The thing to remember about this list is that this is NOT about the scariest performances, that’s for another list.
Also to make this a little more interesting, this is just for human characters since if not this would have to mostly go to otherworldly creatures or devils and the like. Again, if you want that then maybe that can be a later list. In addition, I’m keeping characters based off of real people out of the list as again they’d take up most of the list and I’d rather not have this article basically be Hitler’s inner circle. Lastly. even though this is a Halloween article I’m going to try and not restrict myself to just Horror films for these characters since as we all know evil comes in all sorts of places and as with all of my lists I like to pick different stuff since a.) it’s just how my brain works and b.) I think its more interesting not going with the obvious stuff. *SPOILER Warning some of these entries will require me to discuss the film’s plots and twists to explain their appearance on the list.*
5.) Joker (“Batman”)
One of those where I had to add because everyone would certainly be asking why not if I didn’t. What is there to say about Batman’s arch nemesis? Well first I’ll start off with his creation, which is weird when you think about it. Bob Kane said he based the original drawing off of Conrad Veidt in “The Man Who Laughs” and while many of Kane’s claims are seen as dubious now it’s obvious that film is the inspiration. However, if you’ve actually seen the movie it’s a little weird that they’d pick him as the look of this villain. The whole point of “The Man Who Laughs” is not judging people who look different and to see them for who they are on the inside. It’d be like if years from now one of the most famous villains was someone who looked very similar to Edward Scissorhands. Just something weird I always noticed. About the character himself, there are so many different versions to pick from. Most agree Mark Hamill from “Batman TAS” is the definitive version.
However, if we’re going by my personal favorite it would still have to be Jack Nicholson from “Batman” (1989). Some claim it’s just Jack in make-up and to a certain degree I agree, but I find it hard to hold it against him as his persona as an actor is just similar to the Joker so he is a perfect fit for the role. That’s good casting there. However, more specifically I always liked the idea of Nicholson’s version (as paraphrased by Alex Ross) as a nasty human being who’s always been a nasty person who didn’t so much as go insane as something happened to him that allowed him to open up his nastiness to a new and creative level. I don’t like the idea of Joker having a tragic backstory, I feel he and Batman should be polar opposites. And for those who say Nicholson’s Joker isn’t evil enough I don’t know what more they want. He burns one guy’s face off just to make a point before killing the rest of the mob bosses just because. But not only that. After he burns the gangster’s skin off he talks to the smoldering corpse as if he’s hearing voices. Maybe he is maybe he isn’t, maybe he doesn’t even know. Then he follows this up by laughing in its face. To me that’s the Joker at his nastiness.
4.) John Doe (“Se7en”)
People may be wondering why John Doe and not Hannibal Lecter? Hannibal is certainly evil although I think what puts someone like John Doe over the edge is that if Lecter takes a liking to you then you can be safe; not so much with Mr Doe. He is a man on a mission and everyone else are just pawns in his ultimate design. Despite all that we as the audience never see him doing any of his deeds. We see the aftermath and oh boy do we see the after math and we never doubt that this is an ultimate grand plan here. This is something that could have worked against the film as like Morgan Freeman says, “If we catch John Doe and he turns out to be the devil, I mean if he’s Satan himself, that might live up to our expectations, but he’s not the Devil. He’s just a man.” The amount of planning and patience that would be required for any one of these murders is insane. How could he measure up to what we’ve been imagining throughout the majority of the film? However, when Kevin Spacey walks into the police station covered in blood it is chilling. And later while they’re driving with him in the cop car and try talking to him to figure out more, he talks about his plans and it doesn’t disappoint.
Even though we never quite learn all of his past or motivations it is enough to know they’re trapped in this very small space with something almost inhuman, like he’s something else that just happens to be wearing human skin. The way he explains he begins to lose his cool when the cops suggest the victims were innocents and in sort of a scary way he explains that world view. “Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that’s the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it’s common, it’s trivial.” It almost makes you question where you stand.
3.) The Heartless Woman (“The Lobster”)
“The Lobster” has one of the most interesting premises for a movie in a long time and I feel in order to fully explain the Heartless Woman I need to go over the storyline. In the near future the world has decided that companionship is most important and those who cannot find a mate by a certain time they must go to a retreat to find one. If they get to the end of their time then they are changed into an animal of their choosing for the rest of their lives. Now as you can imagine there are plenty of people who try to escape from this. So to help them stop the escapees, the retreat turns this into a game with the ones who don’t try to escape. They can chase and shoot the escapees with darts so they can be recaptured. By doing this you can earn days at the retreat to give yourself more time to find a mate. The Heartless Woman (isn’t that great name for a character?) is a woman at the retreat who is so icy and off putting to everyone she would even make Mr. Freeze ask for someone to turn up the heat. Under normal circumstances, despite being an attractive woman she would have been turned into an animal a long time ago. However, she is incredibly talented at darting escapees so she has accrued plenty of time.
