And yet, despite that seeming lack of definition, hes also creepily familiar and utterly relatable. Smile now; all the mirth will go away when the final shot of the movie is slowly revealed. In a show full of extraordinary images, the terrifying sight of Bob the otherworldly killer of Laura Palmer is arguably the shows most potent. Marlos street political power came primarily from his role as insurgent, the up-and-coming disruptor to the long-standing situation of (relative) order that had obtained in West Baltimore when it was ruled by well-established kingpins. Unsettling. Padraig Cotter. Nicholson takes the Jack Torrance/Jack Napier approach here, effectively Nicholsoning it up just as much as we would hope in a performance that is at once bitingly funny and deeply disturbing. Tommy continues to berate Henry, who tries to defend his compliment, explaining that he enjoys the way Tommy tells his tales. His victims are left physically, mentally and emotionally broken.
For my money though, Zachary Kralik, from Season 3s Helpless, is one of the scariest villains that our dear Buffy ever faced pretty impressive considering that he was a vampire, creatures that werent particularly frightening in season one, let alone three seasons in. As an ex-teacher, I understand the need to jazz up a lesson, to sneak learning in under cover of fiction, YouTube clips and sweets. Craig Elvy. Fantastic Richards, Tooms enjoyed unnatural flexibility: he could stretch and contort his body in order to squeeze into narrow spaces. Its all the more disturbing then, that she is the final character we see in Life On Mars, playing with kids in the street and skipping up to the camera to turn off our TVs. At the age of seven, that was enough to create a lingering fear of the eponymous character so intense that I couldnt sleep without the light on for months.
Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri - 'The Sopranos'. No, what makes Davros so utterly terrifying is something far simpler. Though Treguard from 80s kids showKnightmarewas ostensibly on the side of light, actor Hugo Myatt and show creator Tim Child worked hard to make dungeon master Treguard a morally ambiguous character, imparting help and information to the teams where necessary but always maintaining a sense of detachment great care was taken to ensure that the dungeoneers would never see or interact with Myatt outside of Treguards antechamber. Rob Keeling. He is truly the stuff of childhood nightmares. He could be sinister in his quieter moments as well, though. Its no surprise that typing the words John Lithgow into Google immediately brings up Dexter as the first word link, despite him accruing decades worth of memorable screen villains. John Denton, You want to meet someonescary? Unlike most screen Jokers, Monaghans Jerome started as a sympathetic character breaking down into tears upon finding out about his true parentage in his first episode. Juliette Harrisson. Hes a threat to Deadwood just because he heralds the arrival of a major political and commercial force thatll change the way the town operates, and also because hes a mentally unstable misogynist who cant control his violent urges. Its a wonder anyone born between the years of 1980-1984 learned to read at all. Juliette Harrisson.
Maybe it is because everything about him makes no sense.
Craig Elvy. Its testament to Lynchs power as an artist that 25 years later were still wrestling with the questions Bob poses, while also keeping a worried eye on the mirror to check that the he isnt looking back. And when we learn his backstory, it just makes him even creepier. Katie Wong.
All this, in aid of promoting literacy among the under-tens. Whenever there was a scrag fight in the prison, Bea was in the middle of it. Suddenly, the laughter percolating around Tommy's story disappearscompletely. If they can face it, fans of the Flukeman may want to check out IDWs fantastic comic-book continuation of The X-Files (season 10), which sees the monster return. What is terrifying about him though is that he can only be seen by sick children, recalling memories of monsters under beds that your parents swore werent there. The ultimate mother hen from hell. Sarah Dobbs, When Terrence Hardiman, the actor behind this hypnotic villain, popped up in the 2010 Doctor Who episode The Beast Below, my immediate reaction was to raise a trembling finger at my television screen and cry out argh, the Demon Headmaster!, The 1996 show excelled in being unsettling and had a bleakness to it that would shock those more accustomed to post-millennium CBBC. Ebony McKenna. Theyll only delight in doing just that every time you take them to Morrisons.). But the levity of the character makes him weirdly endearing to his audience. Craig Elvy. Much like ventriloquist dummiesanother inanimate object that haunted my dreams thanks to Goosebumpstheres something about this toy, designed in theory to be played with and loved, its blank stare seemingly rendering it devoid of any emotion, that just makes it all the more sinister. The Id brought to life? The doll is a pop culture icon, and his appearance in this film is terrifying. Theres nothing intrinsically scary about the neat young blonde woman and the man in a suit and tie who provide the scares in Mirror Image, but to their counterparts, theyre fear itself. Its impossible to say just what horrors this unhinged horror will resort to next. ITV has provoked complaints for airing Charlie Higsons new take on The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in a pre-watershed slot, but going on the first episode alone, it pales in comparison to Steven Moffats modern post-watershed adaptation of the same material, 2007s Jekyll. If you, like me, spent a chilling and formative childhood evening in the late 1970s crouched at the top of the stairs eavesdropping on your parents first play of Jeff Waynes The War Of The Worlds LP, then the arrival on TV a few years later of The Tripods might have done you in.
