Which horror movie villain requires the most fitness to escape? It’s probably an important question, should your home be invaded by a masked killer or supernatural monster at any given time. We’ll start with the lowest level of fitness and work our way up.
*Zombies
Appear In: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead.....look, there are a bunch of these.
Fitness Requirement: You can successfully get up off the couch.
Can you walk? Can you think? Do you make it a habit to lock doors behind you? Congrats, you can physically outmaneuver a zombie. This is an easy one.
Recommended Exercises: Power walking.
*Running Zombies
Appear In: 28 Days Later, World War Z, Resident Evil
Fitness Requirement: Sometimes you jog.
Running zombies are certainly scarier than their lazy-bum counterparts, but they’re still dumb, so they’re easy to out-strategize. Cardio will be key in critical moments, but overall, you’re good even if you only shuffle around your block a couple times a week.
Recommended Exercises: Occasional running, the exercise bike
*Freddy Krueger
Appears In: Nightmare on Elm Street
Fitness Requirement: Supreme mental stamina.
I know he's iconic, but escaping Freddy is more about your mental abilities than your physical abilities: He can only kill you when you’re asleep. Of course, you have to be able to stay awake a long time, which is tricky enough, but once you’re asleep, how much you squat is irrelevant. Physical fitness doesn’t matter in your nightmares (whoa—that’d be a great tagline for a movie about a killer who only goes after bodybuilders).
Recommended Exercises: The one where you lift the coffee cup from the table to your mouth. (Plus, there are plenty of other reasons to drink coffee right now, aside from keeping you away from dream-eating revenge killers.)
*Ghostface
Appears In: Scream
Fitness Requirement: You lift for tone, not bulk.
As we’ve discussed, Ghostface is a cardio guy, but if you take a closer look at the footage, he’s not really physically intimidating. In other words, he doesn’t really lift, brah. Even if you pack a little muscle, you should be able to shake off this stringbean.
Recommended Exercises: Burpees (RIP, Drew Barrymore), anything on the Smith machine.
*Leatherface
Appears In: Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Fitness Requirement: You never skip leg day.
This guy’s a hulk, alright? He also carries a chainsaw, so like, no amount of bench work is gonna save you there. To escape Leatherface, you've gotta be fast. The hulking lug has a hard time keeping up.
Recommended Exercises: Treadmill intervals, hill runs.
*Pennywise The Clown
Appears In: IT
Fitness Requirement: Intense respiratory muscle conditioning.
Ho boy, things aren’t looking good for you. Not only is Pennywise agile and relentless in his pursuit of your flesh, but you’re also going to have to escape him while in an intense state of fear. That means your heart rate’s going to be jacked and your breathing is going to be heavy. Better work out with one of those masks from now on, just in case (training masks really might be worth it, anyway).
Recommended Exercises: Total-body, with an elevation mask
*Jason Voorhees
Appears In: Friday the 13th
Fitness Requirement: Avid CrossFitter.
Look at Jason; that guy doesn’t screw around the gym. To escape his machete, you’re going to have to up him in the fitness game. Circuit training will be key to pump your stamina, and good all-around muscle will help fend him off when it’s down to close quarters.
Recommended Exercises: Pull-ups, burpees, box jumps
*The Xenomorph
Appears In: Alien
Fitness Requirement: You’ve done an Ironman.
Here are some things you have to be careful of when being hunted by a xenomorph: its jaws, its giant spindly stabby legs, its acid blood, that thing it does where it spits on you then a baby hatches in your stomach three days later and bursts its way out of you, etc. etc. The lesson: You can’t stop running. You can’t stop hiding. Hope you have some endurance, my guy.
Recommended Exercises: Just do triathlons on a loop.
*Predator
Appears In: Predator
Fitness Requirement: Be Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Predator is like if a CrossFit world champion became invisible and then decided to start killing people, but also they have, like, superhuman eyesight and weird insect jaws. Oh, and they can time travel. Look, unless you’re Arnold, this thing is gonna tear you apart and eat your tendons like spaghetti.
Recommended Exercises: Intense weight-training with major cardio and an intense bulk-centric meal plan (here's the best workout plan for skinny guys).
*Michael Myers
Appears In: Halloween
Fitness Requirement: Accept your death.
There’s one thing that separates Big Mikey Myers from the rest of the horror-movie pack: All those other guys up there can be killed. He can’t. So not only are you going to be running for the rest of your poor, poor life, you’re going to need to find a second wind that’s going to make that “one last rep” philosophy look like a joke. You are dead. You are so, so dead.
Recommended Exercises: Walk to your nearest Fabiani store and pick out a good suit. You want to be buried in something nice.
Written by: Tyler Daswick
Fuente: www.mh.co.za
