Corey Cunningham vs Roy Burns (Halloween vs Friday the 13th) VS Prediction Blog
“Hey! Pop quiz! Name any story where the entire cast gets replaced by new characters overnight, and those characters end up being more loved than the originals! Time's up because that NEVER happens!” - Linkara
Corey Cunningham, the new Shape of Haddonfield from when Halloween Ends
Roy Burns, the maddened paramedic giving Jason Voorhees A New Beginning
Perhaps no horror movie villain has had more of a legacy than that of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. They’ve had a massive influence on the slasher movie genre, and have frightened audiences for generations. I’d love to discuss a fight between them with you all, but sadly some obscure creator on Youtube decided to do that match, and as we all know once a show does a match no one can ever do it again without being a ripoff of the guy who did it first. So instead, let’s bring in two guys that are more than familiar with the idea of being a ripoff.
After the deaths of a young person close to them, these two would end up being influenced by slashers who had seemingly been gone, taking up their masks to kill people in ways reminiscent of them. To the point where their films were even falsely advertised as starring these original slashers, something that the fans responded to with as much kindness as you would expect when they found it they were actually about these guys instead. So, as a spiritual rematch of this classic horror rivalry, which of these two copycats could cut down the other?
Before We Begin
For these two, this will be relatively simple, as they both are only in a single movie. Both will be given these respective movies, along with any additional material that can be seen as canon to them, such as their respective novelisations. This means that this won’t be including any weird composite business involving alternate canons for scaling, as they do not exist in anything besides the original Friday the 13th movie timeline and the Halloween timeline created by the recent Blumhouse film trilogy respectively.
Also for Roy in particular, I’m not going to factor in his portrayal in the 2017 Friday the 13th game, as it’s fairly incongruous with his portrayal in his original film to give him the same supernatural abilities as Jason, they were likely only given to him for the sake of gameplay balance, and it would just end up turning this debate into “normal Jason with a different mask vs Michael with 5% of the content”, which feels like it’s not quite in the spirit of this match.
Finally, content warning, as both characters I’m discussing are from very gory horror movies and I will be including bits of it for relevant clips.
also spoilers for both movies but if you read this far you already got spoiled so rip bozo
Background
Corey Cunningham
"You're the freak show. I'm the psychopath."
In the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, an evil had been lurking in the shadows. On the Halloween night of 1978, a man escaped from a mental hospital, killing many in a quest to eliminate one Laurie Strobe for unknown reasons. This man’s nightmarish actions led him to be widely feared, and even after being brought into custody, Michael Myers had left a mark on the town which would last for generations. This was only solidified when, 40 years later in 2018, Michael escaped custody once again, and despite the best efforts of police, a mob of townsfolk, and Laurie herself, Michael ultimately vanished, leaving nothing but a pile of bodies and a town struggling to recover.
One year later, Corey Cunningham was babysitting Jeremy Allen, where things took a turn for the tragic after a prank ended in Corey accidentally sending Jeremy falling to his death down the stairs of his home. While Corey was ultimately cleared from the legal charges, the event had left his reputation in the gutter, with many labeling him as a psychopath in the making. He did manage to find some silver lining in meeting Laurie and her granddaughter Allyson, the latter of whom he even started a relationship with. But one fateful night, after getting dropped off a bridge by bullies, Corey would find himself accosted by the Shape, Michael Myers himself.
Michael had been hiding in the sewers of the town, as the injuries he sustained from his last Halloween rampage had left him weakened for the next 4 years. He was about to try and regain some strength with the death of Corey, but sensing a growing darkness in the young man, he’d instead taint the boy with his curse, giving him a new killing intent to help him recover his strength. While uncertain to this at first, Corey would slowly be brought to the dark side, seeing it as a way to kill those he saw as worth punishing, managing to kill several people with the help of Michael. Filled with more confidence, he’d end up convincing an unaware Allyson to leave the town with him. However, Laurie, sensing the darkness that had grown in him, tried to convince him to leave Allyson for her safety, which ended up inadvertently sending him off the deep end.
