The mark of a good horror movie is a strong villain, and it’s rare that a horror movie with a good Big Bad fails on every other level. Every so often, however, there comes a terrible horror movie that, nevertheless, still manages to have a great villain that saves it from potential oblivion.
These characters often seem as if they were teleported in from some other, more successful movie, and while they sometimes demonstrate just how bad the original movie is, they just as often also show how a key character can save almost anything.
Anaconda
There are many great horror movies about killer snakes, and while Anaconda isn’t the worst, it does struggle at times to hit the right notes. However, it does have a great villain in the person of Paul Serone, played by Jon Voight, in what might be one of his best roles. Voight brings a hard-bitten and sinister energy to this horror movie villain, who is a man willing to sacrifice almost anything and anyone in his effort to capture a green anaconda. In some ways, he’s even more fearsome than the snake itself.
Tusk
Kevin Smith has been responsible for some great movies, but unfortunately Tusk doesn’t quite measure up to some of his other offerings. Its story about a man who gets sewn up inside a walrus costume made of human skin is bizarre, but it can’t quite seem to find the right mix of horror and comedy toward which it aspires. There’s no question, however, that Michael Parks is brilliant as the man who, tortured with guilt over slaughtering his walrus companion, spends his life trying to resurrect him via his experiments in order to assuage his guilt.
House Of Wax
At the time of its release, House of Wax was not terribly popular with critics, who found its story to be quite old-fashioned and lacking in terms of its ability to deliver the chills associated with horror. However, there’s no question that this movie’s villain is one of the best roles that Vincent Price ever created.
As Professor Henry Jarrod, he manages to capture the mania of a man obsessed with using real human bodies of his murder victims in an effort to create his precious wax sculptures.
Queen Of The Damned
Anne Rice is one of those authors who is intrinsically associated with the vampire. Unfortunately, her novel The Queen of the Damned was given a very sub-par movie treatment with film version of the same name. Whatever its failings as an adaptation, however, it must still be admitted that the movie’s central antagonist, Akasha, is a fascinating and excellent villain. She is the type of power-mad vampiric deity that is designed to create nightmares, and she demonstrates the fearsome powers that the undead can often have.
Hannibal
Even though Silence of the Lambs is rightly regarded as one of the best thriller movies of the 1990s, the same cannot be said of its successor, Hannibal. The sequel leans far too much on simple, gruesome thrills in order to be seen as a great movie, and Julianne Moore as Clarice Starling doesn’t have the same rough edges as Jodie Foster, who played the same character in the earlier movie. However, Anthony Hopkins continues to amaze as Hannibal Lecter, a man whose sinister genius is as disturbing as his propensity for eating human flesh.
The Wicker Tree
Like so many sequels, The Wicker Tree, the spiritual sequel to The Wicker Man, is a bit of a misfire. Though it has some of the elements of the previous movie, it largely feels lacking in imagination and execution. However, one thing that it does extremely well is create a villain, and Graham McTavish brings a sinister and powerful energy to the character of Lachlan Morrison. Though he’s not quite up to Christopher Lee’s performance in the original, he still ably conveys a man who is determined to save his community, even if it means resorting to human sacrifice.
The Wicker Man
The American remake of The Wicker Man suffers in comparison to the original, and even Nicholas Cage’s campy performance isn’t quite enough to save it. What does give it at least a bit of redemption, however, is Ellen Burstyn as the villain, Summersisle. She manages to make this individual more than just a caricature but instead someone with real human desires and ambitions, and though the actions she takes can seem heartless, they also make sense when seen from a certain distorted point of view.
Jeepers Creepers
Though it has the makings of a great horror movie, Jeepers Creepers does fall flat in some key aspects. However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still have a fantastic villain, one whose ability to regenerate its body by consuming parts of others remains one of the most chilling instances of a creature in a horror movie.
What’s more, the fact that the creature is willing to inflict tremendous pain on its victims, as the last scene makes clear, allows it to stand up against many other creatures in horror.
Legend
Legend is a fascinating example of what happens when even as talented a director as Ridley Scott loses sight of what makes a horror movie fascinating. That being said, there’s no question that Tim Curry brings, as he always does, a powerful and sinister energy to the proceedings as the unimaginatively named Lord of Darkness, and it remains one of Tim Curry's best roles. Whenever he appears on the screen, it is impossible to look away, and it’s yet another testament to how skilled Curry is at creating fascinating villains.
Wrong Turn
In many ways, Wrong Turn is a by-the-numbers slasher movie that follows a group of young people as they are stranded in the wilderness and pursued by ravenous, cannibalistic hillbillies. Though there are many things about the movie that don’t age especially well, there’s no question that the cannibals themselves still manage to be great villains. They’re the type of horror movie killers that make one afraid to go out into the woods alone, and for that reason alone they deserve some recognition.