10) King Edward the Longshanks
Patrick McGoohan, Braveheart
This guy is the epitome of not cool. The real King Edward I was ruthless. In the movie, he's not only ruthless, but sadistic and more importantly, he's a terrible father. He hates everybody. And he's not exactly well liked himself. He was trying to crush freedom and impose tyranny, which, as Americans, kind of pisses us off.
9) The Shark
Bruce, Jaws
Pure killing machine. All it does is eat people and swim. The only thing that knocks it down to number nine is that it's not particularly malicious. It's just surviving. And it looks fake. It looked fake in 1975 and it still looks fake. But even a fake looking shark was able to drive beach attendance down for years to come after the release of Jaws. And no matter how fake the shark looked, it terrified people of the open water by the theaterfull. You just can't argue with results.
8) Cruella De Vil
voice of Betty Lou Gerson, 101 Dalmatians
A Disney villain was destined to appear on this list, and few Disney villains can compete with Cruella. For starters, her name includes the words "cruel" and "devil" in it. And then there's her dastardly plan: to make fur coats out of adorable dalmatian puppies. The logic of using puppies is all the more disturbing since you'd probably be able to create more coats out of fully grown dogs. Bigger dogs = more fur = more coats? Or maybe we're just crazy. But the thing that cements her as a top villain is the song. There is an entire song about how evil this character is even before she has any screen time. I can't think of another song that is dedicated to revealing the evil nature of a movie character, and for a list of villains, that's something that makes Cruella stand out.
7) Adolf Hitler
Martin Wuttke, Inglourious Basterds
To be honest, this one is here more for what the actual person was involved with rather than the movie character. But as far as we're concerned, no compilation of villains is complete without Hitler; thus, his position on this list.
6) HAL 9000
voice of Douglas Rain, 2001: A Space Odyssey
The cold, high voice was so calm that it had to have evil intentions. Whatever argument you want to make about HAL's malfunction not warranting the evil label, you're wrong. This computer was possessed by an evil force. Our proof: only Bowman and Poole were discussing shutting HAL off, so why the hell did he kill the other three crew members in hibernation? No excuse for that. Programmed evil. And the Daisy song was really creepy. The weirdest thing about this character is that he was perhaps more humanly emotional than his human counterparts.
5) Pazuzu
Linda Blair voiced by Mercedes McCambridge, The Exorcist
For this guy, I’m going to start you off with an image. Imagine the mass murderer who skins his victims alive, and devours them while they are screaming, drinks their blood, all the fun stuff. Now multiply the bad in this maniac by about 100 times and that’s Pazuzu. Pazuzu is an African demon who first appeared in The Exorcist and appeared in the sequels and prequel as well. Released by the elder priest Lankester Merrin, this thing is the last person/demon/thing you want to see coming at you. WHY? Because you can’t see him coming. He is a supernatural force that wants one thing, the sound of you screaming and dying. Many people develop into the monsters that terrorize others, but Pazuzu was created to be one thing: a curse upon mankind. He was imprisoned in a tomb until released, and he killed the entire village that was situated around the tomb. I do not really know what else to say then, this thing is just bad. The Exorcist was originally a book, and Pazuzu did some stuff so bad that they couldn’t put it in the movie. The book scared me more than the movie! It was that bad. So in closing, this thing/spirit is bad, mkay?
4) Norman Bates
Anthony Perkins, Psycho
"A boy's best friend is his mother." Never has such a memorable quote been so untrue. I don't know a single male on the face of the planet that would verify that statement. We all love our mothers, but best friend is a stretch of unimaginable proportions. But that isn't why Norman Bates is so high on this list. He's here because (SPOILER ALERT) he's freaking crazy as a penguin in the Sahara. And not just crazy, but violently crazy. (SERIOUSLY, SPOILER ALERT, DON'T READ ON IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW YET) He stabs people wearing his mother's clothes. And despite only witnessing one incident in the film, I think it's safe to assume that it has happened many times before.
3) Darth Vader
David Prowse voiced by James Earl Jones, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back
He is perhaps the most iconic villain on this or any list of movie characters. The breathing. The suit. The voice. The quotes. The theme song. Nearly everybody is familiar with Darth Vader in some way. The big knock on Vader is that he does turn out to be kind of a softy in Return of the Jedi. But for the first two films, he embodies pure evil to the point of not being human anymore. First, he kills the hero's mentor, one of the best wise old dudes in movie history. After that, he provides the ultimate example of tough parenting by cutting off his son's hand. And for that, he ranks near the top of any villains list.
2) The Joker
Jack Nicholson in Batman and/or Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight
Here comes the interactive portion of the list. No consensus will ever be reached about which iconic portrayal of the Joker is the best. New wave kids tend to favor Ledger's performance for the gritty realism and disturbed manner while classic lovers will tend to lean toward the Nicholson performance because of the off the wall manic psychosis and how it resembles the comic book more faithfully. Since most people tend to absolutely love one or the other, we have justified his place on this list, provided that you pick your favorite performance as the final winner for yourself. Because the one thing we can all agree on is that The Joker (whether he is played Nicholson or Ledger) belongs in this spot.
1) Dr. Hannibal Lecter
Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs
There was never any doubt in our minds. This character is nearly a perfect villain. There is no reason we should sympathize with him, but throughout the course of the movie, we all begin to root for Hannibal Lecter. The cadence of his speech, the accent, his tone, everything is just so unsettling and yet you can't look away. He's a cannibalistic serial killer; he rips very personal information from the hero in a despicable way. And yet, he defends her honor and helps her catch a disturbing serial killer. Ultimately, it comes down to the stare. You know the one I mean. The one where he is staring straight into your soul through the screen and the camera and into your very being. It's difficult to hold your gaze when watching it. You really feel the unrelenting stare pierce you and you can't help but feel it. Brad walked by a TV once and had a mini freak-out for a split second because that shot was on the screen. Proof that Lecter belongs at number one on any list of the greatest movie villains.
No comments:
Post a Comment