He is super-strong, seemingly invulnerable, he can fly and hes packing heat. In the grand scheme of TV terrors, including just those found in The X-Files alone, Chinga probably doesnt rate that highly on most peoples scare-o-meter.
Den Of Geek asked its writers that very question. He did the next logical thing: crawled through ventilation ducts to murder people and feast on their livers. Garret Dillahunt played two different roles on Deadwood. What makes Ramsays own particular brand of cruelty so powerful is the immense joy he takes in the suffering of others. They can even turn you into one of them.
His friendship with his cook Aunt Lou is the tensest thing to watch shes frightened of him, even though he describes her as his closest confidant. And shes right to be scared. For me, scary isnt so much about creepy monsters and supernatural powers. Sure, its a little silly at times, but thats also part of the charm. Lazarou gains his trinkets by coercing his way in to the homes of housewives and after tricking them in to handing over their wedding rings, he mutters those immortal words that inspired a million bad impressions: Youre my wife now. With that, the women become his property and are whisked away to do his bidding. To this ultimate nightmare scenario Whedon insisted on adding The Gentlemen.
The make-up effects for Der Kindestod are some of the shows best work, his face a rotting gentlemanly grin, all teeth and pale flesh. In all honesty, any number of characters from Oz could have made this list. Series creator Matthew Graham explained the fear factor best in an interview with Radio Times: In 1973, when television transmission had ceased for the night, when the story is done and the characters have vanished into nothing, the BBC would switch to the Test Card girl. Becoming a Borg involves the total subversion of your individuality in service of a greater whole. Dexter cleverly traded in on was Lithgows ability to play harmless and bumbling (3rd Rock from the Sun, Harry and the Hendersons) against his big screen bastardry (Raising Cain, Cliffhanger, Ricochet and um Santa Claus: The Movie). As a killer for mysterious organization The Network, Lee is naturally devoid of mercy and emotion and not someone youd want to meet down a dark alley (or indeed a well-lit one for that matter). The unseen thing that Dawn raises in Forever? Duncan Bowles. So it only made sense that his last great performance to date was in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning crime masterpieceThe Departed (2006)as Frank Costello, a fairly accurate fictionalization of real-life Irish Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger, still a fugitive at large at the time of the movie's release. A psychotic man-child who operates as a hired killer and lives in a disused theme park, Mad Pierrot is the most unsettling villain of this well-loved anime series. Racist and anti-Semitic beyond levels that were accepted at the time (the Old West: a bad time), Deadwoods fictionalised version of real-life prospector George Hearst is the scariest thing to ride into town since smallpox. Yes, she was evil, but did I really need to see her die a slow painful death and turn into Skeletor from He-Man? Arguably all of those things play their part, but for me theyre not it. Despite having the ingredients to become a success a script by Richard Matheson, direction from Dan Curtis, and the presence of horror icon Karen Black the Trilogy Of Terror film is largely forgotten. Brilliantly played by Jeff Kober (who would later portray sleazy warlock Rack), Kralik was fairly scary pre-siring, an abuse victim who tortured and murdered multiple women before being committed to an asylum for the criminally insane, where he was made into a vampire. And for Asylums Christmas episode, he was given his own Santa suit and allowed to run riot. He kills, rapes and tortures as he sees fit and whats more, he revels in every moment.
This list spotlights a murderers'row of violent villains who are nevertheless frequently funny, even through their dastardly dealings. That did happen, but generally speaking the title characters of Charles Mills, Terry Brain and Steve Boxs series look like benevolent demons who would be unlikely to harm anybody. He appeared in the second season episode Killed By Death during which Buffy came down with the flu, nearly losing a fight to Angelus in the process. The monster begins by possessing poor Toby (Will Thorp) whose menacing vocal change and determination to kill all his mates are Doctor Who at its dark best. Amongst the shows many crowning achievements is its portrayal of the Clown Prince of Thieves himself, The Joker. A lot of terrifying violence is made cinematically digestible through humor. Hes also a big fan of a well-made business card. Everyone knows what this line of inquiry could lead to. Then suddenly, he snapped upright at began insulting his mother, freaking out everyone present and bursting into hysterical laughter. It wasnt until much later I learned that The Tripods enslaving England on TV werent based on Waynes musical, but adapted from John Christophers series of novels, books I should probably be ashamed to say Ive yet to drum up the courage to read. Malvo isnt a person, hes a malignance infecting Bimidji, Minnesota.
Join us as we count down in order of terror from the sort-of-creepy to the downright terrifying, the 50 TV characters that, for whatever reason, give our writers chills.
As Warrens ex-girlfriend Katrina makes clear later what happens after that is sexual assault.
It sees a young woman plagued by a very persistent hitch-hiker. He murders several prostitutes, almost against his own will, and aside from the obvious, theres something about the way he does it thats really unsettling. At times, this been interpreted as a metaphor for the threat posed by anti-democratic communism, which is the total inverse of what their freedom-loving American audience loved., And of course, the Borg represent the fear of progress without ethical restraint. I mean, what's funny about it?". The bedroom is supposed to be a safe place, but then in the middle of the night this toothy demon emerges to feed on their fear. We later witness similar instances of Tommy's wrath against supposed allies (and a few foes he perhaps shouldn't cross) in several memorable subsequent scenes. Rob Leane.