After forcibly taking Michael’s mask from him, Corey would don it and go on a rampage of his own, killing many of the citizens of the town that he felt wronged him. However, when he attempted to attack Laurie as well, he was quickly outmatched, at which point Michael would return and finish off his duplicitous successor, quickly putting an end to Corey’s reign of terror. However, Michael’s own reign of terror would also end that night at the hands of the very woman he tried to kill all those years ago. But even with the man gone, the story of Corey still stands as a monument that the evil Michael Myers represents as something that may never fade. After all, evil doesn’t die, it just changes shape.
Roy Burns
“Looks like we've got us a maniac on the loose, huh, Sheriff?”
In the woods of New Jersey, Camp Crystal Lake had been dealing with a rather unfortunate series of events. A man in a hockey mask, who had once been a child that went to the camp before drowning due to negligent campers, had been haunting the campgrounds, killing many of the teens in a variety of violent methods. This man was Jason Voorhees, and he had been knocking off people for a bit. However, his latest spree had ended with his death at the hands of a young boy named Tommy Jarvis, and unlike his later movies, he would not end up coming back for a while.
5 years later, Tommy was still recovering from the trauma caused by him, and he had wound up in a halfway house for troubled teens known as Pinehurst Cottage. Things seemed relatively calm there, at least until one of the kids responded to a kid named Joey Burns trying to give him chocolate by fucking murdering him with an axe. This ended up coming to the attention of his estranged father, Roy Burns, a paramedic that happened to be in the town. Whether it be a darkness that had already been hidden within him or something else influencing him beyond the grave, Roy would end up snapping upon finding his murdered son, and as such, he’d begin murdering people while imitating the late Mr Voorhees.
Roy’s path would be rather bloody, killing many of the staff and denizens of the halfway house, as well as several people in the surrounding area. However, after a final confrontation with Tommy and some other survivors, Roy would end up meeting his end after falling from a barn onto some farm equipment, cutting his life short. While he didn’t last long, the experience clearly had affected Tommy, as this only added to his growing PTSD towards Jason. As such, just a year later, he’d end up digging up Jason’s grave to make sure he was dead for good, only to rather literally jump start a new nightmare.
Intelligence & Skill
Corey Cunningham
Corey is a young adult who has a fairly good knowledge of mechanics thanks to working at a junkyard. As a killer, he is rather skilled, able to outmaneuver people who see him coming and kill them. He was also able to overpower Michael Myers and take his mask away from him, though it’s worth noting Michael wasn’t at the top of his game at the time.
Roy Burns
Roy’s day job is as a paramedic, which means he presumably has a college degree and some knowledge in medicine. In terms of killing, he shows enough skill to take out many normal people before they have much of a chance to fight back, and he was able to keep up with Tommy Jarvis in a fight, who would later keep up with Jason himself after he came back to life.
Equipment
Corey Cunningham
Michael Outfit
Corey originally donned a clown mask reminiscent of Michael’s the night he took his first kill, but he would later don the guise of Michael himself. The suit and mask do a good job hiding his identity and keeping him looking scary.
Kitchen Knife
Much like Michael, Corey’s main weapon of choice is a kitchen knife. Like Michael, Corey would use it to kill his mother, Joan Cunningham, before using it on himself in a gambit to get Allyson to turn on her mother by making it look like she killed him.
Corkscrew
This is a device used for opening wine bottles, which Corey instead used to open up Dr Tanner Mathis’ throat rather violently.
Drumstick
A stick used for hitting drums, which was used to kill Billy by stabbing it through his eye. As someone who was in a marching band on percussion, this is the reason I stuck with the pit. That and I didn’t want to memorize the marching patterns.
Wrench
A tool mainly used for repairing machinery, that also works just as well for whacking people, such as Stacy here.
Blowtorch
A portable flamethrower used for melting connections between metal, which as Terry Tramer found out, is not pleasant to experience on flesh.
Crowbar
While her death in the film is in the background and blurry so you can’t make out many details, the novelization clarifies that Susan ultimately died to being beaten by and then impaled by a crowbar. At least according to the wiki, I couldn’t find a free way to access the novelization online and frankly I’m not spending actual money on this blog so I’m just going to trust it.
