But that's another entry entirely! In the meantime, I give you my Top 5 Scariest Male Villains (From Live Action Films)
5. Henry Kane (Julian Beck) - Poltergeist II
You know what's scarier than friendly old men who want to dance with your kid? Friendly old men who want to dance with your kid, but also want to come inside and talk to you about Jesus. (That might not wash with some religious people, but seriously -- read your own scripture and beware false prophets. You don't trust a stranger twice as much just because they throw around Biblical references; Jim Jones could quote the Bible, too, and he was a psycho.) But see, there's that? And then there's the next level. That's this guy:
The first Poltergeist is pretty damn scary, and the looming boogeyman in that movie that makes all the loud THUMPS upstairs when he stomps around instead of the light pitterypattery footsteps all the other ghosts do is called "The Beast" in that film, shown briefly as some weird skeleton dog muppet thing. The Beast stole the youngest of the Freeling family, Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke), and used her to pacify the other spirits in its dimension. In the sequel, the Beast gets a name, and is portrayed this time by a person whose muppethood is debatable at best. The Beast is now Henry Kane, whose actor, bless his heart, could have played the book version of the Phantom of the Opera -- meaning a walking, living skeleton with a layer of skin stretched on over the bones (as opposed to the chubby, tonedeaf and sunburned douche that Gerard Butler played). He's an ancient, ghostly priest, set on bringing Carol Anne back with him. But Kane isn't going to just grab Carol Anne and run, no.
He's something a good deal more malevolent than Herbert the pedophile, though I don't doubt they're probably related. He's the devil outside your door, and his power can only really be exerted to its full potential if you're stupid enough to trust him and let him lead you astray.
He'll also stand on your doorstep and try to talk you into letting him inside so he can give you some Watchtower pamphlets. But no, seriously. In this scene he comes along, singing a gentle, droning, mournful melody, and he brings the rain with him. He comes up on the porch and, alone with Stephen Freeling (Craig T. Nelson), attempts to convince him to grant him entry into the house. He maintains a relatively sweet demeanor for most of it (okay fine, he's creepy from the start even when he's friendly, but a LOT of old people are like this without being the Devil incarnate), but the more ground he loses, the less human he looks, and by the time his temper goes, there's no doubting that this frail old man is something very, very dangerous. And immediately, the anger is gone, and as he retreats, singing, taking the rain with him, Stephen can only think that he has just brushed with something he can't quite comprehend, something ominous, something that definitely wasn't just an old man prostheletizing.
This is the only real horror movie character I included in this list, but he stands out as one, and that's why he's my #5.
4. Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) - 3:10 to Yuma
That's right. She watches westerns. This character was actually introduced to me through an RPG I play online, so my first impressions of him were from little pictures and writing. What I initially expected was a ginger version of Adam Baldwin -- with a low gravelly voice. Bit bigger, fit for work, tough guy sort of thing. Y'know. Typical cowboy bad guy stuff.
And then I watched the movie, solely to see what this guy's deal was and what the fuss was about. Now, I read the name Ben Foster but for whatever reason didn't think of Freaks and Geeks or the third X-men movie (which...I didn't finish, because it wasn't even enjoyably stupid). So I was a little surprised when Charlie Prince, the second in command to known criminal and badass Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), is kinda teenytiny for a bad guy. He has the voice of a 12 year old boy. He's smaller than just about everyone on the set. I think the first word I used to describe him when he started talking was that he was "scampy". My skepticism rose.
Oh right. Then people started dying. Which is par for the course in Westerns, I guess. But I kinda liked the turn. You have a gang leader arrested, on his way to the transport that will take him to prison and his death, and his mad dog crew are trailing along behind to rescue him -- caring not who they slaughter along the way. This crew is led by Charlie Prince, the youngest, but arguably the most capable and the most insane of the lot of them -- who is not just loyal to Ben Wade, but is downright obsessed with him. I'm not saying he's gay for the guy, however --
-- when the ad campaign centers largely on showing off your butt, crazier things could be suggested about you.
Charlie's a cutthroat's cutthroat, and the fact that he's noticably young and that much more deadly and insane is quite suggestive of the road that Ben Wade leads down, for boys on the frontier with fictionalized, idealistic dreams of the outlaw way of life. Charlie Prince isn't just a monster; he's a monster that the main antagonist created, and that's what makes him my #4 choice.
3. Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes) - Schindler's List
Okay, if we want to talk about evil, there are few places that you can start that will have as much to throw into the "evil" column as a Nazi Commandant, and Ralph Fiennes reportedly filled the shoes of one so well that one of the surviving Schindler Jews burst into tears upon seeing him in costume. I'm not going to go into large detail about the historical figure -- this is purely the movie portrayal. What makes the role so compelling is a fine mixture of that sociopathic deadness to human suffering that makes so many villains scary and the strange human attachments that Amon Göth forms in this film, between Oscar Schindler (Liam Neeson -- I told you he's the polar opposite of all things evil) and more importantly, his Jewish servant, Helen Hirsch (Embeth Davitz). These strange moments of comaradery, at times even affection or distant admiration are juxtaposed with constant displays of just how barbaric he is. Images of Fiennes' character, half dressed and casually shooting Jews from the balcony of his villa have become so well known that they've even begun to appear parodied in things like Family Guy. There's a message behind it -- you're meant to think that all nazis in his position of power were similarly brutal, and the behaviors of lesser nazi soldiers continually confirms this, but some controversy came out about the movie simply because this Amon Göth, unlike a lot of other nazis, was justifiably insane, and they didn't want that to be taken in an apologist context.
