Since this is an opinion question, I'd have to say my personal favorite of the three would be A Nightmare on Elm Street. If you compare Friday the 13th to Halloween, the two antagonists are very similar characters. Here I'm talking about Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, and disregarding Jason's mother who is the killer in the first Friday the 13th movie. Both are speechless psychopaths who slowly hunt down stupid teenagers (and adults on occasion) and grow more and more powerful through the series due to some supernatural causes. While I know that if I saw Jason or Michael in real life I would die of fright, from a moviegoers standpoint I don't think that they are as interesting as Freddy Krueger. Here, Wes Craven took an entirely different approach to the horror genre and created a villian who, instead of being a silent menace, actively spoke to and verbally tormented his victims. This also allowed a good deal of dark humor to be present in the movies, which was always a plus for me. Another reason I feel that the Elm Street movies were better was the variety and creativity present in the ways the victims met there ends. In the Halloween and Friday the 13th movies the usual course of killing a victim either included stabbing or use of supernatural strength to physically break the person / bludgeon the person, etc. Freddy, on the other hand, disposed of his victims through such means as electrocution through a television or using their tendons as puppet strings to walk them off of a building. I think the biggest reason I liked Freddy was that instead of hunting you in your everyday life he tracked you down in your dreams. It gave such a feeling of helplessness to the characters, since everyone has to sleep at some point. Anyways, that's my two cents on the matter, I didn't realize I had so much to say on the matter. I do enjoy all three movie franchises, but I feel that A Nightmare on Elm Street is by far the superior contender.
Source(s):
Have seen most of the movies from each of the series several times


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