Halloween is nearly upon us, so to celebrate this most unholy of days I’m unceremoniously mashing up two of my favorite things: comedy and spooks.
We’ve written about it a lot over here at Paste, but comedy and horror are an oddly complementary duo—What We Do in the Shadows, Scream, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, the list goes on. But I want to take this pairing a step further by recasting sitcom characters as the horror movie villains they’re most similar to.
When you start looking for the parallels between comedy leads and cutthroat killers, they become glaringly obvious. Maybe at the heart of every sitcom is a character just one push away from becoming a murderer.
Jerry Seinfeld as Patrick Bateman
Dennis from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia may at first seem like an obvious pick to be Patrick Bateman. While they’re both unsettling ladies’ men, Jerry Seinfeld is the real American Psycho here. He and Patrick both have a bevy of dates/potential victims to pick from, but personal hygiene and general persnicketiness are where the two really connect.
Ted Mosby as Frankenstein’s Monster
Our perception of Frankenstein’s monster—that of a clumsy, unintelligible brute—isn’t true to the book’s creature, who is eloquent and emotionally intelligent. All he wants is love, and he’s also a bit of a nerd to be honest; he becomes well-versed in German and French within a year of being brought to life. This sounds an awful lot like Ted Mosby, the hopelessly romantic (and somewhat pedantic) lead in How I Met Your Mother.
Ron Swanson as Michael Myers
Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation, like Halloween’s Michael, is a man of few words. Maybe being a serial killer would suit Ron better than working in the Parks Department considering his misanthropic tendencies. Ron’s hunting prowess means he’s well-suited for the job, he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, and he could protect his all-important privacy by hiding behind a spray-painted William Shatner mask.
