Horror Games | Round 3 Recap

This week we're recapping Round 3 of the 2026 Horror Games as the Slaying 16 asked voters a different question: who is the most resilient horror icon. We break down surprising outcomes like the Amityville House defeating Dracula, Pinhead overcoming Pennywise, and Art the Clown outlasting Ghostface while listener voicemails from the community weigh in on the chaos unfolding across the districts. With eight tributes remaining, we preview the Egregious Eight and reveal the next voting challenge, deciding which contender delivers the most creative kill.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:05

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to the latest round recap of the 2026 Horror Games, where we're breaking down some of the best face-offs, the biggest upsets, and even some lukewarm takes on what's next for our surviving tributes. My name is Chris, I'm your host and mentor for District 4, our slasher district, in this year's games. And as always, we have with us the Monster Madness Game Maker herself, Chell. Now, this round asked a very different question from our previous rounds. In round three, citizens had to decide which tribute is the most resilient. Not the deadliest, not even the smartest, as we'll sure to see shortly. And also not the scariest, but resilience. Who keeps coming back? Who survives the impossible? Who refuses to stay dead no matter what the story throws at them? Sixteen tributes entered this round, and by the end of tonight, only eight will remain. And we will officially enter the next stage of the game's the egregious eight. Now, Chow, what can you tell us about this last round of play?

SPEAKER_04 1:17

Well, yes, so we had sixteen contenders, including four that arrived fresh to the arena as fan favorites, if you recall. We have maintained consistent numbers throughout the entire voting period with people showing their true colors and avid fandoms loud and proud for their districts of choice, and it has truly been inspiring for my game maker heart to see.

SPEAKER_05 1:43

I loved seeing everything everybody turn out for the vote. When we think of what makes the game special, it's not just the occupants and the men in the arena. It is about you at home, playing the cards, twisting the fates, and submitting your votes. Now, Child, this also marks the halfway point of the games. And not only halfway, but that means that this was the last run where we're actually entering the last round of play within each district.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

Yes, the familiar, the familiar fights between those of similar strengths will soon be gone as we start seeing them venture outside of the safety of their districts and seeing really who has the medal to have what it takes to land at the top.

SPEAKER_05 2:29

I can't wait to see what comes next because after this round, we're going to see district versus district, and we'll see if another district four champion emerges at the end of the games. Now, we've also gotten some commentary from a few of our listeners, and what we want to do now is take a moment to go to our mailbag and hear some feedback and some thoughts and even some input that you all had on the games, starting with our first caller.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

I'm having a blast for this year's Monster Madness. While I didn't get quite as uh propagandistic and didn't campaign as hard as I did for last year's, I'm still rooting for the Xenomorph Queen to go to number one. But I also have some interest in how far House and Jennifer Check get, seeing how the latter was one of the major stars of last year's Monster Madness. I hope this is the second of many more uh fun brackets where we can debate the origin, legacy, power, and personal fear and influence that these creatures have on our lives. I think monsters share many core aspects of human beings and of nature, and that analyzing them, what they mean symbolically, or what they mean for various fears and even just primal anxieties of people, are important lessons in understanding life. I'm having a lot of fun here, and I'm great to be in this community.

SPEAKER_05 3:51

I absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_04 3:53

That right there, Chris, is why the games were created.

SPEAKER_05 3:57

It's why we do what we do, Chell. Shout out to Perfect Organism. Sorry that your name got cut off at the beginning. A stalwart member of our Discord community, a citizen of the districts, as it were, and someone who has really brought a lot of the life of the games together. Now, I absolutely agree when it comes down to the Amneyville horror house of it all. In what world do we have a game in which a house is compared to a horror icon? If I say that as if it's not itself a horror icon. Now, going into this, the Amneyville House is considered to be up against an icon of horror, Dracula. And you have to think, okay, is a house more resilient or long-lasting than a vampire? These are the questions that you only get asked here at the 2026 horror games.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

Resiliency can come in all shapes and forms. As we have seen throughout the ages of Amityville, whenever its image seems to die off and fade, it rebirths itself anew, whether it's Amityville Toilet or Amityville Vibrator or Amityville Thanksgiving. It's it's immaculate how resilient something like Amityville can be, whereas Dracula may survive torment, but he's always the same. He does not evolve, he simply comes back.

