Here’s the inspiration on this list: There’s an American film critic called Chase Whale. I wasn’t familiar with him, so don’t take this as a recommendation of any kind and his website seems to have largely shut down in the last year and a half. Anyhow, he called Lola aka Princess from The Loved Ones one of the great horror movie villains of all time.

My first reaction was, really? That one? Then I started to think about this. I’m not really into supernatural villains like Jason or Freddy. Is Godzilla really an interesting character? While there are exceptions to this, I’m generally more interested in the fucked up regular people in horror movies doing horrible things.

Turns out that many of my favorite horror movies don’t even have that strong villains and the interesting part is something completely different, but here we are. In a way that is an interesting discovery.

Anyhow, here’s my favorite horror movie villains. In some cases (two, to be exact) I’ve put more than one people together, because they wouldn’t work alone. The list is in no particular order except that I put the one I mentioned first

Yes, Lola from The Loved Ones

I’m not going to keep you in suspense regarding this one. Lola is a great villain.

In The Loved Ones, Lola asks Brent out to the prom, but Brent says no, because he has already planned on taking his girlfriend. Lola does not take this well, so she kidnaps Brent, with the help of her father, to their own private party. You might also note that the title is plural.

She socially awkward, but also very manipulative with her father, whom she keeps in her thrall. You wouldn’t exactly think of her as a serial killer, although she isn’t technically one. It is just hard to make a difference between what she is doing and serial killing.

Chucky from Child’s Play franchise

Do I need to explain Chucky? Well, why not. Chucky is a serial killer who is about to be taken in, so he uses Voodoo magic to put his soul into a doll which he then uses to continue his killing spree through six sequels, three seasons of a TV series and a remake. The creator, Don Mancini, has stated that he has multiple plans to still continue the series and while most series that started in the 80s have either died out or should have died out, this series has actually become stronger.

Our first supernatural villain. Definitely my favorite and the only on this list that is not a one-off. The dichotomy between a weird looking, but basically friendly doll and the soul of a serial killer in it is just fun. He is so crude, cruel and wantonly violent despite the diminutive body. Also, while many of the movies are kind of boring (some are actually good), the TV series is just so out there that it’s just great.

The Armitage Family from Get Out

I put the whole family unit here, because that’s the way they work the best, even though some might be more interesting than others. They did find dependable character actors for each role, though, so they did think it is important to find the right people for each of them.

Again, I like the dichotomy here. It’s a liberal family that makes it clear that they like black people, while at the same time they don’t seem to believe that black people are actual human beings with actual rights. To them, they are just nice looking bodies to be used as they please.

Top Dollar (with a shout-out to T-Bird) from The Crow

Eric Draven returns from the dead to avenge the murder of his girlfriend one year before. He hunts down the lowlives that did it, but this causes him to be noticed by the local crimeboss, Top Dollar, who doesn’t appreciate his empire being brought down.

This is an interesting setup, as our supernatural entity is actually the hero. Top Dollar is played by the great Michael Wincott, who can do these roles way too believably. He can do other things as well (you might know him from Nope as the cinematographer with the non-electric camera), but he is just very, very good in these villain roles.

Also, David Patrick Kelly as T-Bird is just great as well. He can do the lowlife scum perfectly.

Darcy from Green Room

A small time punk band gets a gig at the last moment from a bar in the middle of nowhere. Turns out that the bar is also the headquarters for local Nazi-organization. When they accidentally witness a murder, the band needs to find their way out of the bar against all odds.

Darcy, played by Patrick Stewart of all people, is the boss of the organization. And he is fed up with his incompetent underlings. He doesn’t even bother hiding it. I mean, this is a very different role for Captain Picard or Professor X, but he pulls it off nicely.

Chef Slowik from The Menu

Margot is invited by Tyler to attend a very exclusive dinner in a restaurant on an island. However, Chef Slowik has very different plans for the event. This is kind of an interesting companion piece to Pig. Maybe watch that first.

Chef Slowik, played by Ralph Fiennes, is about to take all of his frustrations out on his guests. He has his cult of a kitchen staff to help him. And it is a cult. We get glimpses of the sleeping quarters for example and it is setup like a cult would. While Slowik’s methods might not be the best, I can kind of get behind him. Elites can get stupid just to seem elite. And I’m saying this in a very self-reflective way.

Also, Luigi Mangione.

Sitterson and Hadley and Cabin in the Woods

A very common setup: Group of teenagers go to a cabin, but the cabin is actually a trap set up by the government who need to sacrifice specific kinds of teenagers regularly in order to appease unnamed old gods.

Sitterson and Hadley are just two bureaucrats who are in charge of this project. They have done this many times, so it’s just routine for them. They are just trying to get through it and maybe have a little bit of fun while at it. The best decision around this movie was definitely hiring two of the greatest character actors around, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford (making his second appearance). The interesting part about them is their pure banality, but the actors just elevate this.

Jennifer from Jennifer’s Body

Jennifer attends a gig with her friend, Needy. After a fire breaks out, Jennifer leaves with the band. At this point we don’t know what happened, but she returns to Needy in the night. She is bloodied, but only seems to be interested in eating, including Needy.

So, Jennifer is played by Megan Fox, who was and still is known for the first few Transformers movies. Somehow she caught a lot of the blame despite not having much in the way of power regarding the contents of those movies. This movie makes a much better use of her. She is a decent actor and the role just suits her, even if this movie wasn’t really liked at the time. It has since garnered cult popularity.

Luke from Better Watch Out

Luke is too old for a babysitter, but he still has one, Ashley with whom he has a crush on. As Ashley is going away soon, this is Luke’s last opportunity to seduce Ashley.

Well, his methods are those of someone way too young to romance anyone. So, when they fail, he goes for plan B, which includes multiple murders and is highly convoluted in many ways to say the least. Luke is just a psychotic kid who is enabled by the lack of oversight from his parents, who he has been manipulating seemingly for ages. He is different from your run-of-the-mill child killers in that they tend to be serious as their psychopathy tends to take the fun out of everything outside of the killing itself, which they will do with equal glee. Luke is not that. He really seems to enjoy the whole process.

Jeremiah Sand from Mandy

The titular Mandy is kidnapped and murdered by a cult, which leads Red, Mandy’s partner, to rampage in revenge.

Jeremiah Sand is a cult leader, but there’s a couple of things that make this especially interesting. First, while Sand is obviously charismatic as he has been able to form a cult, we don’t really see that. To us, he is more of a weird figure who has weird insecurities. The reason Many is killed is that she laughed at his music… and dick. The second interesting thing is that Linus Roache, the man behind the character, was actually, previous to the movie, a member of a cult and a high-ranking one. It was called EnlightenNext and it collapsed not that long before Mandy was made after the death of it’s leader.