Aptly known as “the King of Horror,” Stephen King has written some of the most iconic works of modern horror literature. Since he writes a lot more novels than the average author, it’s often joked that King could publish his laundry list and turn it into a bestseller. But that diminishes King’s craft.
There’s a reason why he’s the world’s most popular horror writer. The guy seriously knows how to spin a yarn. And any horror story is only as good as its villain. King has given the horror genre a handful of its greatest antagonists, and some of them have been brought to life spectacularly by actors in film adaptations.
Cujo (Cujo)
It may not be a masterpiece by any means, but Cujo is a pretty enjoyable horror movie about a mother and son being targeted by a rabid St. Bernard.
Usually, dogs are the most adorable characters in movies, but Cujo subverts the usual canine cuteness by being a bloodthirsty monster.
Ace Merrill (Stand By Me)
Rob Reiner’s the coming-of-age tale of four friends trekking through the woods in search of a dead body someone found there.
Along the way, the quartet runs afoul with a teenage gang led by the twisted Ace Merrill, played by Kiefer Sutherland.
Christine (Christine)
John Carpenter’s Christine is one of the most underrated Stephen King adaptations. Carpenter managed to make the titular vintage car, which is possessed by an evil spirit and corrupts its owners, genuinely scary — as well as devilishly fun.
The opening scene beautifully sets up the car’s evil on the factory line, while the effects throughout the movie of Christine fixing her own dents are masterfully done.
Henry Bowers (It)
High school bullies in movies can be funny, like Biff Tannen, or they can be terrifying, like Henry Bowers. Henry is a truly messed-up kid. He doesn’t just want to give nerds wedgies; he wants to carve his name into their stomachs.
And then, when we meet his abusive father, it becomes apparent why he’s so messed up. Henry is manipulated into murdering his father by It, finding a kindred spirit in a murderous supernatural entity.
Warden Norton (The Shawshank Redemption)
In flipped on their head. The criminals behind bars, like Red and Brooks, are shown to have hearts of gold once the viewer gets to know them, while the prison staff, like Warden Norton, are cruel and sadistic.
Byron Hadley, the captain of the prison guards, is pretty awful, too, but Norton is a bad guy in many different ways, treating prisoners like dirt and accepting bribes under the table.
Moonlight Man (Gerald’s Game)
At the beginning of Gerald’s Game, Jessie and Gerald head up to a cabin in the woods to fix their failing marriage. However, Gerald has a heart attack after handcuffing Jessie to the bed and she’s trapped there indefinitely. She has visions of Gerald taunting her and flashbacks to her father sexually assaulting her as a child, all the while being terrorized by the “Moonlight Man,” a large, deformed man with a strange collection of treasures.
The Moonlight Man represents all the men who have traumatized Jessie in the past, and overcoming her fear of him and facing him in court is an incredibly cathartic experience.
Margaret White (Carrie)
There’s a school of thought that Carrie White is the villain of her own story, since she goes on a killing spree at the movie’s climax, but the first and second acts make that spree justified as Carrie is bullied by her classmates and abused by her unhinged mother.
Piper Laurie earned one of her many Oscar nominations for playing Margaret White, a religious fanatic shaped by her own history of abuse, who smothers Carrie and chastises her for everything she does, believing almost every act conceivable to be a sin.
Annie Wilkes (Misery)
Kathy Bates deservedly won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Annie Wilkes in she forces him to write a new novel that brings her back to life.
The juxtaposition of harmless cuss alternatives like “cockadoodie” with horrific acts like the iconic “hobbling” makes Annie a compelling and deeply disturbing antagonist.
Jack Torrance (The Shining)
Stephen King The Shining, because he changed the core of the story. But if anything, that change made the Jack Torrance character even more compelling. In the book, Jack is a good man who is turned evil by the demons in the Overlook Hotel.
In the movie, Jack was already deranged; he already hated his family. What made him snap and try to kill them at the Overlook was the pressure applied by the isolation, not the hotel itself, which is infinitely more haunting.
Pennywise (It)
The villain in It is technically It, a paranormal entity that can manifest itself as its prey’s worst fears, but Pennywise the Dancing Clown is its most common form, because pretty much everyone is terrified of clowns.
With his creepy smile and wandering eyes, Bill Skarsgård played Pennywise brilliantly in Andy Muschietti’s movie adaptation. More broadly, It is the personification of the concept of fear, which makes it the quintessential horror antagonist.
