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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Cutthroat Island (Originally posted to IGN)

I wrote an earlier draft of this as a user review at IGN.com, so the posting can also be viewed in a less polished form here, under the title "A better female pirate than Elizabeth Swann, weighed down by a bad 90s script."

Title: Cutthroat Island
Copyright: 1995 by MGM, DVD distributed by Lionsgate, through Studio Canal
Starring: Geena Davis, Matthew Modine, and Frank Langella
Running Time: 119 minutes
Score: 6/10
Buy?: Buy at Amazon.com for $9.98 or less.

Let's get one thing straight, here: Cutthroat Island is hardly cinema gold. It wasn't a sleeper film. It wasn't even that much of a cult film. The fact of the matter is that Lionsgate tried to make a Pirate movie at a point in time when there was no market for one, and there wouldn't be one until the surprise success of Pirates of the Caribbean in the next decade. Compared to other action/adventure films of the time that were not adult enough to garner an R rating, though, the many flaws this movie had (poor 90s dialogue, inexplicable explosions worthy of a Troma film, and less-than-okay creature effects in places, for instance) were pretty much par for the course for movies of the time -- most of which were better received critically and financially than this movie.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about what's good about the movie. After the success of the PotC franchise, Cutthroat Island received a slight spike in sales when the DVD was released and banished to the bargain bins in Wal-Marts. No one should be surprised by this. When Pirates fans were in the stores, a DVD selling for five bucks with the right kind of plotline for pirate-enthusiasts was just appealing enough to be bought on impulse, which is actually how I found it. (We'll talk about my unhealthy tolerance for the Pirates movies in later entries.)

Base reaction? For a five-dollar DVD, the story actually wasn't that bad, and don't let the summary fool you. But since this movie has only seen sales recently because of the popularity of certain Johnny Depp populated movies, it seems only fair to compare it to Pirates of the Caribbean in places, since this is obviously the audience that will buy the most copies.

The first thing I'll hand to the makers of Cutthroat Island is that historically it's a little easier to place -- maybe not historically accurate, but if you're watching a campy 90s adventure flick, you're out of your mind for looking for accuracy to begin with. You're seeing Port Royale and the Caribbean Isles during the reign of King Charles II -- a time period only briefly glimpsed in the PotC franchise at the start of the first film. (How can you tell in PotC? Their wigs are all brown at the start, and when it flashes forward, they're all gray and white. It's the only nod you get to the time period in all three movies.) But, if you're obsessive enough to try and tie Cutthroat Island to the franchise, (and don't listen to Wikipedia when it says CI is referenced in the first Pirates movie; this is inaccurate) you can just go ahead and lie to yourself, saying that the adventures of Morgan Adams took place when Jack Sparrow was still in diapers. (Okay, maybe not diapers. But he's probably at an age where bugs are more interesting than girls.)

None of the mysticism of the PotC franchise is present in this film, so there'll be no sea monsters or cursed treasures -- in fact superstition in general is severely underplayed here. The story focuses upon Morgan Adams (Geena Davis), the daughter of pirate Captain Black Harry Adams, who appears to have been raised aboard her daddy's ship -- at most times. At the start of the film she's on land somewhere enjoying herself at the mutual expense of some pompous French soldier. Considered a pirate in her own right (with a hefty sum on her head, too, but you wouldn't blame government officials for wanting to bring her in; she apparently causes a lot of property damage wherever she goes), she starts out seemingly a lot more attracted to the "let's get drunk and laid" aspect of being an outlaw and a little less about staying on her father's ship and getting work done.

When her uncle, Dawg Brown (Frank Langella -- surprisingly fit and imposing as a villain in this film), goes seeking parts of a treasure map that each of the other men in their family possess, her father is fatally wounded just as she is called back to the ship to help him. They escape before Dawg can claim Harry's piece of the map, which incidentally is tattooed onto his scalp. Before he dies, he tells Morgan to take the map piece and his ship, and get the treasure before her uncle does. This scene is not overplayed -- Morgan is initially angry and emotional, but Harry talks her down. This is important, and they're pirates. There's no crying in piracy. I was worried that I would be seeing the cliche "father-slaying" scene from Dragonheart all over again, and was pleasantly surprised that the filmmakers didn't lazily decide to make Morgan's entire quest about revenge against her uncle. It's not. It's a race to her grandfather's treasure trove, and she's been given a job to do.

She accepts her task and her father's ship, but only a choice few members of the crew are willing to trust her with leadership (with good reason -- chain of command is being upset, for one, and for another, she has a reputation even among other pirates for racking up damage and being a pain in the ass). Among those willing to trust her are the quartermaster, Blair, the cabin boy, Bowen -- an object of fierce protectiveness among the crew, and Morgan's bodyguard, Glasspoole (played by Stan Shaw -- who you'll be surprised to learn, in spite of racial stereotyping common in some films of the time, is not the "slave" mentioned in the summary on the IGN website and the DVD cover).