Paul Ready somehow manages to portray a man who simultaneously has a permanently short fuse and an effortless unflappability. Michael Noble.
It was just that sometimes they would make strange braying screaming noises while their boggling eyes loomed and their jaws unhinged, and I would have to leave the room. Always thinking, always evaluating, and always calculating, Vee is the scariest denizen of the rogues gallery that constitutes the shows cast.
Indeed, that's part of the fun. Scary is a human being with no hesitation, no remorse, and no compulsion about killing, cheating, lying, and maiming to achieve his ends. Kyle McManus. Along these lines, one of the greatest comic performances ever arrives in the form of Joe Pesci's Oscar-winning turn as Tommy DeVito inGoodfellas(1990). Paulie and Christopher (Michael Imperioli) are pursuing Mikey Palmice (Al Sapienza) through a leafy suburban forest, determined to kill him after Tonydiscovers that he and his bossUncle Junior Soprano (Dominic Chianese) -as well as Tony's mother Livia (Nancy Marchand)-were behind a recentattempt on Tony's life.
Padraig Cotter. Theres terrifying in the tentacles-and-pointy-teeth way, and then theres the existentially terrifying, the kind of metaphysical chill that creeps in and never quite goes away. Is it his appalling ideology of genetic superiority and unflinching hatred of the other? Many of us of a certain age remember what they up to on Halloween night 1992, the reason being that we were scared half to death watching Ghostwatch. Actor Clancy Browns real-life reputation for being a thoroughly nice bloke doesnt lighten the sense of dread that underpinned his performance as Carnivales very own Avatar of Darkness. However, in Aryan Brotherhood leader Schillinger, that particular rogues gallery has an individual who rules his end of the prison network with a viciousness that is capable of shocking the most jaded viewer.
Appearing and disappearing at will, Mad Pierrot pops up like a jack-in-the-box to completely disorient and destroy whoever gets in his way. Lists about the most memorable fictional characters in film, TV, and literature that will stick in our minds forever. For further reading along these lines, check out our lists of funny villains in serious movies and the funniest movie villainkills. Francis Wolcott turns up a few episodes into season two, acting as a scout for a new mining operation. The idea that by pursuing science to the exclusion of all else, well lose the best part of ourselves. Bu this time, there wasnt even the comforting voice of David Essexa childhood staple in our houseto carry me through the scary bits. But Old Yellow-Eyes has other qualities that put him above the rest. Listen the children of the night; what music they make, he muses quietly, in between eloquently holding court on the history of Transylvania. He grins, cracks wise, and puts the central gang into all manner of crazy situations hes an altogether fun character, about 80 percent of the time. Plenty of the shows sketches are not so much darkly comic as they are pitch-black, but this one feels like something straight out of a grim horror movie. Other times, their threat is almost political.
Like a lot of characters on the show, Paulie is an amoral psychopath, but a pretty funny one. Based on Lucille Fletchers radio play of the same name, The Hitch-Hiker was a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone starring Swedish actress Inger Stevens and Get Smarts The Claw, Leonard Strong (notably playing a character scary not for reasons of 1960s cultural insensitivity!). Yeah, there have been other Christmas horrors, and this isnt the first time Father Christmas has been turned into a murderer, but its hard to think of a time when it worked quite so well. ), and freely admitted to having a problem with mothers., Piling on the badness, the Watchers Council having had the bright idea of using Kralik for the Cruciamentum, a ritual in which Slayers are robbed of their power and forced to fight a vampire lose control of the monster, leaving him on the loose with Buffys mother in his none-too-stable clutches.
That attitude towards women is one that some share, out here in the real world with us. Did he fight crime and take on evildoers with fantastical names? Like so much of David Lynchs work, Bob doesnt operate in the zone of narrative clarity. Stoppit and Tidyupfreaked me out when I was five. The doppelgangers in 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone, Mirror Image, fall into the second category. Even Spike, the most competent fighter of the group, finds himself almost completely outmatched in his encounters with the mad man.
No. How The Twilight Zone Was Revived as a VR Game, The Best San Diego Comic-Con Collectibles: An eBay Buyer's Guide, Star Wars Finally Fixes Prequel Era Plot Hole That Hurt Original Trilogy, We Now Know Why Game of Thrones Spinoff Bloodmoon Was Canceled, Resident Evil: Every Story Ranked Worst to Best. Still, Marlo was the one in charge and with Jamie Hectors chillingly effective performance, the almost supernaturally cold Marlo was a psychopath of economical menace, reducing all movements to the minimal needed to get his point across. Anyone who watched The X-Files first season will remember Eugene Victor Tooms. All of these theories have been postulated. Bateman, of course, takes things to an obscene extreme, exploiting the evils of enterprisewhile simultaneously crying for help via a killing spree. You rarely forget that hes black-mailing Sam throughout the entire series. These movie (and TV) maniacs' predilection forbloodshed as a less-than-constructive means of problem-solving is often weirdly, hypnotically chuckle-inducing, thanks to their gallows humor. That a character intended for childrens television can stick in the memory so vividly for fifteen odd years is testament to both Gillian Cross original literary creation and Hardimans sinister portrayal. What Im less able to grasp, some twenty five years after the fact, is the idea that a monster born from the mated imaginations of H.R. From his very introduction, its clear that Lorne Malvo is a bad dude.
