American Horror Story is one of those shows that does a number of things well, and one of its most notable accomplishments has been its ability to create villains that are truly terrifying. In each episode, the audience is confronted by creatures-clowns, demons, ghosts-that are designed to elicit thrills of horror and terror. Arguably one of the scariest villains the show has ever created is Twisty the Clown, the mutilated former clown who commits quite a few grisly murders during his time on the show.
However, there are also quite a few other villains from other seasons who give him a run for his money.
Twisty: He’s A Clown
First, and most importantly, there’s the fact that Twisty is a clown. For a whole host of reasons, many people are absolutely terrified of clowns-perhaps it's the makeup, or the way that they don’t follow all the rules of reality-and Twisty taps into all of those fears and anxieties. What makes him truly terrifying, though, is the fact that he’s so dingy and that, beneath his twisted mask, he bears the terrifying scars of his attempt to take his own life.
Thomasin The Butcher
Thomasin the Butcher is one of the former colonists of Roanoke. A woman driven by her own fanatical belief in her own rightness, in life she showed herself willing to do whatever it took to hold onto power. She is also particularly ruthless, and she has a desire for blood that can only be slaked by murdering those who intrude upon the lands that she deems her own personal domains. She’s a bit like an avenging angel of death, and that makes her a truly terrifying villain.
Twisty: He Seems Genuinely Nice
If Twisty were nothing more than a monster, he would be scary enough. As it is, however, the show actually goes out of its way to show the viewer that he has a backstory and, what’s more, he seems to be a genuinely nice person, at least before he was driven mad by society’s rejection of him.
There’s something deeply unsettling about the idea of a killer who is understandable rather than simply a villain with no motivation other than to kill.
Dandy Mott
Finn Witrock deserves a great deal of credit for the way in which he brought Dandy Mott to life. Somehow, he managed to make this character both incredibly charismatic and yet utterly terrifying. Like so many other creations of this series, he has a very skewed perspective on the world, one that convinces him that his own perverted pleasure is the only thing that matters. There’s nothing more terrifying than a person who has absolutely no trace of a moral compass to guide them (and who remains, in some key ways, very enigmatic).
Twisty: He Has His Own Twisted Morality
The strangest thing about Twisty is that he genuinely seems to have a sort of morality that guides his actions. He genuinely seems to love entertaining children, which leads him to murder their parents in order to save them. Of course, to the outside world this is truly horrific and horrendous behavior, but to him it’s just the right thing to do. It’s hard not to be utterly terrified by the idea of someone murdering others because they think that they have the moral high ground.
Kai Anderson
One of the great things about this show is that it manages to tap into the things that make American society and culture so frightening at times, and perhaps no season does this better than Cult. The character of Kai, the leader of the titular cult, is one of the most legitimately terrifying villains this show has ever created, in large part because he’s far more realistic than many of the others (and because he's played by the great Evan Peters).
This is exactly the kind of villain that might well emerge in the real world.
Twisty: He Has His Own Tragic Backstory
Sometimes, the scariest villains are those that have no backstory, that simply exist to slaughter and murder. Others, however, are made frightening precisely because the audience is led to identify with and understand them. Twisty falls into the latter camp, particularly as it becomes clear that all he wanted to do was entertain children, and time and again he was turned away by those that refused to understand him. It’s more than a little disturbing for the audience to find themselves inhabiting the backstory of a murderous clown.
Sister Jude
In many ways, Jessica Lange was the heart of the early seasons, and her character of Sister Jude shows why. What makes Jude such a fascinating and terrifying villain is that she, like so many others, seems to genuinely think that she has the moral high ground when it comes to treating the patients under her care. Her stern and uncompromising attitude toward others often leads her to do some truly horrendous things, and all the while she’s utterly convinced that she has the moral high ground.
Twisty: He Seems Almost Gleeful In His Killing
Clowns, of course, are supposed to bring joy to others, and as a result they often walk around with a sense of joy and purpose. Twisty takes this to new extremes, and every time that he commits a murder it really does seem like he’s taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in doing so. It would be scary enough to have to confront a killer clown, but the fact that killing seems to make him so happy just makes him that much scarier.
Michael Langdon
When it comes to scariness, perhaps no character is more viscerally terrifying than Michael Langdon, the Antichrist himself. After all, this is the man responsible for ushering in the end times, the one who is blessed with all sorts of supernatural powers that allow him to do almost anything that he wants, with few powerful enough to oppose him. The fact that he also happens to be a very charming, charismatic, and handsome young man just makes him all the more terrifying. Sometimes, evil really does wear a pretty face.