Over the Halloween season the Tat Club Podcast took the opportunity to look at some horror icons in a brazen attempt to attract listeners through brand recognition. Amongst the gore and monsters hacking and slashing away at horny teenagers one striking figure of a man stood tall, dropped an F-bomb and spin kicked his way out of fray. He alone was able to peer in the face of purest evil and know no fear, only kung fu. Michael Myers had been stabbing up squishy mortals over seven films until he was kicked so hard he fell through a time vortex back to the first film, like Super Mario losing his last life. After nearly 25 years of unstoppable murder tours of suburban America the franchise was rebooted, and the foot in that boot belonged to Busta Rhymes.
The site of Myers’ demise is of course Halloween: Resurrection from 2002 starring the doomed killer, Busta Rhymes and a whole mess of forgettable one note teen horror fodder. The one redeeming feature of this wet fart of a film was the bold choice to have such a prolific movie villain so effortlessly dispatched. Myers would not be seen again until 2007s Halloween reimagining; an equally uninspiring outing. Maybe bad Rob Zombie films are the purgatory Busta Rhymes’ defeated foes plummet to when they are vanquished. If that is the case there must be a lost Texas Chainsaw sequel in which Bus-a-Bus whips the whole Sawyer family, it would explain House of 1000 corpses. This does raise an interesting question; if Busta rhymes is able to defeat Michael Myers, one of cinemas most successful slashers, who else could he beat in a fight? Luckily for you dear reader the question you have been asking yourself since the previous sentence has been answered. Tat Club has crunched the numbers and created a definitive list of Horror movie foes and how they would fare against grammy award winning rap artist and no award-winning actor Busta Rhymes. First up…
1. Ghostface
Arguably there are a few variables when it comes to our first entrant as multiple characters have donned the mask, however the varied characters become irrelevant once the mask goes on in the name of ambiguity as to the killers identity. No matter who the baddie is at the end of the film, Ghostface always seems to have the exact same size and characteristics and therefore should be counted as one character and this is my blog so there. With that in mind Mr Ghostface can be considered to be about 5’10”, a smaller but more agile version of Michael Myers who gives up considerable size to the 6’1”, 207 lbs Rhymes. An interesting contrast can be drawn here as Myers’ slow pace may go some way to explain why he lost so quickly. Expect a more eventful fight as Ghostface’s swifter movement may allow for better evasion of Busta’s attacks. This small advantage won’t last long though as the rest of their techniques are quite similar, both murderers use short range knives and are often foiled by objects flung at them whilst in pursuit of victims, also The Scream villain is evidently less able to take damage than his Shatner masked counterpart. The strong and agile kicks of Busta Rhymes will eventually connect with Ghostface presumably in his ghost face turning his face into a ghost. Break Ya Neck indeed…
2. Leatherface
Next up is gingham and epidermis clad good old boy Leatherface. Fighting to protect the honour of the Sawyer family from the aforementioned Rob Zombie haunted ghost ride. Although an undisputed icon of the slasher genre, at 31 : 133 Jedidiah Sawyer tallies up a mere fraction of the kills The Shape can boast. In terms of work rate bigger fish have been fried, but the tale of the tape may tell a different story in regards to how he would fair against a certain Brooklyn born rapper.
Decisively tipping the scales at 6’2” and 230 lbs, all that long pig has given Leatherface a size and strength advantage. Brute strength only tells half the story though as one must consider that Busta Rhymes is a skilled martial artist. Much like Myers, the country strong butcher has a weakness to fight savvy opponents. It was the in mad cap sequel Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 we saw Leatherface fall before the cocaine madness of Dennis Hopper, a worthy opponent who proved it possible the size advantage can be neutralised with enough skill and batshit determination.
All in all this would be an interesting fight were it not for one very important factor; Bubbas weapon of choice. When doing battle in TCM2, Storm Dennis had the forward planning to bring three chainsaws so that he could effectively outgun his adversary. Rhymes’ preferred style of the open hand will always lose as his badass kicks clash against the whirring metal teeth of death. Unfortunately for Busta the only competition he would be winning in Texas is the Red River Chili Cook off from the inside of a sloppy Joe.