For all this jokes, smiles and pep-talks, The Devils evil enigma often shines through. He only appeared in two episodes, but Leigh Emerson (Ian McShane) was by far Asylums creepiest inmate. If the sight of a ghost hovering over you while screaming into your face doesnt give you nightmares, I dont know what will. Although he has deployed his deep, resonant voice and considerable physical heft in other villainous roles, here Browns signature attributes are used to convey a power that comes from somewhere else and which even he doesnt fully understand. As a child it was the Daleks that sent me scurrying behind the sofa, but as an adult its their creator that still has me reaching for the armrest James Peaty.
Terrifying that anyone thought that plotline was in any way acceptable.
Creepy. Never for one minute do we forget just how lethal this guy is, even in the midst of the yuks. Hes a ghastly sight, but what led The Boogieman from this episode giving a generation of children nightmares is how well he tapped into their primal fears. Moloch the Corruptor? Phoebe-Jane Boyd. Young Millicent encounters her doppelganger at a bus depot, and fails to convince sceptic Paul of the fact. Okay, look, I know what youre thinking. When the Tenth Doctor eventually comes face-to-face with The Beast itself however, the terror comes from the sheer scale of the CGI creation. People far more erudite and knowledgeable than me have tried to explain just what it is that makes Davros, creator of the Daleks, one of the most terrifying villains in popular fiction.
Enraged by the attack, The Devil lashes out and disintegrates the assailant without hesitation. Andrew Blair. A personification of the evil that men do? Its not so much the Crack Foxs sordid backstory, syringe fingers, or malodorous scent that made him terrifying, but his habit of muttering threats under his voice the moment Vinces glam rock back was turned. Lights emotionless reaction to his fathers death and pleasure at manipulating the women in his life are enough to chill anyone to the bone. When Lee gouges out poor Wilsons eye with a spoon, without once losing his patronising, cool vocal tone, youll undoubtedly spend the rest of the series fearing what hes capable of. This anime character based on the manga by Tsugumi Ohba begins the series as a mild-mannered high school student achieving top-class grades and on course for a career in law enforcement. The Sopranos hitman Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri (Tony Sirico) is as quick with a quip as he is with a pistol. J.K. Simmons may have won an Oscar for his performance as a merciless music teacher, but his earlier run as the sadistic convict was perhaps the more intense performance. Its a spooky idea, that your exact double could be out there somewhere needing to eliminate you to ensure their own survival, and one handled to perfection in this chilling episode. A figure of authority as much as he is a servant of it, Justin is a Methodist preacher whose use of words and jet black charisma capture the all-too-willing members of his expanding congregation in deadly rapture as the sinister minister pursues his evil duty. He went on to eat his own mother (his abuser fun times! In this episode, its the little touches that freaked me out, like the Hokey Pokey music that played in the background or the eerie reflections that directed people to their own death. Lets just say we can see why they quickly became TNGs most compelling foes. Any one of those things would make a race of villains scary. Scorsese, like Nicholson, has always been a master when it comes to balancing comedy and violence. Thats if they dontscarethe crap out of you in a blink of an eye first. The first, Jack McColl, was a drunkard on a quest for vengeance who managed to shoot Wild Bill Hickok during a game of poker horrible in his own way, for sure, but not especially terrifying. One of the best has to be Queen Admira from The Hugga Bunch Movie. When he came back into the show for season two, Jerome was given center stage and allowed to really let loose. By the final episode, Light Yagami is the worlds most notorious terrorist, responsible for international mass-murder and coercing governments all over the world to support him in his mission to ruthlessly rid the world of all criminals, at any cost. Those Polaroids shudder Stefan Mohamed.
Big knives arent terribly scary, but someone with a scalpel is terrifying, and when that person is the perfect height to cut off a toe or slash an Achilles tendon, its even scarier.
Utopias murderous Lee on the other hand, achieves the same level of fright using nothing but marvellous acting from Paul Ready, sizzling dialogue and a spoon. More fool him. Played by expert mime artists, gliding along a few feet above the ground in immaculate suits paired with exquisite monster make-up giving them terrifying teeth and clawed hands, The Gentlemens appearance and movements are terrifying enough in themselves.
McShane really commits, malice radiating off him so strongly you can almost see it, and because American Horror Story delights in extremes, there really was no telling what hed do to his fellow inmates. The 1980s were the glory days of evil queens in kids movies.
