Five years ago, I wrote my first (and until then, only) post about horror movies in this blog. It was part of a series of posts about the best puzzle solvers across various genres, media properties, and franchises. And I really liked that post.
However, at the time, I felt like I had to avoid certain film franchises and subjects to keep the post as family friendly as possible.
But PuzzCulture is a different animal from its predecessor, so let’s push the boundaries a little bit and make the most comprehensive and accurate list possible, shall we? Let’s honor Halloween right by celebrating the sharpest and most cunning characters to ever elude those relentless meat grinders known as horror films and horror video games.
These are the characters you want on your side, because they’re clever, decisive, and immensely capable. After all, most horror movies and games are populated with idiots who are destined to perish before the film’s conclusion.
So instead, these are the characters who break the mold.
Nancy Thompson, A Nightmare on Elm Street
When you’re confronted with a monster who hunts people through their dreams, you have to be pretty clever to survive. After all, you have to sleep at some point. When it comes to the Elm Street franchise, they don’t come more clever than young Nancy Thompson.
Nancy discovers she has the ability to pull things from the dreamworld into the real world, and plans to use this ability to stop Freddy Krueger once and for all. She not only sets an alarm to ensure she wakes up before falling victim to Freddy in the dreamworld, but sets numerous booby traps in her house to ensnare and hurt Freddy.
Nancy is a top-notch puzzler for not only figuring out how to use her incredible ability to her advantage, but devising a plan (and a backup plan!) to save herself.
Unnamed Boy, Limbo
One of my all-time favorite video games, Limbo is a moody, atmospheric puzzle horror game where our silent protagonist ventures through dangerous mechanical traps and shadowy creatures in search of his missing sister.
Easily one of the most clever puzzle platform games of the last twenty years, Limbo allows players to climb, push and pull objects, and manipulate the environment to allow the boy to continue his search. Trial and error is the name of the game here, but it takes some serious puzzle-solving skills to survive to the end.
Kirsty Cotton, Hellraiser
The Lament Configuration is a Rubik’s Cube-like puzzle box that opens a portal to another dimension, where monstrous beings called Cenobites promise untold delights in exchange for your soul. Unfortunately, Kirsty is a clever enough puzzler to solve the Lament Configuration and open the portal.
Thankfully, Kirsty is also clever enough to outmaneuver the Cenobites, buying herself time by realizing someone has escaped their clutches and working to save herself by finding the fugitive.
So Kirsty not only figures out the rules of monsters from another dimension and how to use them, but solves a difficult puzzle box (first opening it, then solving it in reverse to close it) in order to save herself. A pretty sharp cookie, to be sure.
Clarice Starling, The Silence of the Lambs
A young FBI trainee who finds herself tangling with two serial killers — one on the loose, another in custody — Clarice Starling has to not only save a young woman kidnapped by Buffalo Bill, but do so while unraveling the word games and riddles of the devious and brilliant Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
Clarice is perhaps the most overtly puzzly of our heroes, solving anagrams and figuring out the double meaning behind many of Dr. Lecter’s riddles and clues in order to get closer to stopping Buffalo Bill. Along the way, she uncovers information missed by more seasoned investigators, even managing to survive an attack by Buffalo Bill (in the dark!) and saving the kidnapped girl in the process.
If you’re ever in danger, hope that Clarice Starling is on the trail.
Mike and Sam, Until Dawn
In the interactive horror game Until Dawn, a group of high school pals return to a cabin on a snowy mountain to honor the disappearance of two friends a year earlier. Unfortunately, more tragedy awaits them as a maniac stalks the mountain and evil lurks behind every choice the players make.
Several characters get heroic moments in the game, but nobody more so than Sam and Mike, who manage to wordlessly communicate a plan to stop the dark forces hunting them. (A plan that iron-willed players can help execute, saving Mike and Sam and any other characters that managed to make it to dawn.)
In a game where both characters and players can make clever or clumsy decisions, Sam and Mike definitely stand head and shoulders above the rest.
Bret, Lights Out
Imagine that you’re being hunted by a monster that lurks in the dark. It seems like an obvious solution to simply stay in the light, but when that monster is both intelligent and cunning, that’s a taller order than you think. Bret, along with his girlfriend Rebecca and Rebecca’s family, are being pursued by Diana, a creature who can only appear when it’s dark.