Scissors
After cutting off Willy the Kid’s last set with a repeated slamming to his equipment, Corey used these to give a cut off of a literal variety on the DJ’s tongue. There’s probably a Killer Frequency reference to be made here but I can’t think of it.
Tow Truck
During his time murdering some bullies at a junkyard, Corey got access to this truck, which he used to pin Margo under some fencing, before driving off to do further murder. The car itself is a 1986 Ford F-Series.
Roy Burns
Jason Outfit
To help to conceal his actor having a very visibly different build to the guy playing Jason his identity, Roy possesses a sort of skinsuit that covers up his head, which combined with his jumpsuit and hockey mask, makes for a rather convincing Jason disguise if you don’t notice the differently colored mask markings. The hockey mask also likely helps provide some protection to his facial area, as originally intended.
Machete
Much like Jason himself, Roy is pretty well acquainted with the idea of using a machete to kill people, having been confirmed to use it to end the lives of Pete Linley, Robin Brown, and Violet Moraine, and more prominently using it during his final showdown with Tommy.
Road Flare
Used to kill the greaser Vinnie Manalo in a rather suggestive throat related way. A death which Vinnie might have avoided if he didn’t just stand around like a goddamn idiot for almost 15 seconds straight.
Axe
Used to kill off Billy Macauley and his fling Lana Ardsley, and the use of which is a bit ironic considering this is the same kind of weapon which killed his son.
Hunting Knife
A rather large hunting knife which he used to kill Raymond Joffroy, a guy that was trying to peep on two teenagers that were doing exactly what you would expect two teenagers to be doing in a Friday the 13th movie.
Which is to say, each other.
They were having sex.
Garden Shears
Using these, Roy was able to stab into the eye sockets of Tina McCarthy, gouging both of them out at once. This moment was infamous enough to make the shears his weapon of choice in the Friday the 13th game.
Leather Strap
A more complicated weapon, Roy utilizes this by wrapping the straps around his victim’s eyes and a tree trunk, before promptly twisting at the other end to tighten it as hard as he can. As Mr Eddie Kelso here demonstrates, the result can be rather painful.
Spiked Metal Rod
Used to put an unfortunately early end to everyone’s favorite toilet disco star Demon Winter, in a somewhat undignified death within an outhouse. Though Roy’s method of choice did take a couple tries to stick.
Meat Cleaver
Not quite as iconic as the machete, but this cleaver does give a good amount of deadly precision, netting him the kills on Junior Hubbard, Ethel Hubbard, and Jake Patterson through varying chopping motions.
Railroad Spike
Finally, this smaller metal rod was utilized to murder Doctor Matthew Letter. And it was also somehow strong enough to hold up his whole body as well because why not.
Ambulance
Thanks to his day job, Roy also has access to an ambulance, which he is fully willing to use as a part of his killings if necessary, given the fate of his partner. It presumably comes with a bunch of medical equipment he could use for things besides healing. The car itself appears to be a 1964 Cadillac Ambulance.
Abilities
Corey Cunningham
The Curse of Michael
After meeting with Michael Myers, Corey would end up being affected by Michael’s evil. Besides giving him the killing intent to be Michael’s protege, this would seemingly boost his strength beyond that of a normal man, and he can grow in strength through his kills and the fear they inspire, much like Michael himself in this timeline.
Roy Burns
Stealth
Roy generally shows a pretty good use of stealth, as all his on screen kills before his reveal were done by sneaking up on people and killing them before they could react. He was also able to keep his actions under wraps to dodge police searches for several days.
Feats
Corey Cunningham
Overall
Total Kill Count: 10 (+2 Assist)
Managed to beat a weakened Michael Myers in a fight for his mask
Power
Overpowered a man trying to stab him before stabbing the man himself
Kills a man by slamming him to a turntable a few times hard enough to break his jaw
After a brief struggle, manages to overpower a weakened Michael Myers. This at the very least suggests he can downscale from feats Michael has done within this timeline, though he is likely more on the comparable end
Speed
Generally moves fast enough to outpace normal people
Disappeared from sight after a rifle bullet got fired through a person that was in front of him (104.97 m/s)
Likely comparable to Michael Myers:
Durability
Quickly recovers after getting his hand stuck in a closing door.