Fish-men in tutus, jazz fusion guitarists with doors in their hair, shamans and talking apes peopled the Booshs universe. The makers of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon milked this idea for all its worth in The Boogieman Cometh episode, where the Ghostbusters are tasked with stopping the Boogieman feeding on the fear of a young brother and sister. The most memorable gangster movies (and certain gangster television shows) often benefit from breaking up some of their understandably bleak murder montages with tactical pepperings of character-based comedy. Surface-level, he and his socially awkward n nerdy Trio members Andrew and Jonathan would fit into my group of friends easily, they look so everyday, regular and innocuous, but they represent a real-world danger thats beyond Sunnydale.
For my money though, Zachary Kralik, from Season 3s Helpless, is one of the scariest villains that our dear Buffy ever faced pretty impressive considering that he was a vampire, creatures that werent particularly frightening in season one, let alone three seasons in. As an ex-teacher, I understand the need to jazz up a lesson, to sneak learning in under cover of fiction, YouTube clips and sweets. Craig Elvy. Fantastic Richards, Tooms enjoyed unnatural flexibility: he could stretch and contort his body in order to squeeze into narrow spaces. Its all the more disturbing then, that she is the final character we see in Life On Mars, playing with kids in the street and skipping up to the camera to turn off our TVs. At the age of seven, that was enough to create a lingering fear of the eponymous character so intense that I couldnt sleep without the light on for months.
Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri - 'The Sopranos'. No, what makes Davros so utterly terrifying is something far simpler. Though Treguard from 80s kids showKnightmarewas ostensibly on the side of light, actor Hugo Myatt and show creator Tim Child worked hard to make dungeon master Treguard a morally ambiguous character, imparting help and information to the teams where necessary but always maintaining a sense of detachment great care was taken to ensure that the dungeoneers would never see or interact with Myatt outside of Treguards antechamber. Rob Keeling. He is truly the stuff of childhood nightmares. He could be sinister in his quieter moments as well, though. Its no surprise that typing the words John Lithgow into Google immediately brings up Dexter as the first word link, despite him accruing decades worth of memorable screen villains. John Denton, You want to meet someonescary? Unlike most screen Jokers, Monaghans Jerome started as a sympathetic character breaking down into tears upon finding out about his true parentage in his first episode. Juliette Harrisson. Hes a threat to Deadwood just because he heralds the arrival of a major political and commercial force thatll change the way the town operates, and also because hes a mentally unstable misogynist who cant control his violent urges. Its a wonder anyone born between the years of 1980-1984 learned to read at all. Juliette Harrisson.
Maybe it is because everything about him makes no sense.
Craig Elvy. Its testament to Lynchs power as an artist that 25 years later were still wrestling with the questions Bob poses, while also keeping a worried eye on the mirror to check that the he isnt looking back. And when we learn his backstory, it just makes him even creepier. Katie Wong.
All this, in aid of promoting literacy among the under-tens. Whenever there was a scrag fight in the prison, Bea was in the middle of it. Suddenly, the laughter percolating around Tommy's story disappearscompletely. If they can face it, fans of the Flukeman may want to check out IDWs fantastic comic-book continuation of The X-Files (season 10), which sees the monster return. What is terrifying about him though is that he can only be seen by sick children, recalling memories of monsters under beds that your parents swore werent there. The ultimate mother hen from hell. Sarah Dobbs, When Terrence Hardiman, the actor behind this hypnotic villain, popped up in the 2010 Doctor Who episode The Beast Below, my immediate reaction was to raise a trembling finger at my television screen and cry out argh, the Demon Headmaster!, The 1996 show excelled in being unsettling and had a bleakness to it that would shock those more accustomed to post-millennium CBBC. Ebony McKenna. Theyll only delight in doing just that every time you take them to Morrisons.). But the levity of the character makes him weirdly endearing to his audience. Craig Elvy. Much like ventriloquist dummiesanother inanimate object that haunted my dreams thanks to Goosebumpstheres something about this toy, designed in theory to be played with and loved, its blank stare seemingly rendering it devoid of any emotion, that just makes it all the more sinister. The Id brought to life? The doll is a pop culture icon, and his appearance in this film is terrifying. Theres nothing intrinsically scary about the neat young blonde woman and the man in a suit and tie who provide the scares in Mirror Image, but to their counterparts, theyre fear itself. Its impossible to say just what horrors this unhinged horror will resort to next. ITV has provoked complaints for airing Charlie Higsons new take on The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in a pre-watershed slot, but going on the first episode alone, it pales in comparison to Steven Moffats modern post-watershed adaptation of the same material, 2007s Jekyll. If you, like me, spent a chilling and formative childhood evening in the late 1970s crouched at the top of the stairs eavesdropping on your parents first play of Jeff Waynes The War Of The Worlds LP, then the arrival on TV a few years later of The Tripods might have done you in.
