Top 5 Scariest Female Villains (from Live Action Movies)

Everybody does top lists, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t, too. There are lots of female villain lists all over the internet, and the top ones went to a few of the characters I’ve placed here, but a lot of them included femme fatale characters that weren’t well written or acted, and only get in based on their sex appeal. So let’s look at the ones that make the list because they’re well written, they’re bad, and let’s face it – they scare the crap out of people. I’ll just do Live Action characters this time, because animated villainesses are a whole different ballgame (and I intend to do a Top 5 Worst later on too). And lookie! Youtube clips! Bear in mind that some of the clips have not work-safe language, at least, so don’t watch if you’re underage or have a boss looking over your shoulder.

So without further ado, I give you the Top 5 Scariest Female Villains (from Live Action Movies):

5. Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Now, this isn’t really a scary movie, but that doesn’t make Nurse Ratched not a scary character. McMurphy, Jack Nicholson’s character, is a prisoner who fakes at being crazy because he thinks that going to an institution will be cushier than hard labor. But then nobody told him that once he’s committed, he’s out when they say he’s out, and not when his sentence is up, and nobody told him about Nurse Ratched, who, as Wikipedia describes, controls her patients and the entire ward with “a combination of subtle humiliation in group therapy, punishment disguised as unpleasant medical treatments and a mind-numbing daily routine.” McMurphy clearly isn’t afraid of what she can do to him, but it becomes too clear as the film goes on that she’s willing to apply pressure on any of the fellow patients that stand up for him or start to identify with his rabble-rousing ways. She’s a sneaky villain, the sort that can tell you to your face that they won’t hurt you, or your family, or your puppy, so long as you do as you’re told.



The woman almost never loses her cool; her absolute control over every aspect of her being and the environment around her is what earns her the #5 spot on my list.

4. Vera-Ellen “Baby” Firefly (Sheri Moon Zombie) – House of 1000 Corpses/The Devil’s Rejects

Okay, let me start this off by saying that I don’t like Rob Zombie movies. I walked out of Halloween, in fact. I think he has an unusual obsession with trailer trash, and his movies make me feel the desperate need to shower. The House of 1000 Corpses movie follows your basic “stupid college students take the wrong back road, break down, and die horribly at the hands of sadistic backwoods savages”, and The Devil’s Rejects follows the remaining members of that said family of savages as they’re chased across the country. I will say that despite my dislike of Rob Zombie movies, Baby Firefly is still pretty scary, moreso than any of her relatives in the movies. Part of it comes from the fact that initially she comes off as a little stupid and trampy, but mostly overly playful. A party girl. Her oddly childish laugh, which seemed eccentric, even cute at the start of the film, quickly turns chilling when you realize what a monster she really is. In fact, the nicer she is, the more likely something grisly is about to occur. The movies are NOT for the faint of heart, which is why I’m only providing a non-character centric trailer in the clips, instead of a clip from the movie, but if you’d like to see Baby being her creepy little self, run a youtube search for “Baby Firefly Run Rabbit Run”, and you should find it pretty quick.



You can hear bits of her voice in there, and see her once or twice. Even though I hate Rob Zombie movies, Baby’s love of torment and her childlike glee earns her the number 4 spot on my list.

3. Violet Veneble (Katharine Hepburn) -- Suddenly, Last Summer

Now, I know a lot of the people that read this blog might not even touch a black and white film if they’re not forced to, but I’m a firm believer that if it’s based on a work by Tennessee Williams, it can and should be watched by anyone, and Suddenly, Last Summer is the scariest thing he ever wrote. Violet Veneble’s son died last summer while in the company of his cousin Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor), under horrific circumstances that threatened to reveal his taste for young boys and his use of his cousin (and previously his mother) as a companion to cover for his appetites. Now, Catherine has been institutionalized, and Violet is seeking the right medical treatment to silence her – by way of lobotomy – and she has the much-needed grant money to tempt Dr. John Cukrowicz into performing the operation, even though Catherine does not appear to be at all insane. The character of Violet Veneble is played to utter creepy perfection by Katharine Hepburn, one of greatest of the greats when it comes to actors and actresses. Not well known for playing villains, her voice as she speaks is smooth, but has a hard, almost metallic interior – you don’t really know where those claws are. Though frail and sickly, she is powerful, and has a way with words that is hypnotic and able to sway almost anyone to her bidding, no matter how inhumane her demands.