Survives getting shot twice then falling through some wooden railing.
Briefly survived stabbing himself in the throat before Michael finished him off
Likely comparable to Michael Myers:
Roy Burns
Overall
Total Kill Count: 17
Kept up in a fight with Tommy Jarvis
Is the only non-Voorhees to have been the villain of a Friday the 13th film.
Power
Stabs someone in the eyes with hedge clippers and manages to close them while it's still in her head
Tightens a belt around someone’s eyes until the belt snaps and their skull is crushed
Stabs someone in the head with a spike hard enough to leave them hanging off a tree
Knocked down Tommy Jarvis with a machete swipe and kept up with him in a fight for a bit, indicating he should likely be comparable
As a child, he managed to kill a vulnerable Human Jason by slicing at his head, and he should reasonably be on par with Human Jason as an adult
Speed
Generally moves fast enough to outpace normal people
Was able to intercept a man on a dirt bike (22.35 - 26.82 m/s)
Was able to jumpscare Pam & Reggie after they ran from him for about a minute
Scales to Demon Winter, who can pilot an outhouse capable of flying into space and possibly through time (Mach 24.29 - Immeasurable)
Durability
Weaknesses
Corey Cunningham
Corey certainly made a name for himself, but he’s no boogeyman. For one thing, he’s a lot less collected than the real Shape, as he often lets his emotions guide his actions, especially in regards to his anger. He’s also rather arrogant to the point of overconfidence, as seen in how he let Michael live after taking his mask and trying to take on Laurie on his own, which is something that blows up on him pretty hard in the end. And much like Michael himself, behind his raw killing intent he’s still a human and is just as capable of being brought down by mortal hands.
Roy Burns
While Roy is certainly imposing, he’s no Voorhees. While he does have some of the J-Man’s endurance, he’s also ultimately just a normal human physically, as he notably can’t just shrug off damage as easily, so enough prolonged damage can slow him down, as most notably seen in his final confrontation. He also seems to prefer isolating targets and taking them out before they have a chance to fight back, so he doesn’t have much experience dealing with opponents that can actually fight back.
Also for some reason, despite the fact a kid randomly going nuts and killing his son is the reason he started killing in the first place, he never actually tried to kill the kid that actually killed his son. Is he stupid?
That or maybe he just couldn’t because the kid was in jail.
Actually yeah that’s probably why.
Before the Verdict
The Curse of Jason?
Some have suggested that, in the novelization of the sixth film, this passage that recaps the fifth film implies Jason had been influencing Roy beyond the grave. Now while this would be an interesting idea, especially since it would make this match more stupidly thematic, I don’t really think this should be treated as fully canon. First off, there’s not really anything in the original film supporting this conclusion, and even the passage itself is based on in-universe speculation, not hard facts. Secondly, there’s also not really any indication Jason is supposed to be supernaturally capable of something like this at this point in the timeline, as this would still be before he came back as a zombie. This also wouldn’t be something that you could argue was a retroactive instance of his possession stuff in the 9th film, as this instance is massively inconsistent on all counts with how that film established the possession works, so I don’t think there’s an argument to assume this was caused by a worm that Roy ate offscreen or something either. Finally, I also just don’t think it makes much narrative sense for Roy to be the one who Jason was messing with, when not only is Tommy more explicitly having issues and was the guy that killed him, but is the one that the passage more explicitly describes as being “possessed”, so I also feel the interpretation that this is even an explicit confirmation of Roy being the one messed with is flawed.
Verdict
Stats
When it comes to strength, obviously neither of the two are that out there. Both have shown plenty of feats that are well above that of a normal human, and were comparable in a lot of ways. Both had the raw strength to kill people in a variety of ways, and would certainly have the durability to survive similar blows. Roy likely held the edge in terms of raw strength overall, as him being able to charge through an entire door was superior to any of Corey’s strength feats. However, when it came to durability, Corey took the edge. While technically Roy’s durability could scale to his strength due to Newton’s Third Law so he might be better in terms of overall force on paper, Corey generally had a better track record of getting back up from and pushing through pain, whereas it took Roy longer to get up from his big blows. Roy was also explicitly slowed down by far less deadly blows than what he could deal himself, suggesting he couldn’t actually deal as well as he could take. Also Corey’s the only one of the two that has actually survived gunshots, and while he was incapacitated by them, surviving them at all is still far more impressive than anything Roy has directly survived.