SPEAKER_05 5:23

He simply crosses oceans of time to find his love. Now we have another caller, this coming from our citizen of the Capitol, or perhaps a little bit of a rebellion.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

There is no way, not even with the help of Dambala, that Chucky will make it past this round.

SPEAKER_05 5:51

You know what? I respect that so much. And we have to consider this. We have little Chucky joining the fight, going up against not any of the other scrubs, and mind you, I made sure District 4 was stacked this year. But he's going up against Jason when we have him being supercharged with a Friday the 13th during the voting period. It almost feels unfair.

SPEAKER_04 6:15

It's it's absolutely not the ideal way one is dropped into the games, but of course, we not even as game makers uh necessarily had the power over where Chucky landed and whom he faced, but it is very clear that Small Chucky was not going to be the wall needed to break down Jason in his momentum, which as we have seen has carried from last year.

SPEAKER_05 6:38

That is true. Now, another interesting matchup we got was actually featured over in District 2, and we have another caller coming in, maybe one that sounds a little bit familiar.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Hey everyone, it's Binks, and I wanted to leave a voicemail to discuss this insane matchup that we have going on. Norman, didn't expect you to make it so far. Pennywise, I love you personally, but let's be honest, if anyone else were to make one slick comment about you that rubbed you the wrong way and made you cry, it would be a rap. And he's my favorite, folks. I mean, paranormal paramour here, obviously. But this is tough. I really don't know how this is gonna end up.

SPEAKER_05 7:16

Yeah, I 100% agree with you, Binks. The complexity here is that Pennywise can be bullied. Pennywise can do a lot of things. And if you out there, a citizen of the districts, have seen Welcome to Dairy this year, you will know that Pennywise doesn't come to play games. But the it films show us that there is a way to persevere. And can he really survive over the hell, Priest? Is the question.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

It's absolutely empowering first to see such support from our District 2 mentor and the paranormal paramour. And what she says is not wrong. Pennywise is certainly someone that we we often think because where there is fear, you think there is Pennywise, but clearly there are things stronger than fear that one must sustain themselves on to be resilient.

SPEAKER_05 8:08

Perhaps what's stronger than fear is the pleasure of pain. Or not here to kink shame. You're into what you're into. But we have one more caller that we want to spotlight here, and this comes from our very own Drew.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Movie. Hey guys, first time listener, long time caller. I'm just calling to say, hey, you know, I love the content you guys are pumping out. It's super fucking great. It's a lot of hard work you put into it, and it definitely shows the community you built is also absolutely fantastic to watch parties and whatnot, trivia nights. The only real recommendation I have is, you know, cover Ernest Scared Stupid. It's a masterpiece. But uh yeah, I hope you guys keep up the great work. Loving the monster madness for this march. No, just a little message from uh District 4 member to the Capitol, uh, if we burn, you burn with us.

SPEAKER_05 9:00

Okay, that sounds like a little bit like a threat. I was with you up until the if you remember. We need to check our our spam filtering clearly. Uh Drew, thank you so much for the love. Folks, if you have not been a part of the Discord community as we've been going through these games, what are you waiting for? Is the question that I pose to you, because you will not find a stronger sense of belonging anywhere on the internet than you would in the hallowed halls of Hackerslash. Now, we've taken some calls from our listeners, we've reflected a little bit on the dynamics, but I think it's time that we really sink our teeth into what happened in this last round. Now, as we consider again the premise of this competition, we were asked a question. For the slang 16, we had to filter through who is the most resilient. Again, not the smartest, not the best kills, but who can endure? So let's take a look at some of those matchups. Now, Chell, your brilliance in these brackets knows no bounds. I want to first introduce something that we talked about a little bit ago in one of these voicemails. Count Dracula versus Amityville. When you go into this, you might think, Immortal Vampire over house. What did you expect to come out of this one, Chel?

SPEAKER_04 10:27

Um, I certainly had my my qualms about Amdeville jumping into the arena against Dracula, who, I mean, even against their cheap doppelganger made quick work of Count Orlock. I truly thought this would be a greater fight, and for a while it was close there. It is still one of the closer fights that we saw raging towards the end. But again, the the survival and the very story and legend of Amityville seemed to be what the people wanted over the tale as old as time of Dracula crossing oceans.

