sub fbhp {
    [...]
    my @status;
    my $count = $#elements;
    push @status, 0 for (0..$count); 
   [...]

    my @status;
    my $count = $#elements;
    push @status, 0 for (0..$count); 

my @status = (0) x scalar(@elements)

C:\community>perl bench.pl

          Rate thorium   renee
thorium 1131/s      --    -57%
renee   2656/s    135%      --

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Benchmark qw(:all);
use strict;
use warnings;

my @elements = (1) x 1000;

cmpthese( 10000, {
   'renee'   => sub {my @status = (0) x scalar(@elements)},
   'thorium' => sub {my @status;
                     my $count = $#elements;
                     push @status, 0 for (0..$count); }
});