One of the most fascinating things about horror films as a genre is that it seems like the most successful forays into scaring people don't revolve around a good story or a good cast of characters, but actually an effective and memorable villain who manages to take an average horror film and cement it into the public consciousness as something that is legendarily scary. And it's hard to think of any two horror villains who are bigger legends than Freddy Krueger and Pennywise the clown.

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Both characters put some different and unique spins on classic horror ideas, and there are elements to each character that make them seem like the kind of villain that no victim would have even the slightest hope of fighting against. But if we compare their resumes side by side, which one comes out the winner? Here are five reasons why Pennywise is the ultimate horror villain, and five why Freddy is better.

Pennywise Is An Apex Predator

IT 2017 Pennywise Balloon Image

Pennywise may traditionally take on the physique of a human, but his true form and essence is anything but. There are plenty of monsters in fiction that are terrifying beings and seem utterly unstoppable, but Pennywise is unique when it comes to creatures of horror. He's not just the kind of animal that is stronger and more powerful than anything on earth; he's not even the kind of animal that is stronger and more powerful than anything in the universe. Pennywise is a primordial evil that originates from the macroverse (the universe that contains all other universes, including ours).

Freddy Is All-Too Human

Mark Patton as Jesse Walsh and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 Freddy's Revenge

Some might say that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, but that's really not the case when it comes to a villain like Freddy Krueger. Yes, he's the kind of villain that most people will find familiar in one way or another, but that is almost what makes him more frightening and more dangerous.

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A child serial killer who gets off on mutilating his victims is the most repulsive aspect of humanity that most people can even imagine, but what makes Freddy scarier and a more effective killer is that he is still frighteningly human.

Pennywise's Powers Of Illusion

Pennywise is a powerful character for many reasons. Obviously his most effective tool of terror is his ability to transform himself into whatever being that his quarry fears the most, but another extremely useful tactic in his monster tool belt is his ability to form illusions. His illusions are so believable that even after everything is all over, it's hard to discern what really happened and what was imaginary, and if a villain can control what people are seeing or thinking, then how is it possible that he could even be stopped? It's a trump card that is pretty much impossible to defeat.

Freddy's Abilities To Make The Imaginary Real

One of the big reasons that Freddy Krueger undeniably resonates with so many different people in so many different ways is because everyone understands how it feels to have a nightmare, and even if those visions are just manifestations of our imagination, the fear and danger can feel as real as anything that we experience in the physical world. So the notion that not only could our worst nightmares become real, but that they could be real enough that dying in a dream could translate to dying in real life, is a genuinely chilling thought that horror legend Wes Craven obviously exploited masterfully with his creation of Freddy Krueger.

Pennywise Isn't Human

We've already lightly touched on Pennywise and his true origins, but it's difficult to even grasp what a powerful god-like creature he really is. In the Stephen King universe, there is one god that is the first primordial power to come out of the void of nothingness, and that god is what created Pennywise and his greatest enemy, a turtle called Maturin.

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Within this universe there are hundreds of other universes including ours, and our universe was actually created when Maturin vomited it up after a particularly bad stomachache. So if Pennywise and Maturin are epic rivals, then logic would dictate that Pennywise is a creature powerful enough to create our entire universe too.

Freddy Krueger Is Dead

Killing Pennywise obviously isn't an easy feat, but one of the things that makes Freddy Krueger feel so borderline impossible to stop is that he's already dead. A human villain is terrifying but still easy for people to swallow, because no matter how scary they are, we all know that they can ultimately be stopped. And how do you stop a human villain? You kill them. But of course, Freddy Krueger is a human character who is already dead. So how exactly does one stop a serial killer who is already dead? There may or may not be an answer to that question, but the people who Freddy attacks almost certainly don't know it.

Pennywise Is A Godlike Evil

Killing a human who is already dead is it's own Gordian knot of a problem, but killing something like Pennywise is a whole different nut to crack. Pennywise is about as close as any creature can get to being a god without actually being a god, and his true form is something that can't even be comprehended by the human mind. If a human being can't even comprehend what Pennywise truly is, how could anyone ever expect to hurt him, let alone kill him? And most of the people who encounter Pennywise will be dead before they ever realize what he really is, so most of his victims didn't even have the opportunity to try and fail to stop him.

No One Can Escape Freddy

A Nightmare on Elm Street promo with Freddy and Nancy.

As anyone who's seen the IT miniseries or film duology would know by now, the one thing that seems to be reliably true about Pennywise is that he can at least be escaped. If you leave Derry, then you leave Pennywise behind. However, the same cannot be said about Freddy Krueger, and something that makes him such a universally terrifying and effective villain is that he literally cannot be escaped.

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Everyone has to sleep and everyone has to dream. It doesn't matter how much anyone fights it or tries to prepare; if Freddy wants to get you then you inevitably will be forced on to his playground no matter how hard you try to resist.

Pennywise Is Sort Of Immortal

Pennywise changes his appearance into something that the human brain can understand and interpret, but the truth of his being is something entirely different. And he has existed essentially since the beginning of time. If Maturin and the god that created them couldn't stop Pennywise for good, then it's absurd to think that any average person could stop him either. He's not living or mortal in any traditional sense that a human could understand, and even the very few who have figured out a way to stave him off haven't been able to finish him permanently. It sure looks like the Losers Club finally succeeded, but since Pennywise doesn't die in the way that a normal living creature does, it's hard to say for sure.

Freddy Is Sort Of Immortal

jackie earle haley freddy krueger nightmare on elm street

One of the great ironies of Freddy Krueger as a character is that he is already dead, which in a strange way makes him immortal now. He at least can't be mortally wounded or killed in the traditional sense, and although the dream world is something that most people wouldn't think was real, it's a world that he has managed to master and make his own, to the point where he can kill people in their dreams and make that dream experience a part of their reality. It might feel like a phantom universe to us, but the fact that Freddy is the master of his own universe in which he can't be killed makes him truly immortal.

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