Unable to read the Latin passages on their piece of the map, they travel to Port Royale to find someone who can. Enter William Shaw (Matthew Modine), a petty thief with some learning, who has been imprisoned for being, well, a petty thief. And for assuming that he's charming. If this character doesn't annoy you, then you yourself may be annoying. Like all area criminals at this time (including captured pirates), he is to be auctioned off as a slave (and if no one buys him, he hangs) -- which is fairly accurate for the time. We come to learn, as does Morgan (disguised as a shopping noble), that he also reads and speaks Latin, and claims to be a doctor. Unfortunately for Morgan later, the latter is only a claim.

Once he has been absorbed into the main plot, the rest of the film revolves around finding the last piece of the map (and getting it from Morgan's other, less scary uncle), finding the treasure, and eventually the final battle between Morgan's ship and Dawg Brown's, which is by itself pretty impressive.

Here's Where it Fails: The place where this film fails is chiefly the dialogue. As with most adventure films of the time, it's fairly cheesy and unrealistic. I cringe when the characters of Morgan and Shaw are hinted at being "in love" when the two actors clearly read their characters as being physically attracted to one another and little more beyond that. Some of the most tense moments lose their edge because of a horrid one liner or two. Morgan's dialogue, in particular, can be pretty bad, even unrealistic, and you can't tell if it's a fault of the writing or because she quite clearly assumes a different persona depending upon who she is with. Around her men, she's more business like. Around strangers, she's less formal. When she's trying to impress somebody? She's too formal. Failure in writing? Maybe, but at least it makes her look like a legitimately flawed character.

That being said: The action is surprisingly good. Like I said before, there are one or two explosions that defy physics, but that's the only complaint I have. It will not have the same level of random ninja stunts and swashbuckling as PotC did, but this is not a flaw. There is a good deal of brawling to be had, especially in the last 30 minutes of the film, but it's done a tad more realistically than PotC managed, simply because the filmmakers acknowledge that it's hard to depict two full crews, sporting 30+ armed men each, fencing on deck when there simply is no room for that kind of mass swordplay. The fights have a few little flashy stunts here and there, but overall, the weapons are heavy and are handled like they're heavy. (For instance, you don't see anything like Kiera Knightley's karate moves with a solid gold bo staff in hand that should weigh more than she does, as in PotC 1.) The battles on deck are chaotic, one battle bumping into another as the crewmen fight just as much for elbow room as victory.

Here's my main gush: While we're on the subject of choreography, I want to say, here, that this is where Geena Davis as Morgan Adams absolutely shined as a female action hero. Because of the way she fights with men, I would argue that she's a better feminist example of a girl pirate than Kiera Knightley ever was, and a better feminist action hero than any figure you could mention in current films -- superhero films included. Elizabeth Swann, in the course of three movies, became comparably one of the better fighters in the series for no reason, and as a pirate, a lot of unnecessary attention was drawn to the fact that she was a woman. She also never seemed to take a single blow. It makes her a horrible role model and action hero because she doesn't ever overcome adversity; she is just suddenly and inexplicably a million times better than any man or monster that opposes her. Take the most hardcore female action character today, and I guarantee that if she's faced off with a man, she will never take a punch to the face, for instance, and that's a sexist double standard. If the scene requires the fight to be brutal and tear-out, then she will inflict more pain and brutal injury on her opponent than she will ever receive, herself. This is almost a rule. A man can't hit a woman in the face even if they're in a no holds barred fight with each other. A man cannot be seen to do serious physical damage to a woman unless it's meant to instill horror (and is typically reserved for R rated movies), but a woman can beat the stupid out of a man and in as graphic detail as the director desires, and it will never hurt his rating. We see this repeated in Pirates of the Caribbean, in Watchmen, even in episodes of South Park ('Breast Cancer Show Ever' is a notable episode for this). This is not empowering. It's just saying that a woman being violent is more socially acceptable than a man being violent.

Morgan Adams defies these rules. Her fights are not overly flourished or stylized; she'll jump right in and have a good old fashioned scrap with anyone. (I noted though that she goes for the family jewels a lot -- considering she was raised on a shipful of pirates, this shouldn't surprise anyone from a characterization standpoint; she wasn't always a fully grown Geena Davis.) Her weapons are heavy in her hands. She takes numerous on-camera blows, punches to the face, slices, gunshots, and she gets up and keeps fighting -- not as though they don't phase her, but more like she's accustomed to pain and knows how to soldier through it when her life is on the line. You will not see this from a female character in many other action films, save for the best ones. She also never falls into the 'tough heroine' cliche, where you see all her guts and bravery and gusto for most of the film, only to find her helpless and in need of rescuing during the final fight. No one saves Morgan Adams besides Morgan Adams, herself, even in the face of Dawg Brown, of whom she is clearly quite afraid.

In Conclusion: This review has carried on a bit. For a couple hours of fun, five to ten bucks isn't a whole lot to pay. As I said, this movie is legitimately flawed in places, but it never claims to be Oscar-worthy material, either. For the price, and for its better qualities, putting up with the crappy dialogue is well worth it. Don't miss it if you have the spare time. Despite the scoring only being slightly above average (my rating on IGN was higher, but that was based on their scoring and not mine), the DVD fairy highly recommends this film.