He is super-strong, seemingly invulnerable, he can fly and hes packing heat. In the grand scheme of TV terrors, including just those found in The X-Files alone, Chinga probably doesnt rate that highly on most peoples scare-o-meter. Den Of Geek asked its writers that very question. He did the next logical thing: crawled through ventilation ducts to murder people and feast on their livers. Garret Dillahunt played two different roles on Deadwood. What makes Ramsays own particular brand of cruelty so powerful is the immense joy he takes in the suffering of others. They can even turn you into one of them. His friendship with his cook Aunt Lou is the tensest thing to watch shes frightened of him, even though he describes her as his closest confidant. And shes right to be scared. For me, scary isnt so much about creepy monsters and supernatural powers. Sure, its a little silly at times, but thats also part of the charm. Lazarou gains his trinkets by coercing his way in to the homes of housewives and after tricking them in to handing over their wedding rings, he mutters those immortal words that inspired a million bad impressions: Youre my wife now. With that, the women become his property and are whisked away to do his bidding. To this ultimate nightmare scenario Whedon insisted on adding The Gentlemen.
The make-up effects for Der Kindestod are some of the shows best work, his face a rotting gentlemanly grin, all teeth and pale flesh. In all honesty, any number of characters from Oz could have made this list. Series creator Matthew Graham explained the fear factor best in an interview with Radio Times: In 1973, when television transmission had ceased for the night, when the story is done and the characters have vanished into nothing, the BBC would switch to the Test Card girl. Becoming a Borg involves the total subversion of your individuality in service of a greater whole. Dexter cleverly traded in on was Lithgows ability to play harmless and bumbling (3rd Rock from the Sun, Harry and the Hendersons) against his big screen bastardry (Raising Cain, Cliffhanger, Ricochet and um Santa Claus: The Movie). As a killer for mysterious organization The Network, Lee is naturally devoid of mercy and emotion and not someone youd want to meet down a dark alley (or indeed a well-lit one for that matter). The unseen thing that Dawn raises in Forever? Duncan Bowles. So it only made sense that his last great performance to date was in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning crime masterpieceThe Departed (2006)as Frank Costello, a fairly accurate fictionalization of real-life Irish Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger, still a fugitive at large at the time of the movie's release. A psychotic man-child who operates as a hired killer and lives in a disused theme park, Mad Pierrot is the most unsettling villain of this well-loved anime series. Racist and anti-Semitic beyond levels that were accepted at the time (the Old West: a bad time), Deadwoods fictionalised version of real-life prospector George Hearst is the scariest thing to ride into town since smallpox. Yes, she was evil, but did I really need to see her die a slow painful death and turn into Skeletor from He-Man? Arguably all of those things play their part, but for me theyre not it. Despite having the ingredients to become a success a script by Richard Matheson, direction from Dan Curtis, and the presence of horror icon Karen Black the Trilogy Of Terror film is largely forgotten. Brilliantly played by Jeff Kober (who would later portray sleazy warlock Rack), Kralik was fairly scary pre-siring, an abuse victim who tortured and murdered multiple women before being committed to an asylum for the criminally insane, where he was made into a vampire. And for Asylums Christmas episode, he was given his own Santa suit and allowed to run riot. He kills, rapes and tortures as he sees fit and whats more, he revels in every moment.
This list spotlights a murderers'row of violent villains who are nevertheless frequently funny, even through their dastardly dealings. That did happen, but generally speaking the title characters of Charles Mills, Terry Brain and Steve Boxs series look like benevolent demons who would be unlikely to harm anybody. He appeared in the second season episode Killed By Death during which Buffy came down with the flu, nearly losing a fight to Angelus in the process. The monster begins by possessing poor Toby (Will Thorp) whose menacing vocal change and determination to kill all his mates are Doctor Who at its dark best. Amongst the shows many crowning achievements is its portrayal of the Clown Prince of Thieves himself, The Joker. A lot of terrifying violence is made cinematically digestible through humor. Hes also a big fan of a well-made business card. Everyone knows what this line of inquiry could lead to. Then suddenly, he snapped upright at began insulting his mother, freaking out everyone present and bursting into hysterical laughter. It wasnt until much later I learned that The Tripods enslaving England on TV werent based on Waynes musical, but adapted from John Christophers series of novels, books I should probably be ashamed to say Ive yet to drum up the courage to read. Malvo isnt a person, hes a malignance infecting Bimidji, Minnesota.
Join us as we count down in order of terror from the sort-of-creepy to the downright terrifying, the 50 TV characters that, for whatever reason, give our writers chills.
As Warrens ex-girlfriend Katrina makes clear later what happens after that is sexual assault.
It sees a young woman plagued by a very persistent hitch-hiker. He murders several prostitutes, almost against his own will, and aside from the obvious, theres something about the way he does it thats really unsettling. At times, this been interpreted as a metaphor for the threat posed by anti-democratic communism, which is the total inverse of what their freedom-loving American audience loved., And of course, the Borg represent the fear of progress without ethical restraint. I mean, what's funny about it?". The bedroom is supposed to be a safe place, but then in the middle of the night this toothy demon emerges to feed on their fear. We later witness similar instances of Tommy's wrath against supposed allies (and a few foes he perhaps shouldn't cross) in several memorable subsequent scenes. Rob Leane. Paul Ready somehow manages to portray a man who simultaneously has a permanently short fuse and an effortless unflappability. Michael Noble.