SPEAKER_05 11:07

I could not believe for a second that a house, a house built on the premise of a hoax, a house that is tormented by the true crime that occurred there, but also is just as susceptible to roaches and termites as any other place in America, that could vanquish a vampire. Folks, when we went into this matchup, I had no expectation that the Amityville would take down Dracula, but then I thought, as I looked at these results, well, you could rip up the floorboards and make the mistake. Well, Dracula Sunlight, uh, garlic, uh hoisted by his own petard in some of these films. I I guess it kind of makes sense. A little disappointing though, Dracula. You really was you were blowing it out and then you just blew it in the end there.

SPEAKER_04 11:59

Considering the the rules that Dracula so forcibly makes himself play by, we're not even sure he was able to pass the doorstep of Amityville. I am sure he was not an invited guest.

SPEAKER_05 12:10

That is true. And on this, the night when hopefully Sinners wins an Academy Award, don't let your vampires in, folks. Don't invite them. They're not welcome. Now, Binks shouted out another matchup, and this one came out of District 1, and that was Norman Bates versus Frankenstein's monster. Tell, who did you who do you think had the upper hand here before we got into the results?

SPEAKER_04 12:34

Well, you have to start thinking, again, I know it was in the past, but the origin of these two of these two monsters, I mean, Norman Bates is flesh and blood. He merely had something within him that wouldn't die, that of his mother Norma. But Frankenstein, he was created from death, he was brought to life almost evading death and promising a future without mortality. So I knew pretty quickly that Frankenstein would probably, especially with his bride out, make quick work of Norman Bates and make it on to the next step of the bracket.

SPEAKER_05 13:14

And honestly, I thought, sure, Frankenstein comes back to life. But is there anything more enduring than a boy's love for his mother? Apparently, it is man's hubris. So, okay, congratulations, Frankenstein. I'm glad you made it out. But that means you're probably gonna go up against the Amityville house, which just took uh took down another Universal Legend. So we'll take a look here in a moment. But turning your eyes to District 2, we had a matchup of two queer icons. We saw one Jennifer Check, who re-entered the fray from our last round against the Babaduok. Chell, who had the upper hand?

SPEAKER_04 13:58

Jennifer Check came back to the arena with such fanfare. Uh I thought that maybe the Babaduke would give her a bit of a fight again, being queer icons. But then the propaganda started, Chris, where there were allegations of the Babaduke being a capital plant. And let me tell you, I think that certainly helped in Jennifer Check's favor and certainly did not help the Babaduke endear fans to him.

SPEAKER_05 14:26

I don't know if you saw this, Chell, but one spooky bitch in our Discord server did say that Jennifer Check canonically is the Jennifer that overthrows President Snow in the Hunger Games. So it only makes sense that from District 2, we have emerging one Jennifer here to steal the show. I honestly was hoping for this outcome. I was rooting for Jennifer along the way, and I was pleased to see that the the fire of a woman's scorn can still be more enduring than the personification of grief. Great job, Jennifer. We love that. Good for her. Good for her.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

There is much game left to play, and we are very excited to see how Jennifer continues on.

SPEAKER_05 15:18

Absolutely. Now, our other District 2 matchup, again, going back to one of those voicemails, we had Pinhead and Pennywise. Again, Pinhead, the Hell Priest, the promise of pleasure and pain and eternal suffering versus Pennywise, the dancing clown, the personification of everything you fear most, who had the upper hand.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

I truly did not think that Pinhead would pull through. I genuinely, he exists in that plane where perhaps death has already come to him or death avoids him. But I truly thought with Pennywise and the promise of him returning like the wave of cicadas or uh you know a bad penny, so to speak, really thought that there would be much of a greater fight.

SPEAKER_05 16:09

I really thought so too. But what I like to think of, and again, if you haven't if you haven't seen Welcome to Dairy, I'm not gonna spoil much for you, but I will say this. Richie Santos came back with a vengeance to vanquish Pennywise. Congratulations, Pinhead. You advance to the next round. And actually, thinking about Hellraiser, thinking about this franchise, it's a great segue into what was going on with the nonsense in District 3. So much happening, a recreation of a movie, Alien versus Predator. This one was a fight for the ages, but the turnout and the split was not what I anticipated.

SPEAKER_04 16:50

Certainly not. There was much fanfare again for Predator Returning, and the fact that he was coming up against an old foe in Xenomorph, we really thought they'd be trading blows left and right the entire time, but it is it seems that while the predator had fresh legs and fresh eyes on his potential prey, the xenomorph had no time. He they knew that uh the queen would maintain her crown.