He's also the Dark Lord Voldemort, but that's neither here nor there.
There's this decidedly edgy moment where Göth, drunk, finds Helen in the wine cellar, "hiding from him", as he says it. She's partially dressed because she has been washing, and the commandant begins conversing with her, quite amiably, and while she stands there in shock, too afraid to speak, he continues on as though she, or perhaps someone else no one can hear, is answering him. Out loud he entertains thoughts of being wither sexually, perhaps romantically, and in a sudden shift, accuses her of nearly "talking him into it" before beating the everloving Hell out of her. Helen is in a terrible situation -- he will either continue to do this dance, or he will eventually rape her, and then in rage probably kill her afterward. Either way, though, this is clearly a man who is not entirely there. The end of the film kind of confirms this when it pauses briefly to point out that he was executed after being removed from a psychiatric hospital.
You thought I was joking about Family Guy, didn't you? (Added because I could find no clips featuring Fiennes that weren't photo collages.) Anyway, not just a Nazi, but a completely crazy Nazi. ...And Voldemort. But that has no bearing on my placing him at #3 on my list.
2. Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) - Night of the Hunter
Not technically a horror movie, but Harry Powell is the closest you can get to a human boogey man. A criminal with the words 'love' and 'hate' tattooed on the knuckles of each hand, Harry Powell has an MO for endearing himself to hot women, marrying them, never having sex with them due to crazy religious fanaticism, and then killing them. But at the start of the film, he passes himself off as a holy man, eventually getting himself into the good graces of a woman, Willa, the widow of a prisoner with whom he shared a cell -- a prisoner who spoke of hiding a large sum of money. His seeming good nature and his natural rapport with her youngest child, Pearl, leads Willa to entering into marriage with him -- he is a good man, seemingly, who will provide security. Once the ceremony is over, however, he changes behind closed doors, and he reviles her for wishing to lie with her new husband. All that attracts him, he refuses, and he therefore openly spurns her affections.
When he learns she does not know of the location of her former husband's hidden funds, he chooses to dispatch her, suspecting rightly that the children, John and Pearl, are better informed. Left in his sole care, with no one willing to believe he would harm them, the children are forced to flee when Powell's true nature is revealed. They steal away in a small boat in the dead of night, but they are pursued sleeplessly by the shadow of a man ever on the horizon, who even on the longer path seems always to be one step behind them, singing a soft hymn to himself as he follows.
Come to think of it, he and Henry Kane would probably get along. The above clip occurs when the children are taken in by the rough but charitable Rachel Cooper, an old woman who looks after children without homes or parents. She is immediately suspicious of Powell when he comes looking for the children, doubly so when it is revealed that one of her older adoptees, the naive Ruby, has become drawn to Powell as well. Rachel keeps him at bay through the night with a shotgun, returning his lulling hymns with her own and fiercely guarding her charges.
Powell is another one of those devils you leave out of doors, but unlike Henry Kane, most of the adults in Night of the Hunter do not heed the warning signs, and what's scary about him is that the children are helpless and must simply watch it happen. Children don't need to be scared of the boogeyman if their mother can come chase him away, but when the mother invites him in, that's a whole different story, and that's earns Harry Powell the #2 spot on my list.
1. Captain Vidal (Sergi López i Ayats) - Pan's Labyrinth/El Labertino Del Fauno
Fascism is scary, and yes, this guy beat out the Nazi. Why? I don't even need to really spend much time on the political and historical stuff behind this. I'm not saying that Spanish Fascists were worse than Nazis but they didn't always turn out to be the best of people, either. Fascism survived in Spain until the 70s or 80s, but this guy was a Fascist back when the country was run by a guy that even Hitler thought was a heinous bitch. Don't let that inform you of the character too much, though. While much of the horrific events in this movie -- the moments that will make you cover your eyes or look away from the screen that have nothing to do with the creepy monster with the skinny legs --
-- ew *covers eyes* moving on... *clears throat* While many of the more disturbing events in this movie are reportedly based upon eyewitness accounts of soldiers brutalizing civilians and rebels alike, Captain Vidal is all at once a human summation of the utter coldness and psychosis you could find at the core of Fascism, but as a man and a character, he was, like Amon Göth, completely off his rocker. Not only that, but he was a good deal more hands on in his approach to violence. Every death and severe injury he causes is done so up close and personal, with wicked effectiveness, and Del Toro (the director) was especially brilliant in not oversaturating his film with violent moments. They are like their perpetrator's mood swings, each so brief, sudden, and grisly that you never quite have the time to turn numb to it. It's always shocking, always out of nowhere, and always rendered in gory detail, which is fitting for a pscyhopathic character.
Just so you can go to sleep tonight, I will not be posting the wine bottle scene. Instead, here's one of only two moments in the movie where he gets some comeuppance:
Sorry, no subtitles. Needless to say -- Vidal says something creepy. She knifes him and says something awesome. Shouting happens. And then stitching.
What makes him especially frightening is that he's not only violent, but he's nearly unstoppable, shaking off multiple stab wounds and having half his face done up Joker style doesn't even slow him down. He just shoves a needle in his cheek, sews himself shut, and carries on terrorizing. That's not a man, people. That's a Terminator. And he's going to get you.
Sweet dreams, chilluns.
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