Since its beginnings in the German Expressionist movement all the way up to the current horror movie renaissance thanks to studios like A24 and Blumhouse, the horror genre has consistently been churning out fresh bogeymen to inspire nightmares. Though most horror movie villains serve their purpose within their given cinematic context before fading from the collective memory, there have been a select few that have managed to ingrain themselves within the pop culture at large.
While some of these iconic villains derive their scares from brute strength or complete insanity, there is another crop of terrifiers that chill audiences because of their mind, the dark capabilities of a superior intellect gone bad. Who is the smartest horror movie villains?
Sweeney Todd – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tim Burton's bloody adaptation of the world of Sondheim's musical proved a perfect way of exposing the work to a wider audience.
Likewise, the casting of Johnny Depp as the titular villain created one of the most menacing figures in the actor's filmography. Todd's combination of fiery rage and a keen mind for manipulating scenarios to his favor makes him a smart and unpredictable antihero.
Annie Wilkes – Misery
The world was introduced to the acting talents of Kathy Bates when she appeared as the antagonist in performance Bates gives.
Bates imbues her villain with an element of childlike innocence that, when paired with her violent tirades, creates a menacing force to be reckoned with. The less said about the infamous "hobbling" scene, the better. Smart and mean as hell, Wilkes is the fan every artist prays they don't have.
Mick Taylor – Wolf Creek
Though Wolf Creek was controversial and critically divisive when first released, the lead villain Mick Taylor was almost universally labeled as terrifying. The reason Taylor is to be greatly feared by Australian backpackers is his prodigious ability to play dumb.
When Taylor first appears in the Australian horror film, he is a warm and funny presence, which soon gives way to a complete flip of the switch as he becomes a vicious human hunter. John Jarratt's performance is as brilliant as it is unsettling.
Jang Kyung-chul – I Saw the Devil
Choi Min-sik's performance is truly chilling, one of the least merciful killers to ever be committed to screen. Additionally, Jang Kyung-chul's battle of wits with the lawman reveals that the killer has a highly capable evil mind.
Norman Bates – Psycho
Hitchcock's and still is for that matter, without the unnerving work of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. Bates has become a bonafide icon of the genre due to his mix of social awkwardness, boyish charm, and absolutely freaky spells when he dresses as his dead mother and starts stabbing women in the shower.
Perkins makes Bates a nuanced and tragic figure that radiates an odd kind of likable chemistry that has yet to be replicated.
Jack/Mr. Sophistication – The House That Jack Built
The House That Jack Built, is the closest the provocateur has come to making a straight-up piece of horror.
Ostensibly a character study of a truly evil, yet brilliant, serial killer named Jack (played by a career-best Matt Dillon), the film weaves around several vignettes of Jack's killer persona "Mr. Sophistication" planning and committing "perfect murders." Jack's philosophical meanderings and penchant for bleak and merciless violence make him a realistic boogeyman for the arthouse crowd.
Dr. Seth Brundle – The Fly
David Cronenberg unleashed his commercial breakthrough in 1986 with Cronenberg to channel his unique brand of body horror while providing a cautionary tale of playing God.
Jeff Goldblum plays Dr. Brundle, a brilliant but troubled scientist who inadvertently merges his DNA with a housefly while trying to teleport. What follows is one of the best horror films of the decade and one of the best tragic villain stories ever in horror history.
Jigsaw – Saw
Though nobody would ever accuse the Saw films of being too intelligent, there is no doubt that its central antagonist, Jigsaw, is a deviously clever creation.
Using people's own faults against them as a way of delivering a twisted sort of intervention, Jigsaw was always a step ahead of everyone else, a trait that was used intelligently in the first two films before sliding into laughable and illogical. Especially in regards to the events of the first Saw film, Jigsaw's cunning is what makes him so intimidating and timeless.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter – The Silence of the Lambs
The quintessential modern example, and likely many people's #1, has been the same since 1991 when Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter was almost immediately promoted to icon status with his legendary performance.
A critical darling and financial success, The Silence of the Lambs marked a major moment in horror, a shift towards more realistic and unsettling horror as opposed to the fantasy and slasher heavy '80s output. Lecter marked the introduction of the slasher whose greatest asset is his mind, not his ax.
Victor Frankenstein – Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein ranks at the top because his intelligence is what warps him from protagonist to antagonist. Essentially a gothic version of Icarus, Dr. Frankenstein represents the model of what happens when genius is overtaken by ambition and a desire to exceed human limits.
Victor provides the archetype for all mad scientists figures that would haunt horror films for decades to come. Simply too smart for his own good, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and his enormous ego, is the quintessential "evil genius."