When Diana cuts power to the entire neighborhood, everyone must scramble for safety. Thankfully, the resourceful Bret is on their side, and he thwarts Diana’s attacks several times. When she knocks the flashlight from his hands and charges him, he banishes her momentarily with the brightness of his smartphone screen. As he runs for a car outside, she ambushes him from a shadow, but he escapes again by using the key fob in his pocket to activate the car’s headlights.
Effective puzzlers always make the most of the tools at their disposal, and Bret is a most effective puzzler.
Agent Peter Strahm, Saw IV and Saw V
We meet many criminal investigators in the Saw franchise, but arguably none are more capable than Agent Peter Strahm. Strahm not only deduces important information about Jigsaw’s apprentice in Saw IV, but he actually outwits one of the apprentice’s traps in Saw V!
Using the same pen he would nervously click to relieve stress, Strahm manages to outlast the Water Trap, where his head was trapped in a cube that quickly filled with water. (I won’t go into detail, but anyone who has watched House, M*A*S*H, or Nobody can probably figure out how.)
Although Strahm doesn’t get to walk off into the sunset (very few do in Saw movies), he proved far more capable than many who chose to tangle with Jigsaw and his apprentices.
Joan Leaven, Cube
Sometimes, a good puzzler is plunked down in an unfamiliar situation and has to make sense of it all. (This is the premise of many an escape room or a video game, as well as the truth regarding many coded puzzles or puzzles with symbols.) The situation in Cube is like that times a thousand.
Leaven is one of six people trapped in a maze of interconnected cubical rooms, many of them booby-trapped in various ways. As a young mathematics student, Leaven is immediately intrigued by the numbers inscribed in the small passages that connect the various rooms. The group soon realizes that the rooms are shifting periodically, making the maze harder to solve.
After several theories don’t pan out, Leaven manages to unravel the pattern of the trapped rooms — realizing those rooms are related to prime numbers (specifically powers of prime numbers) — and navigates the group through the ever-shifting maze toward an exit.
The stakes may not always be as high as they were for Leaven, but she never gave up and always approached the puzzle from a fresh angle when thwarted. That’s a sign of a true puzzler.
Michelle, 10 Cloverfield Lane
After being run off the road in an accident, Michelle wakes up in a well-stocked underground bunker. She’s been taken there by Howard, the bunker’s owner, who tells her the surface is uninhabitable and the air outside is poisoned. Michelle quickly realizes that Howard is unstable, but must bide her time before attempting to escape.
Michelle is another remarkably resourceful individual, mapping out the ventilation system in the bunker (while doing repairs), fashioning a hazmat suit out of found items, and outwitting Howard long enough to escape. (Once free, she even manages to whip up a Molotov cocktail and dispatch an unexpected threat.)
Some of the most devious puzzles are the ones where you have to figure out how to use what’s in front of you in creative ways to complete a task. Michelle has this skill in spades.
Six, Little Nightmares
A hungry nine-year-old girl in a yellow raincoat, Six is the protagonist of Little Nightmares, a brilliant puzzle-platformer where the player must outmaneuver hulking monstrosities and sneak their sneakiest sneaky selves through treacherous scenarios.
Six is patient, resourceful, and pragmatic, carefully choosing when to be stealthy and when to be bold, as both are required to survive the game.
Through pattern identification, enemy observation, and learning from your mistakes, you and Six navigate the oversized horrors of the game. (While the puzzles in Limbo often require the player to die more than once before figuring out the correct path forward, Little Nightmares allows players chances to figure out the puzzle ahead of time, making for a different, but equally satisfying, solving experience.)
Erin, You’re Next
Erin joins her boyfriend at a family gathering, only for things to turn sour as masked invaders target the party’s guests. But they get more than they bargained for, as Erin quickly reveals herself as one of the most capable horror movie protagonists in the history of the genre.
Erin gathers information, sets traps, outwits the bad guys at seemingly every turn, and generally dazzles with her intelligence, tactical skill, and resourcefulness.
You know that puzzle where you have to connect all the dots in the square with only three lines, but to do so, you have to draw outside the square? That puzzle wouldn’t fool Erin for an instant. She is constantly thinking outside the box — and the house — in order to accomplish the most with the fewest moves.
Horror movies haven’t seen a puzzler like Erin before, and I almost feel bad for any bad guys who get in her way.
Did I miss any world-class puzzlers from horror movies? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you!
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