Our main character (Colin Farrell) is running out of days and decides he can pretend to love her and get her to marry him by pretending to be just as heartless as her. For instance when a lonely woman attempts suicide by throwing herself out the window, but sadly does not die and instead lies on the ground crying in pain he has to pretend his only concern is the sound of her screams being annoying. The Heartless Woman falls for this and they agree to marry, but begins to suspect he’s pretending. Colin Farrell’s character at this point in the film as had his brother who was turned into a dog years ago along with him. To prove he’s pretending she wakes him one morning and tells him she beat the dog to death because he was making noise and she enjoyed making it suffer. He going into the bathroom and finds that she was being COMPLETELY honest. Understandably he breaks down and believe it or not the Heartless Woman is one who’s upset that he’s been lying about having… emotions. The fact this woman would kill a dog just to prove a point because how dare he have empathy. I won’t spoil what happens after this point in the film, but I will say it is satisfying. The funny thing is she isn’t even the main villain of the story, but no one who comes after her in the film has anything on the Heartless Woman.
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2.) Langiva (“Black Death”)
“Black Death” came out around the same time as Nic Cage’s “Season of the Witch” and actually looked like the cheap knock off. Well “Season of the Witch” may have had the bigger budget, more A-list actors (at the time) and a larger marketing campaign, but it turned out “Black Death” had the actual quality. The story is that during the black plague in England the church wants to send a group of knights (led by Sean Bean) to investigate a town that has been said to have been unaffected by the plague. A young monk (a young Eddie Redmayne) volunteers to lead them to the town, but actually has no idea how to get there. The real reason is because he has a woman that he loves and wants to meet up with her to leave the church. Unfortunately she’s not at the rendezvous but they do eventually find the town and like the story goes the plague has not found its way there and all the villagers seem happy and accommodating, just a little too much so.
Spoiler Warning if this sounds interesting to you and you want to watch it, I highly recommend the film.
It turns out the leader Langiva plans to torture these men slowly. She’s managed to convince the town that she has magic powers to protect them. It turns out she’s just an evil, clever woman with an axe to grind against organized religion and uses everyone’s beliefs against them. Now I don’t want to get into a religious argument, but I do feel one’s faith is a very personal thing as long as you’re not forcing it on someone it’s completely okay, so using that to control/trick someone is something I don’t suffer lightly which is exactly what this woman does. Now the way the church and many people acted during this time is indeed a black mark on humanity. But a thing to remember with this time period is that many people really did believe what they were doing was right and had a limited understanding of how the world actually worked. That doesn’t make what some did okay but remember Langiva knows the score, knows she’s manipulating people, and has resolved to become what she claims to be fighting against. I feel the greatest evil one can do in this world is not what they actually end up doing but the hate they leave in the world and what they inspire in others. And thanks to this woman Eddie Redmayne becomes the evil she claims to be trying to expose, which he wouldn’t have become if she hadn’t entered his life.
1.) Noah Cross (“Chinatown”)
“Chinatown” is a fantastic movie, like “The Godfather” level you need to see this classic. You may not like it, but it is a really quality made movie. It’s also one of those that may take a few viewings to fully appreciate. It has a complex mystery and plot. If you’re not actively paying attention, the film will not hold your hand. Which is fascinating since apparently the original script was even harder to follow. Roman Polanski helped give it a more coherent structure and I believe it as when they did the sequel, “The Two Jakes,” the only main creative force missing was Polanski and the main issue with the film is that it’s not as easy to follow as “Chinatown.” So again go watch the actual film if you haven’t because we’re about to go over it.
It starts of with a Private Eye (Jake Gittes) being hired by a woman (Mrs. Mulwray) to spy on her husband. He does and it gets into the papers then the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) shows up to tell him they will be suing him. Realizing he’s been set up, he goes to talk with Mr. Mulwray who turns out has been murdered. Eventually he finds out he was killed by Noah Cross, Mrs. Mulwray’s father, for discovering his plan to steal and redirect the water (based on real events). He’s already considered the richest and most powerful man in L.A. but wants even more money and power – he wants the future.
But that’s not the extent of his evilness, he’s also raped and impregnated his daughter. John Huston makes his guy into just the slimiest, nastiest human being imaginable. For someone who grew up with this guy as the voice of Gandalf, it’s quite unsettling to see him in here. One fascinating thing about him is, how much like John Doe, we actually NEVER see him doing any of his evil deeds in the film. We hear what he has done or intends to do and we see the scars left on his victims and it is chilling what we don’t need to see and how you never miss it. By that I mean you don’t feel like, “oh he doesn’t seem so bad,” because we don’t actually see his actions. Not that I’d want to see the raping even if that wasn’t the case. Also consider this at the end of the movie, HE WINS. Our hero fails, Faye Dunaway is dead and the daughter/sister is taken in Cross’s custody and we can imagine what happens to her after that. Given what this man has already done, I’d prefer not to think about it. It’s not like other stories where the bad guy wins in the end and it’s luck going his way or the hero especially messes. It more feels like the heroes never even stood a chance against him. This guy was going to win from the beginning and nothing could be done to stop it.