The above link shows a speech by Veneble, as she describes her last summer with her son, and also reveals Hepburn’s amazing delivery and Tennessee Williams’ talent for conveying horror with dialogue. It’s a horror that’s more subtle, but you have to remember that productions on stage (what Suddenly, Last Summer was originally written for) relies completely upon the words the actors speak. No film establishes this more perfectly, and no villain uses it quite so well as Violet Veneble, our #3.


2. Ruth Chandler (Blanche Baker) – Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door

A Starz! Original movie based upon the novel of the same name, which was itself based upon a true story. Set in the late 50s, the main character is a boy who lives next door to the home of Ruth Chandler, her sons, and her recently adopted nieces. Ruth Chandler is the cool mom. She lets the neighborhood kids come in and out at all hours, anytime they want. She gives the boys beer (but don’t tell your dad where you got it from), and she’s tough as nails. She also exercises cult leader level control tactics on her children and the neighborhood kids, who think nothing of joining in on the constant abuse she heaps upon her nieces, especially Meg, the eldest, who an hour into the movie goes from being constantly starved (so she won’t get fat – nobody’s gonna marry you if you’re fat), to tied up in the basement for the neighborhood boys to torture, when Ruth isn’t doing it herself. A trailer below (there’s language in it, you are warned):



This woman? Is evil, and her ability to convince the children she raises and who play with them that their behavior is allowable makes this film strikes the same level of disturbing as found in The Lord of the Flies. Made for Cable TV, and at times is difficult to watch. What’s worse? She’s based on a real person, who not only didn’t get the chair for the travesties she led, but got out on parole (after perhaps a decade in prison – by then, her fellow inmates reportedly called her “Mom”) and lived long enough to die an old woman. THAT is scary. But the good news is that the fictional Ruth Chandler, my number 2 choice, doesn’t get away with it alive. For that, we can thank writer Jack Ketchum.

1. Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) – Misery

If this woman doesn’t frighten you, you may very well be Annie Wilkes. This character is proof that even in Stephen King’s deranged universe of horror stories, the scariest monsters are the real people. Something that Annie Wilkes and Ruth Chandler have in common is the disturbingly motherly attitude they has toward the people they control – in this case, the bedridden hostage Paul Sheldon, who is Annie's favorite author. Owing to his choice to kill off her favorite character, Paul is what she calls a “dirty birdie,” and while he’s nursed back to health with an induced addiction to pain killers and the constant threat of bodily harm, he’s going to pay for that mistake by writing that character back to life. And he’s going to do it Annie’s way, because his life depends upon it. But it’s not her stalkerish obsession with him that makes her creepy. It’s not even the strange baby talk she uses in replacement of curse words. It’s not even the violence itself – though that is disturbing, in how it is very pointed, localized, and meant to psychologically scar just as much as physically injure. It’s Annie’s ability to, in true sadistic fashion, not only inflict these abuses on Paul but also teach him to respond as though she had every right to do so, like a parent correcting a child. That’s the weapon of not just your typical psychopaths, but also of the most lasting abusers. Now, the book is much more detailed about this, and is therefore twice as scary, but you still get it in the film as well, and Kathy Bates was quite deserving of her Oscar for this portrayal.



Women can be terrifying. And Annie Wilkes is their Queen. My first experience with this movie was an unusual one, because I never saw a trailer or was told what it was about. So I thought Annie was a really nice, kind of corny lady until she read Paul Sheldon’s latest book. Show it to somebody who’s never heard of it before. Watch them squirm.

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