Monday Night Poll: Silliest Horror Villains
Filed under: Horror, Fandom, Polls
When it comes to making movies, few things are more subjective than horror. There's nothing that scares everyone, and even if your movie is about something that most people find frightening, that's no guarantee you'll depict it in a way that earns goosebumps. Meanwhile, plenty of good filmmakers have produced terror with things that audiences wouldn't have thought would scare them. (Before Psycho, was anyone ever afraid of showers?) So it's a crapshoot, basically.
Still, some horror films have had villains that they must have known -- or should have known -- wouldn't be scary, no matter how skilled the execution. (And the lousy execution of some of these didn't help.) The Child's Play films got intentionally goofy later in the series, but in the beginning Chucky the murderous doll was actually supposed to be scary, despite being 18 inches tall and weighing only a few pounds. Then there was the title character of Leprechaun, also diminutive and silly, AND he didn't even speak with an Irish accent! If I'm going to watch a movie about a leprechaun, that leprechaun had damn well better sound Irish. I'm just sayin'.
Or remember Darkness Falls, where the supernatural villain was the tooth fairy? Or the evil genie in the Wishmaster films, putting ironic, malevolent twists on people's wishes? Or Julian Sands' time-traveling he-witch in Warlock? The killer snowman in Jack Frost? What's your vote for the silliest horror villain? One of these, or someone else? Let us know in the comments.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-19-2009 @ 9:14PM
Gray McAdam said...
**SPOILER FOR THE HAPPENING**
I do believe that the silliest villain remains "The Grass" from Shyamalan's The Happening. Sorry, but it is definitely one of the dumbest things to ever terrorize people.
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10-19-2009 @ 9:20PM
Liam said...
Why is the snowman from Jack Frost a villain? He wasn't.
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10-19-2009 @ 10:05PM
mezzaninex said...
Not the Jack Frost with Michael Keaton, but sub-B movie Jack Frost from 1996:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_T3lzrzH2fMo/SVG84rclSTI/AAAAAAAADcE/66D0kYGznvA/s400/jack_frost.jpg
10-19-2009 @ 9:53PM
Mike said...
Rumpelstiltskin from Rumpelstiltskin (1995)
This is one hell hole of a movie but there are some genuinely funny parts; although not all intentional.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2co_we7TgI
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10-19-2009 @ 10:56PM
David said...
How about the angry evil tree in William Friedkin's "The Guardian"? That had to one of the silliest villains ever.
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10-19-2009 @ 11:19PM
Aaron said...
Creedence Leonore Gielgud from Troll 2, the best worst movie EVER.
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10-19-2009 @ 11:43PM
justin said...
The pterodactyl from Jeepers Creepers. The movie is moving along a decent slasher flick with some jumps in it and then, boom, the antagonist is a freaking dinosaur. Totally killed any fright in the movie.
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10-19-2009 @ 11:54PM
warbringerdoom said...
Gary Busey as The Gingerdead Man or Clint Howard as The Ice Cream Man!!! Maybe the Terror Toons.
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10-20-2009 @ 12:13AM
Blair said...
The laundry press in "The Mangler" (1995). It spawned two sequels, no less.
Santa Clause in "Santa’s Slay" (2005). Evil Santa played full bore, maniacally cheesy by former pro wrestler Bill Goldberg.
Bunny Rabbit in "Night of the Lepus" (1972). Now three years later a group of Englishmen would use a bunny as a terrifying villain to great effect - in a purposefully comedic sense. "Lepus" on the other hand plays it's hand deadly serious. One could assume the Python boys drew their inspiration from "Lepus" - or just down right stole the idea just because they knew how ridiculous the idea really was.
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10-20-2009 @ 1:42AM
Nick said...
Uncle Sam from 'Uncle Sam' (1997)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118025/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNbJ9yjWv7I&fmt=18
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10-20-2009 @ 10:16AM
dan said...
The Sta-puft marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. I had nightmares for weeks!
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10-20-2009 @ 12:25PM
Mangorilla said...
Chucky looked like a My Buddy doll. That's what made him scary back in the day, because nearly every kid had a My Buddy back then.
As for silliest, my vote is for the killer tomatoes on Attack Of the Killer Tomatoes. I actually stopped eating ketchup for a little while after seeing that as a kid. Only puberty love can kill an evil tomato.
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10-20-2009 @ 1:22PM
Steffani said...
Any one of the "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" (1988 B-movie)
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10-20-2009 @ 1:13PM
Key Rick said...
Anyone else ever seen Roman Polanski's 1967 The Fearless Vampire Killers? It's definitely remake worthy; however, one of the villains - a henchman to the vampires - is a hunchback with a godawful mouthful of square teeth who actually tobagns down a snowy slope in pursuit of the movie's main hero characters in a pine coffin. That gets my vote for silliest
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