Scariest Screen Villains

No light romantic comedy lead opposite Meg Ryan Hollywood next casts Javier Bardem in will ever come close to erasing his image of Anton that forever terrorizes our souls. No villain better qualifies for my List criteria than his Chigurh. He is so human, yet so possesses that horrible brain deficiency scientists are just now discovering in "evil" death row murderers that forbids them the moral objectivity to understand that their unspeakable crimes are wrong. No Country was one of the few Cormac McCarthy novels I hadn't read, and now Bardem's screen character will forever mean one less sale for McCarthy.

Antons are walking each of our streets right now as we interact here, looking and, for the most part, acting just like us, totally able to function in society while hiding their heinous intentions. Kudos to Bardem's director as well, for spending so many of the precious movie minutes sharing Anton's minutiae activities that we all share (Hollywood never wastes time on such useless scenes). We all know that the more human a villain is, the more scary she/he is. The human creatures have that unusual penchant not shared by the solar system's other residents, for putting themselves in the place of others, knowing that with just a few misfiring synapses, we could all be Chigurh. None of this humanizing would work though, without those terrifying moments where Bardem silently, through his subtle facial expressions and body language alone, allow you inside that tormented and malfunctioning part of his brain. Bardem's exceptional acting in a role handcuffed with next to no talking scenes puts him way out front of the other nine on my list.

In the same vein as Anton, Leland is the second best villain that, but for a few brain malfunctions, looks and acts like us. Another in the luck-of-the-draw-or-he-could-be-we terrors. Who will ever forget Leland's dances in the lobby of the hotel or in his living room in the series? Those silent eyes Ray Wise was so adeptly providing the camera offered us those glimpses into his tortured brain we will never forget. Who will ever forget Bob coming out from behind the chest of drawers in Fire? Here we have a character with two separate actors playing the same person at once, both exceptionally convincing. Frank Silva's Bob was an accident as Silva was a set hand, when Director Lynch caught his terrifying visage in the mirror, resulting in the immortalizing of that character. Weekly visits to Twin Peaks did not dilute the terror caused by these two characters, a credit to the two actors and to, of course, Lynch.

Yes, Max Cady is number three, both of him. The controversy will rage on, but I give a slight nod to De Niro's Max. Okay, it was over the top, but look at the difference in directors and their respective periods of restraint in the early '60s and excess of the '90s. Mitchum's was a slow, more believable burn, a huge factor in the audience's buy-in. But De Niro's was such a dynamic, energy-infused horror. Both actors built the tenseness equally effectively. What partly puts De Niro over the top, was the auditorium scene with Danielle: superb, career milestone acting on both actor's parts fierily infused with the moral ramifications of the restrained forbidden tryst. The fact that it never mushroomed to the conclusion every viewer expected increased its power. The draw of both Cadys is their patient but severe relentlessness. Not a person in the audience has not made a crucial, knowing error, and had been pursued by both a physical manifestation antagonist gnawing and constantly reminding us of our mistake, and more debilitating, the guilt the antagonist conjures in us. Both movies' exceptional casts as foils for Mr. Cady is not lost on each monster's effectiveness.

You know what I'm talking about in making both Jacks number four. I'm going to take you and all of your deep secrets up to that hotel this winter with all of its permanent guests, turn on the cameras, and rush back to safety before the snows start. Need I say more?

"...plausible..."? Okay, you got me, but in defense of this character at number five, I live in New Mexico where witchery and sorcery have been an active (not just mythical; if I had more of a forum for it, I would regale you with experiences out here) part of the culture since before the conquistador tourists/terrorists brought religion on a stick and a suitcase of full of diseases. In addition, the abject fear I felt as a child (and continues through over 40 viewings of the movie) did not begin on a broomstick. I was a buy-in way early in Hamilton's Miss Gulch. I will never forget that determined manic bike ride through that bleak overcast, Dust Bowl Kansas desolation with that music pulsing: scary! That woman had some deep-seated issues! Besides, I had always humanized the Witch as a corporate exploiter lording over us (who don't want to hurt anyone but are just trying to get back to Kansas-heaven?) with an arsenal of departmental monkeys flying first class all over the globe making sure they maintain the power, and protecting her terror and exploitation with an army of long-nosed mercenaries. I swear, that Marlboro-throated cackling witch will be flitting around my brain hunched over, dressed in black, waving a threatening green claw at my eyes long after I'm toothless and wetting my Depends in a rest home.

