Creating atmosphere and credibility in any movie requires meticulous construction of details. Horror movies require a much more careful balance of details. Fear is a difficult emotion to bring together, especially when you consider what must be causing that fear. A movie monster can’t make you laugh, imagine if ET chased people with a knife? It just wouldn’t work. So where does it work? Here are five horror movie villains that will blow your mind.
5 Extraterrestrial
Whether it’s the double jawbone, glowing chest, or his emotionless face, the Xenomorph is the pinnacle of movie monsters. What makes this creature so scary is how little it fills the frame in the Extraterrestrial series and how it supplants humans at the top of the food chain.
Beyond the chest burst scene, the Xenomorph frequents shadows, grows up, and prepares to munch on his teammates. Until the film nears its climax, much of the rampage is documented through the results; shown in teammates disappearing, or beeps on motion sensors. This gradually creates tension, making the revelation and the conflict with the alien even more tense.
What the hidden nature of the Xenomorph also creates is a dynamic hunter versus prey. The xenomorph, successfully, chases the entire crew except the cat and Ripley, remaining hidden and striking in the dark. This is also what makes the Xenomorph so successful, as it ignites in us a primordial fear of survival by instilling the fact, slowly and surely, that humans are no longer the biggest fish in the pond.
4 Pazuzu
While the Xenomorph is an incredible embodiment of that primal prey hunter dynamic, Pazuzu of The Exorcist begins to tap into a much darker, fantastical side of fear. The Exorcist Of course, he relies on some sort of biblical fear, as Pazuzu is an embodiment of sin and evil, similar to the Devil. Not only is this shown in the gruesome decay and twisted movements of Regan, the possessed child, but, as Extraterrestrial, much of the fear arises from the protagonist’s apparent futility against the creature.
The priest, Damien, struggles with his own purity and piety while exorcising Pazuzu. In part this relates to Damien’s own impurity, it cannot match the idealized nature of good. However, he also can’t stand Pazuzu’s overwhelming evil. By being such an embodiment of evil, in his words, actions, and all his presence throughout the film, Pazuzu cemented himself as one of the scariest horror films.
3 The thing
While John Carpenter The thing Presents, arguably, the best practical effects of all time, it teams up with a creepy creature, the titular, The Thing. The Thing is an amorphous alien that can biologically correspond to any living creature, until it corresponds to every cell.
This creature physically transforms into horrific combinations of dogs, humans, and all manner of beasts, but its most notable horror beats occur when it cannot be seen. When The Thing is hiding among people, it is indistinguishable from anyone. This leads to incredible amounts of stress and paranoia in every character, as they don’t know who is human and who could be The Thing.
As a viewer, we watch the characters fight with each other, which increases our own fear and stress. Ultimately, that’s what makes The Thing such a scary monster. Although his actions are bloody, the paranoia he creates in the characters still makes us wonder who to trust, making The Thing one of the best monsters in horror.
2 Freddy krueger
As a child, the greatest refuge I found against fear was to sleep. It was a place where all my worries vanished. It was until I saw Nightmare on Elm Street, and then, all of a sudden, I didn’t want to sleep anymore.
Krueger himself is not that terrifying. In fact, he’s dressed a bit like a scarecrow when you think about it. However, the fear it creates is so powerful because of where it hits. Dreams are a refuge for most people. His ability to take that away and scare people into sleep is horrible to think about. It doesn’t get much scarier than that.
1 Jason voorhees
Darkness is an age-old fear. We fear what may be hiding in the dark. Jason Vorhees, especially after donning the hockey mask, is the perfect embodiment of that fear, as he’s simply a danger lurking in the dark.
While it sums up the slasher horror sub-genre very well Friday 13, his passivity is what really looks so scary. Without showing empathy, towards virtually anyone or anything in the entire series, Jason becomes a chilling embodiment of death and its inevitability as he stalks the characters. As a result, Jason is one of horror’s greatest villains, seeing how, with almost mechanical efficiency, he coldly dices his victims.
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