This is of course just going over what they do in their own films. If you bring up scaling, both do get a bit more to discuss. Corey can at least downscale to Michael’s feats, though I feel it’s reasonable to assume he can scale at his best, as not only did he directly overpower him and was narratively set up as a possible successor to him, but the novelization clarifies he also was granted a similar level of strength thanks to Michael’s curse. This does put him a bit more on par with Roy physically speaking, though he’s still likely inferior, as Michael at best was only able to punch a hole in a door, which is still inferior to Roy being able to break one in its entirety. And it also gives him several more instances of scaling to surviving pain that was greater than Roy’s instances, as he managed to get up after being hit full force by a car as opposed to Roy taking longer to recover from being hit by a tractor going far slower. On the flipside, Roy scaling to Tommy and by extension Human Jason didn’t really change that much, given all their feats were pretty in line with what Roy did just in his own film.
You could arguably push Roy’s strength edge even further by scaling him to later Jason feats, and I could bring up the arguable validity of his higher tier scaling to guys like Freddy Kreuger or Uber Jason, but just to cut that discussion off at the pass, Roy never really does anything to suggest he’s on par with Zombie Jason’s best feats in first place, as he is long dead before Zombie Jason is even a thing in the timeline. The only arguable person who could scale Roy to this take on Jason is Tommy, who does briefly show a bit of an ability to keep up with Zombie Jason in the very next film. But this is also during Zombie Jason’s first outing timeline wise, and it’s been explicitly acknowledged that Jason gets stronger with each time he comes back, so there really isn’t a reason to assume he would be as strong here as he would be in his later adventures. Tommy’s only other notable outing with Jason after this film was in Jason’s second crossover comic with Freddy and Ash, and while this comic does show them fighting a bit more evenly, this is also about 20 years after Roy’s death, which makes the idea of Roy scaling to it fairly ludicrous. There’s just far too much mental gymnastics needed to justify Roy scaling to Jason’s best stuff to suggest it to be valid, especially in comparison to Corey directly dealing with Michael in his own film. The only real issue with that conceptually is Michael explicitly being weaker by the time of Corey interacting with him in Halloween Ends, something that doesn’t necessarily discount the idea of Corey being comparable to Michael in his prime due to other evidence.
Now onto the far less contentious category, speed. Neither really have too much, as you would expect from guys imitating horror villains known for taking their time in the chases, but both of their best feats painted a fairly clear picture. Roy’s best feat would be intercepting Junior’s dirt bike to decapitate him, which would solidly put him around the 25 m/s range. However, Corey’s bullet vanish trick came out at over 100 m/s, meaning he was just about 4 times faster than Roy. Now yes, Demon’s outhouse would be significantly faster than this, but if you need me to tell you that was only here as a joke then congratulations you’re playing into the stereotype of the average VS debater having no reading comprehension.
So, to sum all this up, Roy takes the edge in strength, but Corey takes the edge in speed and durability by far larger gaps.
Arsenal & Abilities
When it comes to their respective arsenals of weapons, both had plenty to toss at each other, though Roy did likely hold the edge in overall effectiveness. For starters, a machete is definitely a better weapon than a basic kitchen knife, don’t really think there’s any controversial statement there. Roy also had Corey beat for variety, as not only did he have 9 different options for killing in comparison to Corey’s 7, but a lot of Corey’s unique options are not quite as useful as Roy’s as his blunt force weapons like the wrench and crowbar wouldn’t be as effective as the more explicitly deadly sharp weapons, the corkscrew and scissors are far smaller and less effective than these weapons, the blowtorch would require time to start burning, and the drumstick would probably be useless. Meanwhile, besides the flare, strap, and railroad spike, all of Roy’s potential options for trying to kill Corey would be more effective weapons than Corey’s best weapon, that being the aforementioned kitchen knife.
