Jason Voorhees vs Anton Chigurh: The Edges

Long Range- Homemade Hunting Bow vs. Remington 700 Bolt Action Rifle

At first this seems like an obvious comparison. A bow vs. a gun? There’s a reason that humans traded in bows for guns as the primary weapon of war hundreds of years ago. And yes, from a pure technical standpoint the rifle is the better weapon. It’s going to cause more damage when it hits, and can also be used at a longer range than Jason’s bow. However, the bow does have a few advantages that are important to note. First off, there is the factor of stealth, especially combined with Jason’s knowledge of the terrain. Although the path of an arrow is easier to track than that of a bullet, the muzzle flash and bang of the rifle is going to make it easier for Jason to locate Anton’s position than Anton can do likewise, especially if Anton uses his incendiary/tracer ammunition. Jason’s accuracy is going to be superior as well. Well Anton is more used to fighting at a range than Jason is, when Jason does get a ranged weapon in his hands, he has performed considerably more impressive shots than Anton did in NCFOM. He can place an axe dead center in the back of a moving target, and the fact that he can throw a freaking machete accurately alone is impressive.

But the problem is that Jason rarely uses ranged weapons at all. He’s almost primarily a melee fighter, and I doubt that he’s going to have the patience to engage Anton in a prolonged shootout. If he did, I think his superior durability and accuracy (plus his ability to ambush Anton through terrain knowledge) would eventually give him the edge after a brief fight. Most likely though, he’s going to take a few shots at Anton, ditch the bow, and try to close the distance on foot. This might not turn out so badly if he sticks to the trees and does the old “I’m right behind you” horror movie trick, but if he does his usual slow walk straight towards Anton he’s going to find himself riddled with bullets. Jason’s tough but there’s still an amount to how much abuse he can take, and wearing himself down before he gets in range of Anton’s shotguns is defiantly something he doesn’t want to do, but is probably going to do anyway, netting Anton the edge here.

Edge: Anton Chigurh

Mid-Range: Machete vs. Glock 19 Pistol, Intratec TEC-9 "Assault Pistol", and Uzi Submachine Gun

Another seemingly obvious edge, but not in the way you would expect. Anton is packing two pistols and a submachine gun. Jason, his trademark machete. At first the edge would seem to belong to the guy with three guns over basically what’s a big knife. But…Anton is going to run into one big problem here, his ammunition. All three of those guns fires the puny 9x19 millimeter round. That’s hardly a man stopper, and its defiantly not going to stop a super zombie who can shrug off heavy machine gun fire like your throwing candy at him. The glock lacks the ammo capacity of its counterparts; the Tec-9 is slightly better, as the right kind of magazines can hold up to fifty rounds, but it still suffers from only being semi-auto, although considering Anton would technically be using a variant from pre 1994, he could possibly convert it to full auto. His best gun at this range will be the Uzi, as the ammo it can put out at 600 rpm could do some damage to Jason, but its mostly going to be a spray and pray option. It doesn’t have either the precision of the rifle, or stopping power of the shotguns. Overall, I don’t see Anton being able to keep Jason at arm’s length with any of his guns. Jason’s stealth advantage on the other hand will allow him to get into machete range very quickly if he’s careful The machete will be very devastating to Anton if it hits; even a glancing blow from someone like Jason could kill him very easily, and a direct hit will flat out cut him in half. Combine this with the *surprise* factor of a thrown machete, and the odds favor Jason at this range.

Edge: Jason Voorhees

Short-Range: Axe vs. Remington 11-87 & Beretta 390 Shotguns

This is where things get interesting, as this is another guns vs. melee weapon comparison, although not as lopsided as the last one. Jason is deadly with that axe, and like the machete can throw it as well. A good swing from someone of his strength could seriously mess Anton up, even if the axe itself isn’t as good a weapon as the machete. It’s not quite as versatile as the machete is, and has less of a “killing surface”, meaning that it will be easier for Anton to avoid getting hit with the blade of the axe, than he would the blade of the machete.

Anton on the other hand is bringing one of the few guns that has actually been known to affect Jason. While he’s never been killed by a shotgun, they’ve still been known to knock him back, as shown by his scuffle with Sheriff Garris in part 6. And knocking Jason back is exactly what Anton needs to do, as he’s going to need to be close to Anton to actually use the axe properly. True a surprise axe throw may catch Anton off guard, but if it fails he’s just disarmed himself, and is now in range of Anton’s best weapons. And 12 gauge shotgun shells + incendiary ammo= deep s@#t for Jason, even with his durability.

Edge: Anton Chigurh

 Special 1: Spear Gun vs. Bolt Cattle Gun

I shouldn’t need to go into too much depth here. The cattle gun was not designed as a real weapon, it’s an execution tool. In the amount of time it would take Anton to drag the air tank up to Jason, and press the nozzle to his head, Jason would kill him. That and I don’t think that a force equal to a .22 caliber bullet to the skull would kill Jason, or even disorient him at all. Jason has proven to be deadly accurate with the spear gun, and a single hit from that weapon could ruin Anton’s day.

Edge: Jason Voorhees

Special 2: Tactical aid for both sides here; let’s look at Jason’s first. The bear trap is nasty tool, one that won’t get very many kills by itself, but will lead up to many deaths if Anton isn’t careful. If he gets his foot caught he’s essentially lost the fight already, as he’s just become even slower than Jason, and even if he managed to pry his foot out of the trap somehow, He’s not going any where in a hurry. If Anton's perceptive though, odds are not very high that he's going to get caught by one of these.

With prep, he'll know that Jason is fond of using booby traps, and will likely be on the lookout. Even if Jason manages to camouflage the traps with any of the Camp’s shrubbery, it may not be enough.

