HORROR TEN SPOT: Top 10 Lamest Villains

Last Updated on August 3, 2021

Horror does a lot of things great. It gives us tons of bloodshed, crazy f*cked up situations, and often provides ample female flesh to gawk at. But the thing that sends a flick through the roof, more often than not, is the villain. Be it serial killers, ghosts, monsters or some other cool idea, the villain is to horror what the cream is to an Oreo – the good stuff!

That only applies to successful genre pics, though. Because nothing kills a fright flick like a poorly conceived, badly presented, or just plain miscast baddie. And holy shite there are a lot of them. For every Lecter or Alien, the host of knock-offs and wannabes are legion.

So let’s take a look at some of the times when the bad are just plain bad, the nasty are totally nasty, and at the end of it all you find yourself cringing from the affront that just tried to sell itself as a villain.

And as always, Lock-Load-Spit Bullets!

1. Jason Worm, JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY

Close one here, because the paramedic in F13 V was right in the mix. Both movies essentially fall to the same fatal error, no damn Jason Voorhees! Even Shakespeare was careful to give the audience exactly what they wanted before getting all clever and creative. So how did I choose between these two possibilities. Simple, we got plenty of mask time in V, which while ultimately unsatisfying given the killer wasn’t Jason, was a far sight better than some body-hopping slug looking to…hell I can’t even get into it without making my head hurt. Bottom line – No legit Jason? Lame!

2. Rubber Shark, JAWS IV: THE REVENGE

Bruce what has come of ye? Even were I inclined to believe a shark could actually desire and seek revenge, I’d like it to be a shark that looks a lot less like it came from a toy store. I’ve seriously seen shark movies on the Sci-Fi Channel that are more realistic than this Mardi Gras float of a killer. I truly thought that JAWS 3-D was as bad as it could get, but I fully admit I was way wrong.

3. Villagers, THE VILLAGE

I’m actually a big fan of most of Shyamalan’s work. Loved UNBREAKABLE, even dug SIGNS. But hello stupid idea carried out poorly in this pic. Outside of the fact that part of the problem with the movie is its distinct lack of horror, even though it was heavily marketed that way, we’re still stuck with village elders whose whole raison d’etre makes no damn sense. It’s never good when your reaction to a group’s evil plan is, “What a bunch of f*cking morons”.

4. Jack, THE HITCHER II: I’VE BEEN WAITING

Ugh. I’d actually rather watch the remake of THE HITCHER (which I hated) through a 24-hour repeat marathon than ever have my time stolen from me again by this POS. Stupid, useless sequel to a classic horror film, and it brings with it the indignity of replacing the great Rutger Hauer with the…I don’t even know what to say about Jake Busey. He’s bad enough in general, but when taking part in a flick that requires he be compared to one of the best villains genre has given us, I honestly just feel bad for the guy.

5. David Allen Griffin, THE WATCHER

Whoa! Keanu Reeves is a serial killer! That’s like totally – lame. Switch the roles in this pic, let James Spader be the over-talkative maniac with too much time on his hands and perhaps this works OK. I can buy Reeves as a cop that can’t catch his prey. But putting him to work as a bad guy doesn’t fly, especially not with his B&T hair in full effect. Back to the matrix, Neo!

6. The Leprechaun, LEPRECHAUN

I guess some folks think the goofy hijinx of this demented little person are fun, but I truly hope they were on some good drugs when they came to that conclusion. Why? Because a former Ewok on various forms of wheels, or spitting out stupid one-liners, is just flat out annoying. That’s without getting into the colossally boring idea of having a Leprechaun be evil in the first place. The fact that multiple sequels followed just hurts my genre heart.

7. Conal Cochran, HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH

Not much else to say that Rog didn’t sum up nicely in his original review. If H3:SOTW has been a standalone movie it would have been a forgettable flick with some really nice gore thrown in for those who decided to get down with it, but it is a part of a franchise. It took one of the great villains of our time and replaced him with some old dude that can’t even seem to convince himself that his evil plot makes any sense. Hell, he applauds right before the hero kills him. I can only imagine his internal monologue was something like, “Thank you for getting me out of this nonsensical shite fest”. On top of that his death sucks balls. Who’s he supposed to be, an evil mastermind, or Han Solo?

8. Debbie Salt, SCREAM 2

Not many actresses pull off bitch-slapped crazy like Laurie Metcalf, but man oh man does anybody find her scary? Or compelling? It pains me to even have to write about the massive anti-climax that her reveal caused. If I want to hear shrill nonsense coming from an unattractive woman all I have to do is call up some old girlfriend’s. At least then I have some good sex memories to go along with the annoying insanity. Add in an almost as lame partner for her and the result is that we, as well as Timothy Olyphant, would rather pretend it never happened.

9. Jack Frost, JACK FROST

Even given the fact that a pissed off, homicidal snowman is a laughable concept, Jack Frost is still one of the silliest killers to grace any screen. He basically looks like he was cobbled together from a kindergarten Christmas project, and exudes about the same amount of menace. When a movie features water that is scarier than its main monster, trouble is a brewin’!

10. Black Goop, CREEPSHOW 2

In CREEPSHOW 2, “The Raft” episode poses the question – Can you scare people with a black Hefty bag. Well, the answer is actually “yes” which is why this ridiculous looking piece of evil flotsam barely made the list. Despite providing some scares, it’s still totally stupid looking. I mean c’mon, give us a little something. If you’re gonna copy THE BLOB, then do it well. Still, I fully admit this part was the highlight of the sequel.