So Roy boasted the more deadly arsenal, though given how resourceful both are that wasn’t a huge factor, as both could hypothetically steal each other’s weapons or find other stuff in the environment to kill with. And there is one part of their arsenals that Corey held the edge on: that being their vehicles. Not only was the tow truck generally going to be a lot better than the ambulance in the sense it was more likely to win any potential games of chicken by just being a better vehicle for that kind of thing, but there’s also the factor that Corey has canonically used his truck to kill people in the past, whereas Roy was only ever seen driving while disguised. So he would be a lot more likely to try and turn this into a car fight than vice versa.
Moving away from the arsenal, now we get into the point where Corey really starts to shine, and that’s in the fact that he’s the only of the two that unambiguously has supernatural power. Now this ability is admittedly a bit vaguely defined, but this did mean that Corey could have a way to build up his strength by either intimidating Roy or cutting apart some bystanders. Granted this would realistically be more of a possibility than a certainty in how the fight progresses, but it’s still something Roy had no real answer for, as his slightly implied connection to Jason offered basically nothing solid in comparison. Meanwhile, Roy’s stealth skills were very unlikely to help him that much here. Not only does Corey’s faster speeds mean him landing a sneak attack or slipping away in the first place is unlikely, but Roy’s also not really used it in such a way in the first place, given his final confrontation was mainly him chasing down the last survivors rather than trying to get the drop on them, suggesting he’d only think to try stealth on the first attack. So Corey held the edge on natural abilities.
Tertiary Factors
When it comes to comparing the two’s mentalities, there’s a bit to go over. On Corey’s side, ironically despite having the lower body count, he generally has a more impressive track record with who he’s keeping up with, since he’s overpowered a police officer and, you know, kept up with Michael fucking Myers, whereas the only impressive character Roy kept up with was Tommy from before he had any experience with Zombie Jason. On the other hand, Roy was a bit older, as he’s in his 30s while Tommy’s only in the young 20s, and he generally was a lot less unstable, as he didn’t have Corey’s emotional issues. Though he really didn’t have a good way to capitalize on this advantage, as he’s not really some kind of active manipulator.
The only other thing I feel would be worth bringing up would be how things might be affected if Jason were to somehow be possessing Roy, but I don’t think it changes much. For starters, how the possession would actually be functioning is so vaguely defined that relying on it in the first place is going to be reliant on a lot of speculation. Secondly, even if you were to assume Jason was somehow giving Roy some kind of spiritual advice, directly controlling his actions, or something else along those lines, it really wouldn’t give Roy a better chance of winning. Jason at this point in the timeline would only have the second to fourth movies to draw on as experience, and none of them really give him anything too impressive in terms of skillful maneuvers. And he really couldn’t give Roy much of a physical boost, given as previously stated, his human self’s very in line with Roy already and this is far before any of his more impressive showings later as a zombie. And I’ll also reiterate there’s no reason to assume it would be anything like his possession from the 9th Film, as this instance shares no real similarity to how that story established his possession to work besides the general concept of Jason making people kill like him from beyond the grave.
Conclusion
Advantages:
Faster
More durable and pain resistant
Better vehicle option
Michael’s Curse would be hard to counter if it comes into play
Better experienced for a fight scenario
From the better movie (objectively)
Probably has more fangirls
Disadvantages:
Weaker
Less effective and deadly arsenal otherwise
Less stable personality
Got absolutely demolished in the first Dead Meat Horror Rumble
Major incel energy
Advantages:
Stronger
More effective and deadly arsenal overall
More stable personality
From the better movie (ironically)
Actually got a higher kill count in his movie than Human Jason had in any of his…
Disadvantages:
Slower
Less durable and pain resistant
Worse vehicle option
No counter for Michael’s Curse if it comes into play
Stealth unlikely to be an option
Less experienced in terms of direct fighting
…though Zombie Jason immediately ratioed him in the next film
Ironically, despite the fight between the real deals being a fairly clear cut win for Jason when you break it down, the fight between the copycats would be rather clear cut towards the guy from the other franchise. Roy’s strength and weaponry was certainly not something to be taken lightly, but Corey’s greater endurance, speed, and skill was enough to ensure that he was not the evil that died tonight.
The winner is Corey Cunningham
Sources:
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