. I think Michael Myers could make this a difficult fight, but I don't see a reliable way for him to put Jason down before Jason finally overpowers him. Jason Voorhees wins.