It was just that sometimes they would make strange braying screaming noises while their boggling eyes loomed and their jaws unhinged, and I would have to leave the room. Always thinking, always evaluating, and always calculating, Vee is the scariest denizen of the rogues gallery that constitutes the shows cast.
Indeed, that's part of the fun. Scary is a human being with no hesitation, no remorse, and no compulsion about killing, cheating, lying, and maiming to achieve his ends. Kyle McManus. Along these lines, one of the greatest comic performances ever arrives in the form of Joe Pesci's Oscar-winning turn as Tommy DeVito inGoodfellas(1990). Paulie and Christopher (Michael Imperioli) are pursuing Mikey Palmice (Al Sapienza) through a leafy suburban forest, determined to kill him after Tonydiscovers that he and his bossUncle Junior Soprano (Dominic Chianese) -as well as Tony's mother Livia (Nancy Marchand)-were behind a recentattempt on Tony's life.
Padraig Cotter. Theres terrifying in the tentacles-and-pointy-teeth way, and then theres the existentially terrifying, the kind of metaphysical chill that creeps in and never quite goes away. Is it his appalling ideology of genetic superiority and unflinching hatred of the other? Many of us of a certain age remember what they up to on Halloween night 1992, the reason being that we were scared half to death watching Ghostwatch. Actor Clancy Browns real-life reputation for being a thoroughly nice bloke doesnt lighten the sense of dread that underpinned his performance as Carnivales very own Avatar of Darkness. However, in Aryan Brotherhood leader Schillinger, that particular rogues gallery has an individual who rules his end of the prison network with a viciousness that is capable of shocking the most jaded viewer.
Appearing and disappearing at will, Mad Pierrot pops up like a jack-in-the-box to completely disorient and destroy whoever gets in his way. Lists about the most memorable fictional characters in film, TV, and literature that will stick in our minds forever. For further reading along these lines, check out our lists of funny villains in serious movies and the funniest movie villainkills. Francis Wolcott turns up a few episodes into season two, acting as a scout for a new mining operation. The idea that by pursuing science to the exclusion of all else, well lose the best part of ourselves. Bu this time, there wasnt even the comforting voice of David Essexa childhood staple in our houseto carry me through the scary bits. But Old Yellow-Eyes has other qualities that put him above the rest. Listen the children of the night; what music they make, he muses quietly, in between eloquently holding court on the history of Transylvania. He grins, cracks wise, and puts the central gang into all manner of crazy situations hes an altogether fun character, about 80 percent of the time. Plenty of the shows sketches are not so much darkly comic as they are pitch-black, but this one feels like something straight out of a grim horror movie. Other times, their threat is almost political.
Like a lot of characters on the show, Paulie is an amoral psychopath, but a pretty funny one. Based on Lucille Fletchers radio play of the same name, The Hitch-Hiker was a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone starring Swedish actress Inger Stevens and Get Smarts The Claw, Leonard Strong (notably playing a character scary not for reasons of 1960s cultural insensitivity!). Yeah, there have been other Christmas horrors, and this isnt the first time Father Christmas has been turned into a murderer, but its hard to think of a time when it worked quite so well. ), and freely admitted to having a problem with mothers., Piling on the badness, the Watchers Council having had the bright idea of using Kralik for the Cruciamentum, a ritual in which Slayers are robbed of their power and forced to fight a vampire lose control of the monster, leaving him on the loose with Buffys mother in his none-too-stable clutches.
That attitude towards women is one that some share, out here in the real world with us. Did he fight crime and take on evildoers with fantastical names? Like so much of David Lynchs work, Bob doesnt operate in the zone of narrative clarity. Stoppit and Tidyupfreaked me out when I was five. The doppelgangers in 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone, Mirror Image, fall into the second category. Even Spike, the most competent fighter of the group, finds himself almost completely outmatched in his encounters with the mad man.
No. How The Twilight Zone Was Revived as a VR Game, The Best San Diego Comic-Con Collectibles: An eBay Buyer's Guide, Star Wars Finally Fixes Prequel Era Plot Hole That Hurt Original Trilogy, We Now Know Why Game of Thrones Spinoff Bloodmoon Was Canceled, Resident Evil: Every Story Ranked Worst to Best. Still, Marlo was the one in charge and with Jamie Hectors chillingly effective performance, the almost supernaturally cold Marlo was a psychopath of economical menace, reducing all movements to the minimal needed to get his point across. Anyone who watched The X-Files first season will remember Eugene Victor Tooms. All of these theories have been postulated. Bateman, of course, takes things to an obscene extreme, exploiting the evils of enterprisewhile simultaneously crying for help via a killing spree. You rarely forget that hes black-mailing Sam throughout the entire series. These movie (and TV) maniacs' predilection forbloodshed as a less-than-constructive means of problem-solving is often weirdly, hypnotically chuckle-inducing, thanks to their gallows humor. That a character intended for childrens television can stick in the memory so vividly for fifteen odd years is testament to both Gillian Cross original literary creation and Hardimans sinister portrayal. What Im less able to grasp, some twenty five years after the fact, is the idea that a monster born from the mated imaginations of H.R. From his very introduction, its clear that Lorne Malvo is a bad dude.