3. Norman Bates
As a precursor to the slasher genre one would be remiss not to mention Psycho. The sheer thrill of Norman Bates’ sudden appearance on the landing of the Bates Motel, knife in hand, was enough to launch an immortal legacy of slasher cinema from which the genetic makeup of every movie villain to ever reach for a stabbing implement owes itself. Too bad such hallowed status means little to the man who has once before danced on the face of another O.G. of the genre. Due to the escalation required to fuel countless sequels most movie murderers have evolved far beyond the quaint small-town shenanigans of Norman and/or his mum. In comparison Bates seems less like a grizzled vet and more like a cute Charmander next to Myers’ mighty Charizard.
Unlike his Halloween counterpart Norman Bates relies much more on the element of surprise. He spends most of his time pretending not to be a knife wielding maniac and catches his victims off guard whilst taking a shower. It is up for debate whether Bates could catch out Busta Rhymes during his morning routine, but for the purpose of this thought experiment the two must go one on one in the Thunderdome. Surprisingly, Bates can look Rhymes in the eye but the advantage of strength and fighting prowess falls squarely at the feet of the beefy rap beast. To us Cinephiles Bates is a respected icon of film but to Rhymes he is just some noodle armed poindexter soon to be jacked by a sweet roundhouse. Not much more to be said here, Busta Rhymes picks up an easy W.
4. Freddy Kreuger
I love sleeping, it’s the best thing a person can do with their time along with napping, dozing, getting some shut eye and sometimes just passing out. Sometimes I set an alarm on my days off so I can wake up just so I may have the pleasure of falling asleep again. This very blog post was supposed to be out days ago but I just love sleeping too much. My long love affair with being unconscious is mostly the reason our next entrant is in my rogues gallery of cinemas biggest bastards. Freddy Kreuger’s main feature beside looking like he was sculpted out of microwave lasagne is his ability to intrude into other peoples dreams and cause mayhem. This poses an issue for our hero straight off the bat because any physical superiority he might possess over Freddy is irrelevant as the showdown would inevitably take place in an intangible dream realm.
Freddy’s M.O normally involves him trapping his victims within a nightmare featuring their greatest fear. Judging by his character in Halloween: Resurrection though, it would appear the only thing Busta is afraid of is bad TV ratings which might be distressing for him but probably not fatal. Furthermore, as seen in the third Elm street film Dream Warriors, it’s possible to make oneself a superhero to combat Freddy using the power of dreams which honestly makes the film sound lame but just trust me it’s rad. Now considering that Busta Rhymes is a very rich and famous rapper his ego is probably earth shatteringly huge and thus his dream persona must be nothing short of an impossible god like entity. Freddy would lose this one but if nothing else this would probably be fun to watch.
5. Jason Voorhees
Conceived during an attempt to capitalise on the success of Halloween, Mrs Voorhees’ baby boy has since grown into his own legend that has taken him from the misty woodlands of Crystal Lake, through the bright lights of New York, Hell, and eventually to outer space as he racks up a staggering 150+ on screen kills. This machete wielding man beast is also no stranger to the ‘who would win in a fight?’ scenario and has gone toe to toe with Freddy Krueger in the past and won. A truly ferocious adversary by any reckoning. Standing at approximately 6’5” and weighing in at 275 lbs Jason is also packing gains. As before, Busta Rhymes does possess a higher level of skill but what use is being able to kick good when your opponent is a mountain of unflinching murder beef? Simply put, in a straight fight any mortal man would quickly find himself folded like a deckchair made of wet tissue. Remember poor Julius? In Jason Takes Manhattan he makes a valiant attempt at a fist fight with Jason only to have his head punched off like a rock ‘em sock ‘em robot.
The electric zombie beef man is so powerful that the only beings to ever defeat him one on one are an attack helicopter, an upgraded future sex robot and….. bald Corey Feldman? Hang on that can’t be right.
If Corey bested Voorhees that would mean he could take Busta Rhymes. Wait so who else could he beat in a fight? There’s some kind of discrepancy in the maths and I’ve confused myself.
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