Anton’s prep time gear on the other hand is more varied, powerful, and will see a greater effect on the battle overall. I tried to limit the gear as much as possible to avoid ridiculous scenarios in which prep alone wins battles (i.e. Anton somehow gets a nuke, nukes Camp Crystal Lake from a few miles away.) I don’t think its out of the question for Anton to gain access to a some C4 and incendiary/tracer ammunition given that he’s an experienced hitman, who likely has underworld contacts. C4 and incendiary are both going to do a number on Jason and the cauterizing of the burns may slow down his regeneration. Tracer ammo will be useful for highlighting Jason’s position if he tries to snipe Anton from afar, although this would give away Anton’s position as well.

No surprise that the edge goes to Anton. His gear is practically guaranteed to have an effect on this battle, and he’s packing weapons strong enough to seriously hurt or even kill Jason.

Edge: Anton Chigurh

Tactics: Both fighter make use of stealth tactics, and are surprisingly creative at times. In terms of stealth Jason is better, as that’s his only real strategy. Anton is very good at stealth, being able to slip away from Llewellyn Moss when he was seemingly trapped behind a car. But Jason regularly preforms seemingly impossible stealth feats like being able to suddenly appear in rooms behind people, when he was seen outside the door just seconds. His terrain advantage will be huge here, as if Anton’s not careful he’s quickly going to find himself outmaneuvered and murdered like your average F13th

But the problem for Jason is that he has almost no strategies besides stealth. He almost always relies on the old *slow walk, bullet sponge, stabby, stabby* routine to get close to his enemies. When his stealth fails that’s all he does. Anton on the other hand is a very adaptable fighter, and despite never having faced an enemy quite like Jason, his greater intelligence and prep will allow him to run circles around Jason’s “berserker” strategies

Edge: Anton Chigurh

Training: Neither fighter has had any formal training. Jason has basically been living in the woods his entire life, and picked up the skills he needed through experience. Anton is just a hitman, not exactly known for great training methods. Yes some hit men in fiction are ex-special forces and the like, but Anton would never make it past psych evaluations for most militaries. He might have worked for organized crime at one point, but they don’t exactly train their members well.

Edge: Even

Morale/Motivation: Both are highly motivated killers, known for their relentless attitudes and never stomping until their intended victim is dead at their feet. Jason will be urged on by Anton invading his home; Anton by the thrill of killing a tough opponent, and the increase to his reputation that killing Jason will cause. At first I was going to declare this a tie…but this edge belongs narrowly to Anton. Why? Jason has shown to be very easily manipulatable by using his motivations against him. Even Friday the 13^th teens mange to do it occasionally, and Freddy had him fooled for a good portion of Freddy vs. Jason. Anton has the advantage of prep, a greater intelligence than Freddy, or the average Friday the 13^th  teen, and access to Jason’s strongest  motivator (Pamela’s head). I don’t remember Anton’s relentlessness ever being used against him, so he takes this edge

Edge: Anton Chigurh       

Experience: This is kinda a quantity vs. quality scenario. Jason’s most common foes are the living embodiment of the “too dumb to live” trope, and rarely manage to fight back (or at least effectively). Experience against Freddy and Tina may not be much help here, as they fight in a completely different way than Anton does. The only opponent that may truly prepare Anton is Tommy Jarvis, who proved that even if you’re human, with enough intelligence, creativity, and knowledge on how Jason operates you can take him down. Jason also has some occasional experience against the military and paramilitary forces, who while surprisingly displayed less competence than a kid with no real combat experience, still have prepared Jason for going up against trained killers with lots of guns.

Anton’s common enemies were mostly sheriff Bell and the local police force, Moss, Carson Wells, and some Mexican gangsters. So not exactly a SEAL team, but better than the enemies Jason regularly goes up against. And Anton did manage to outwit them all, being one of the few villains I can remember “winning” his movie. Still, his lack of experience against supernatural enemies is going to hurt him here, as even with prep he may be surprised the first time Jason shrugs off a shotgun blast. That and Jason has been killing for a lot longer and has in all likelihood killed a lot more than Anton has. Even if  we assumed that Anton, who should be in his late 30’s or so, has been killing for most of his adult life, I don’t think he would match Jason, as despite the collateral damage he caused in NCFOM, most hitmen don’t go out of their way to kill people that aren’t their assigned target. To put it in contrast, Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski, one of the most infamous hitmen in history, claimed to have killed over two hundred people, and many people believe he was exaggerating on those figures. Even if he wasn’t, he would still be an exception, and even if Anton can match those numbers he would still be off Jason’s overall kill count (factoring in movies, comics, and books) by about a hundred or so.

Edge: Jason Voorhees

Weaknesses: I think I covered Jason’s various weaknesses pretty well already, so I’ll take a look at Anton’s. The only three real weaknesses that he really has are his lack of experience dealing with supernatural foes, his terrain disadvantage, and his durability (as compared to Jason). I actually think the terrain might be the most damming of the three. There’s always the possibility that Jason will use the knowledge of the terrain to take Anton out before he has a real chance to fight back, but prep might help with this  a little, and Anton’s a little more perceptive against being snuck up on then F13th teens.

I think this edge belongs to Anton, as he can plan his strategies around Jason’s various weaknesses (the lake, Pamela’s head). I don’t think Jason is quite smart enough to use Anton’s biggest disadvantage against him to the fullest, which hurts him here.

Edge: Anton Chigurh

Now that these to maniacs have been evaluated, only one thing remains...the battle itself. Who will the winner be? The mass murderer extraordinaire, whose left a triple digit body count of anyone foolish enough to enter his home? Or the remorseless hitman, who matches his opponents durability, with his own cold, intellect? There will be blood. There will be guts. But in the end only one will emerge as THE DEADLIEST WARRIOR!

And coming soon...