As I age, I've found myself quite adept at limiting my contacts with the controlling, conniving, damaging, and plain mean-spirited folk on our planet. Perhaps the reason I can spot them so easily and call their shots now is that, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, I couldn't. If you've ever been unwitting, naïve, vulnerable, and trusting, around a well-rehearsed psychopath like Baby Jane, life can be confusing and painful. Professionally I had to deal with a version of Baby Jane over many months who has wielded the power to psychologically wreck her extended family, few left unscathed. Psychological abuse can be as damaging as physical abuse. Poor Blanche was upstairs bed-bound in a house she shared with sister Jane where she was a captive audience for Jane's horrible mind games. I will never forget the craziness Bette Davis infused into that character.

I don't know how wide a variety of life experiences you have had, but I can assure you that this mythical sociopath Early is walking the earth now. As a person raised in a small town in the southwest, I was exposed to a wider variety of characters than most persons who grew up in the homogenized neighborhoods bound by income levels, ethnic group, etc. of large cities. It can be astounding the amount of charisma a poorly educated, abused and neglected person can have. Equally astounding is the persuasion and control that person can exert over the vulnerable in their social class. Heck, Early even exerted that charisma over the two seemingly well-educated, relatively affluent travelling companions he and Adele connected with. Early's undoing was his venturing into a situation beyond his total control by connecting up with this couple and leaving his sphere of influence. Earlys of the world usually thrive in rural areas with much space in which to hide their series of atrocities for a longer time. Battered women's' homes across the U.S. are filled with the work of these sociopaths. In my experiences with Earlys, I too was initially taken in by their country charm, generosity (always with a pre-configured price), and usual good looks. Fortunately, you rather quickly smell that foul odor of evil that the two companions began to sense in the movie. Poor Early. With a better upbringing he could have easily, been a charming, ambitious, and successful head of a corporation foisting some grease, salt, and cheese laden fast food upon a naïve public. Pitt was masterful in this role. He must have known an Early or two in his life. In Early's sex scene with Adele in the backseat next to the gas pump while staring out the window at Carrie, Pitt's silent eyes so horrifyingly and masterfully sum up that character.

As with Early, ditto for Frank. Another obviously damaged monster amazingly assembles a retinue of protective underlings in a small community where he is allowed to operate his sickness with impunity. Ditto for Frank: under a more favorable upbringing, he could use his charisma to be an "assertive" pillar of our society. We turn an eye to this behavior in our citizens, if they make tons of money. That fact is the scariest when you watch Hopper doing his magic in showing you Frank's power over his small group and his sickness that involuntarily bubbles to the surface. By the way, that scene where Ben is singing into the mechanic's lamp as the faded babes undulate in the hovel where they have incarcerated the child? That's where my 17 y.o. small town buddies and I would go on Friday night to get an adult to buy beer for us. Scary, huh?

The question with Wild at Heart: WHICH villain? Marcelles Santos? Bobby Peru? Horrible dudes, these! I chose Marietta because within 60 seconds of interacting with those other two, your skin would begin crawling all around the cervical part of your spine. If you saw Marietta comparing cucumbers at your local market's produce section, you'd think, "Nice middle class faded beauty getting stocked up for her grandbabies' visit." The other reason I chose her is her was her matriarch role in the horrors that grew throughout the movie. Though Santos became uncontrollable, Marietta was the center, the mover and shaker for the whole mess. Her manipulations, her drastic polar shifts of temperament, and the brilliant, career-best performance of Diane Ladd will forever crawl around the dark recesses of my brain. It didn't help that I was in the throes of an orifice-emptying flu when my bestest buddy (the creator of this site?) coaxed me into seeing this in a downtown L.A. theater when I first saw this film. Who will forget Ladd smearing all that red lipstick all over her face? If that didn't put the period on the sentence describing who Marietta was, I don't know what would.

Another slow burn horror was masterfully played by Robert Mitchum in his second appearance in my List. I found out later that this film was based on the terror perpetrated by a real life "Reverend" Powell. Mitchum's easy-going, slow-paced Harry drew you in without shoving his madness into your face early Hollywood-style. The build in his winning over the unwitting and then the artichoke peeling of his sinister intent was riveting. I cannot hear the melody of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arm" without turning around to see if Mitchum's tall figure is lurking in the shadows. The beauty of the movie was the terror felt by the kids as they heard the strains of that song sung or whistled off-camera, announcing the coming of the monster.