SPEAKER_05 17:18

I would hope so. I think that the xenomorph, the alien queen, has really been untested and unchallenged this entire way. And I can't wait to see how this goes because she made quick work of the predator. Now, on the other side of the sci-fi seed, we had the mutants from Pandorum versus the thing. I Chell, I think this holds a record within this round of biggest blowout. Which direction did it favor?

SPEAKER_04 17:48

This uh, in no question favored the thing. It was it was an absolute bloodbath, which often when you come to these later rounds, you do not expect shutouts or blowouts like this. But the thing arrived, the thing conquered, and the poor mutants had nothing to to contradict the thing's power with, and with a whimper, a murmur, the mutants were sent back without much of a fight at all, really.

SPEAKER_05 18:18

Truly, without much of a fight. But let's actually go over into District 4 and going back to that call, we talked about Chucky and Jason. Again, two titans of horror, two slashers, two villains who are well known and have even had their own houses featured in Halloween horror nights. Choose your prediction on?

SPEAKER_04 18:40

As thrilled as I was, as all of us were for Chucky to come in, I just knew that Jason he has a chip on his shoulder, and Chucky was simply just another stop, another minor speed bump on his way to the next round. So it was almost unfair to put Chucky in there. It was not fair play, as one would say, but that is how the games are played, Chris.

SPEAKER_05 19:06

Yeah, it's child's play, not fair play. Good job, Jason. I'm just proud to see our boy Jason actually put in a concerted effort this year after he lazed his way through all the brackets last year. But what that posed an interesting question for us was within District 4, Art the Clown, new icon of horror, facing off against Ghostface, who was, I would say, someone of the closest prominence in terms of slashers in terms of recency. And when you have this, you consider the wild celebrity of Art the Clown as of late, more and more people getting to know his name, thinking about the course of his films. But then you also have Ghostface who continues to endure. But as you examine this, Arthur Clown is one entity that continues to come back to life. And with Ghostface, it's just a bunch of kids in a costume who keep handing it off to each other. So, Chell, who did you think the people were going to pick?

SPEAKER_04 20:07

Well, I knew this was going to be the matchup of this round, and I knew it would cause quite a bit of heartache. But I truly did believe that Ghostface would outlast art simply because, as you have often reminded us, that evil does not die. It simply changes shape. And if anyone has shown us over the years the different shapes and forms that evil can can hold, it is ghost face. While art, yes, with his his newfangled ways and his potential for coming back, just the very fact that the specter of ghost face hangs across the entire scream universe, how does one compete with that?

SPEAKER_05 20:46

Well, one competes with that by rising to stardom and having better movies than Scream 7, because bye-bye, Ghostface. Sorry. The quality of masked Ghostface continues to be fantastic, continues to get worse in a great sense every movie, but then the reveal of these ghost faces gets worse in a terrible sense every movie. But Arthur Clown, Artha Clown continues to be our favorite silly, goofy guy, and we love him for it. So, folks, we have lost several people. And I really want to take a moment and I wanna I want to reflect and just pay tribute, pay honor to those that we have lost. Returning to district one with his head held high, or pretty embarrassing for losing to a house, we have Dracula and we have Norman Bates. Now returning to District 2. With their heads held high, we have the Bobaduk and Pennywise. Returning to District 3. We have the Predator. And we have the Mutants. And returning to District 4, we have Ghostface and Chucky. Bless you. Shell, any final words for these tributes?

SPEAKER_04 22:28

Do not shed tears with grief for blood shed with honor. And while the games like life are filled with risks and unpredictabilities, some lead to triumph and tragedy. But not even us game makers are able to successfully choose which way these decisions may fall.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

R.I.P. 4-1 out for the homies. And let's actually start taking a look at who remains. We've bid farewell to the fallen, and we are now in our final round of district play that we have so lovingly shared and coined as the egregious eight. But of course, with every round comes a different layer of voting, a different way of comparing and assessing talent and skills. And with that, we want to reveal this week's voting filter. We want you to consider not who was the most resilient, who is the scariest, and this is going to be fun with some of these matchups. We want you to reveal and vote based on who has the most creative kill.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

Blood and guts does not have to be standard and cookie cutter. Well, this is the games after all, and it is supposed to be fun. So let's talk about the pizzazz of our tributes. They have most certainly earned it. So reflect on their greatest wins, their greatest slays, if you will, and let that decide who should move out of the districts into interdistrict play.