For all this jokes, smiles and pep-talks, The Devils evil enigma often shines through. He only appeared in two episodes, but Leigh Emerson (Ian McShane) was by far Asylums creepiest inmate. If the sight of a ghost hovering over you while screaming into your face doesnt give you nightmares, I dont know what will. Although he has deployed his deep, resonant voice and considerable physical heft in other villainous roles, here Browns signature attributes are used to convey a power that comes from somewhere else and which even he doesnt fully understand. As a child it was the Daleks that sent me scurrying behind the sofa, but as an adult its their creator that still has me reaching for the armrest James Peaty.
Terrifying that anyone thought that plotline was in any way acceptable.
Creepy. Never for one minute do we forget just how lethal this guy is, even in the midst of the yuks. Hes a ghastly sight, but what led The Boogieman from this episode giving a generation of children nightmares is how well he tapped into their primal fears. Moloch the Corruptor? Phoebe-Jane Boyd. Young Millicent encounters her doppelganger at a bus depot, and fails to convince sceptic Paul of the fact. Okay, look, I know what youre thinking. When the Tenth Doctor eventually comes face-to-face with The Beast itself however, the terror comes from the sheer scale of the CGI creation. People far more erudite and knowledgeable than me have tried to explain just what it is that makes Davros, creator of the Daleks, one of the most terrifying villains in popular fiction.
Enraged by the attack, The Devil lashes out and disintegrates the assailant without hesitation. Andrew Blair. A personification of the evil that men do? Its not so much the Crack Foxs sordid backstory, syringe fingers, or malodorous scent that made him terrifying, but his habit of muttering threats under his voice the moment Vinces glam rock back was turned. Lights emotionless reaction to his fathers death and pleasure at manipulating the women in his life are enough to chill anyone to the bone. When Lee gouges out poor Wilsons eye with a spoon, without once losing his patronising, cool vocal tone, youll undoubtedly spend the rest of the series fearing what hes capable of. This anime character based on the manga by Tsugumi Ohba begins the series as a mild-mannered high school student achieving top-class grades and on course for a career in law enforcement. The Sopranos hitman Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri (Tony Sirico) is as quick with a quip as he is with a pistol. J.K. Simmons may have won an Oscar for his performance as a merciless music teacher, but his earlier run as the sadistic convict was perhaps the more intense performance. Its a spooky idea, that your exact double could be out there somewhere needing to eliminate you to ensure their own survival, and one handled to perfection in this chilling episode. A figure of authority as much as he is a servant of it, Justin is a Methodist preacher whose use of words and jet black charisma capture the all-too-willing members of his expanding congregation in deadly rapture as the sinister minister pursues his evil duty. He went on to eat his own mother (his abuser fun times! In this episode, its the little touches that freaked me out, like the Hokey Pokey music that played in the background or the eerie reflections that directed people to their own death. Lets just say we can see why they quickly became TNGs most compelling foes. Any one of those things would make a race of villains scary. Scorsese, like Nicholson, has always been a master when it comes to balancing comedy and violence. Thats if they dontscarethe crap out of you in a blink of an eye first. The first, Jack McColl, was a drunkard on a quest for vengeance who managed to shoot Wild Bill Hickok during a game of poker horrible in his own way, for sure, but not especially terrifying. One of the best has to be Queen Admira from The Hugga Bunch Movie. When he came back into the show for season two, Jerome was given center stage and allowed to really let loose. By the final episode, Light Yagami is the worlds most notorious terrorist, responsible for international mass-murder and coercing governments all over the world to support him in his mission to ruthlessly rid the world of all criminals, at any cost. Those Polaroids shudder Stefan Mohamed.
Big knives arent terribly scary, but someone with a scalpel is terrifying, and when that person is the perfect height to cut off a toe or slash an Achilles tendon, its even scarier.
Utopias murderous Lee on the other hand, achieves the same level of fright using nothing but marvellous acting from Paul Ready, sizzling dialogue and a spoon. More fool him. Played by expert mime artists, gliding along a few feet above the ground in immaculate suits paired with exquisite monster make-up giving them terrifying teeth and clawed hands, The Gentlemens appearance and movements are terrifying enough in themselves.
McShane really commits, malice radiating off him so strongly you can almost see it, and because American Horror Story delights in extremes, there really was no telling what hed do to his fellow inmates. The 1980s were the glory days of evil queens in kids movies.
Fish-men in tutus, jazz fusion guitarists with doors in their hair, shamans and talking apes peopled the Booshs universe. The makers of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon milked this idea for all its worth in The Boogieman Cometh episode, where the Ghostbusters are tasked with stopping the Boogieman feeding on the fear of a young brother and sister. The most memorable gangster movies (and certain gangster television shows) often benefit from breaking up some of their understandably bleak murder montages with tactical pepperings of character-based comedy. Surface-level, he and his socially awkward n nerdy Trio members Andrew and Jonathan would fit into my group of friends easily, they look so everyday, regular and innocuous, but they represent a real-world danger thats beyond Sunnydale.