SPEAKER_05 24:03

I can't wait to see the interpretations. And I think it's important that we reveal who will be facing off with whom in this round. So consider most creative kill, and then consider the Amdeville Horror and Frankenstein. On the one hand, you have the Amneyville Horror House, who killed literally no one in its movie, and at least the original film. And then you have Frankenstein who yeeted a child into a lake and she drowned.

SPEAKER_04 24:35

Yikes. It's certainly going to be a real challenge. We are going to have to consider what creativity means. And perhaps there wasn't a mortal kill, but maybe the killing of a soul. A killing of one's will to live or one's sanity is the way that we can look at it in the angle of the Amadeville horror.

SPEAKER_05 24:55

Yes, absolutely. Now, another matter that I wasn't quite expecting, but we have what I like to call the seduction seed. We have Jennifer Check and Pinhead. How do you think this one's going to tip out?

SPEAKER_04 25:07

Honestly, I think both have their merits. Both of them use their wiles in different ways to show, to quote the tribute pinhead, such sights to see, but Jennifer Check is a teenage girl, we mustn't forget. And who is more creative in tearing down her opponents than a than a teenage girl?

SPEAKER_05 25:29

That is very true. And when you think of this for Pinhead, I my heart and my instinct instantly goes to Pinhead because how can you not be creative with the way they tear flesh apart? But then I remember Pinhead had a whole squad chill. Pinhead had friends. Pinhead had a posse, and Jennifer was luring boys to their dooms on her own. So we'll see how that shakes out. But another interesting matchup we have is our our two highest vote getters within District 3. We have the thing versus the alien queen. I mean, listen, a carpenter classic, but also xenomorph. Who do you who do you think is gonna get it?

SPEAKER_04 26:11

Well, when you think of creativity, you think of being able to morph, to walk away from oneself, to embody a new thing. And simply the thing, I think, is unmatched in this. Their entire identity isn't how creative they can be to evolve and survive. And I simply think while the alien queen may have no problem jumping out of corners and surprising and terrorizing cats and children, I do think the thing is more imaginative in the way that it stalks and kills its prey.

SPEAKER_05 26:45

I would agree with that. I would agree that the alien queen makes her her agenda known. There are no surprises, but to assimilate, to take on the shape and the form of another being, I think you get points for creativity. But there's also the matchup that I think might be the most pressing for this entire round of competition. And that is going to be something that is not difficult for me personally, but hey, I get it. Art the Clown versus Jason Voorhees. Listen, Jason has an entire collection of films in which we have seen some pretty wild kills. But I would offer to you that none of that comes even remotely close to hot dog sliced with a hacksaw or chainsaw enema.

SPEAKER_04 27:35

It is clearly a question of quality over quantity here, Chris. I mean, some of some may argue that the creativity that Jason had with his kills is what led the way for Art the Clown to be so inspired with his chainsaw enema as you explained it. So it is a question of quality and quantity, but also master and students. Does one exist without the other, Chris? I think we need to all really truly consider here.

SPEAKER_05 28:04

We do need to consider it, but I would also offer Chell, it's not sometimes about who did it first, it's about who did it best and who can stand the test of time. Because where Jason continues to slice and dice and dice and hack and slash and nitrogen face smash people in space, art the clown also gives you a glass tube to the throat with rats crawling through and eating up your there's a lot happening in the terrifier films. Folks, I think we may need to have even more conversations on social media this week to really make our case for these. And I can't wait to see how the round of voting comes. But when we consider this round of voting, there's some key dates that you have to keep in mind. We have so many things happening within this week in in terms of debates, activity in our Discord servers, long professions of who's going to win. But Chell, what do our folks have to remember as they get into this last round of district play?

SPEAKER_04 29:10

Yes, this is not a time for us to become complacent. It is the time to really decide who you are going to place your bets on as we leave the districts. This it may be the most crucial vote that you ever cast in this year's Monster Madness. So at noon on Monday, March 16th, the voting will open, and we need you all to be on your top of your game. Voting will end on Thursday, March 19th, so you have the week to consider and reflect and decide who you want to back as we enter interdistrict play. And I've I don't know about you, Chris, but I would hate to be the one betting on the losing horse entering some of the more important games.

SPEAKER_05 29:55

And as you as you work up your celebration and your championing for your victor, also remember these games are not rigged. So we still need every single vote. Some of these matchups have come down to one person. And I, while I personally think Art the Clown can carry us, he is going to need your support along the way. To the best of luck for you all of you out there, and may the scares be ever in your favor.