00:00We're so used to seeing film cells drenched in blood and viscera that we often forget to observe the finer details of the villains who make it so.
00:08This can be their motivations, their methods, or, you know, their glaring inability to actually do any of the killing themselves.
00:15Nevertheless, many of them remain some of the most recognized and celebrated baddies around.
00:20So, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with 9 truly evil horror movie villains who never actually killed anyone.
00:279. Mrs. Ganache in Drag Me to Hell
00:31There aren't many of us who can name the villain from Drag Me to Hell off the top of our heads,
00:36but Mrs. Ganache's horrifying face and the image of her shoving her arm down a woman's throat will stick with us forever.
00:42Played by Lorna Raver in Sam Raimi's 2009 horror comedy,
00:46Mrs. Ganache is an old Roma woman denied a mortgage extension by bank loan officer Christine Brown.
00:52Thus, she curses one of the buttons from Christine's coat, invoking the demon Lamia to torment her for three days before dragging her down to Hell.
00:59An aesthetic midpoint between Sweet Old Lady and one of Raimi's deadites,
01:03Mrs. Ganache wreaks havoc in the first act of the film, going from somber to manic and back,
01:08fighting Christine in a parking lot and literally unleashing Hell before unceremoniously dying.
01:13She never has the opportunity to kill, and yet her intentions are as dark as they come,
01:18taking the hopelessness of her situation out on one of the bank's lowest-level staff rather than, say, you know, the CEO.
01:25Number 8. Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
01:29Back in 1975, the sweet and wholly agreeable Louise Fletcher may not have made sense to play one of the most subtly evil and manipulative antagonists of all time,
01:39and yet the proof is in the pudding, with her turn as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest going on to become an all-time icon in the film canon and beyond.
01:47Head nurse of a ward for the clinically insane, during a period when mental health in the USA was at a continuous low,
01:53Mildred Ratched represents the dehumanization and emasculation of not just men, nor the mentally ill, but of contemporary society at large.
02:01A tool of oppression, acting at the behest and whim of the state, she rules over the ward with an iron fist in a velvet glove.
02:08A foil to Jack Nicholson's wacky, fun-loving Randall McMurphy, she is strict, severe, and ruthless,
02:13subjecting her charges to electroshock therapy, and in McMurphy's case, a frontal lobotomy.
02:19McMurphy is dead by the film's conclusion, but not at Ratched's hand.
02:23She merely sucked the spirit out of him, and his fellow patients took care of the rest.
02:287. Bathsheba Sherman in The Conjuring
02:31Often overshadowed by Conjuring series icons such as Annabelle or The Nun,
02:36Bathsheba Sherman is nevertheless a truly horrifying force in her own right,
02:40providing the terrifying foundations on which the entire Conjuring franchise was built.
02:45Born in 1812, Bathsheba is related to one of the women who was executed for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials,
02:51and her spirit lingers on in the home where she died, having pledged loyalty to Satan, cursed the house, and committed suicide.
02:57As you do.
02:58Played by the film's composer Joseph Bishara, Bathsheba has surprisingly little screen time throughout the film,
03:04as she only reveals her true form once or twice, but her goals are clear.
03:07Kill Carolyn Perron and her family, the current residents of her home.
03:11Unfortunately, Bathsheba's not much of a winner, and though her attempts to murder the family and the Warrens,
03:16paranormal investigators who have been brought in to investigate, are savage and often seat-wettingly scary,
03:21she ultimately fails.
03:236. Annie Wilkes in Misery
03:26Annie Wilkes is an impotent killer, but for whatever else you can say about her, it's not for a lack of trying.
03:31Antagonist of the 1990 adaptation of Stephen King's Misery, Wilkes, played to perfection by Kathy Bates,
03:37kidnaps the writer Paul Sheldon, after he suffers a car accident during a snowdrift,
03:42gradually nursing him back to health, while simultaneously battering him into submission.
03:46Annie wants nothing more than a new book from Paul's Misery series that satisfies all of her fangirl needs,
03:52handling the characters and plot precisely as she and she alone thinks they ought to be handled.
03:57Sound familiar?
03:57Ahem, Star Wars fans?
03:59She tortures him, hobbles him, concocts a plan to poison him to death, and eventually gets what she wants,
04:04but at what cost?
04:06Paul burns the new manuscript in front of her, and as she tries to bludgeon, shoot, and kill him,
04:10he manages to overcome his captor using his broken legs and, ironically, his typewriter.
04:165. Patrick Bateman in American Psycho
04:19The Eternal Debate
04:21Did Patrick Bateman really kill all those people?
04:24Well, for the purposes of this list, we're gonna say no.
04:27No, he did not.
04:28Either side of this coin lies a controversial opinion, but the fact of the matter is,
04:32American Psycho is intentionally ambiguous, offering viewers the opportunity to decide
04:37Bateman's motives, actions, and fate on their own.
04:40What cannot be denied, though, is that the man himself is as sick and psychotic as they come,
04:44a vessel of pure consumer evil through which flows only base, market-driven impulses,
04:49and white-knuckle fantasies of mutilation and murder.
04:52But Bateman, as played to perfection by Christian Bale in this 2000 dynamic killer thriller,
04:58is a weak and spineless narcissist.
05:00He possibly doesn't have the gumption to kill, no matter how much he wants to,
05:04fearing the consequences of digressing from the norm in a world that flourishes within the status quo,
05:09treating the banality of suits and business cards and tiny dishes at overpriced restaurants
05:14as though it were high culture, not the mumblings of a culturally bereft elite.
05:17Bateman is a fantasist, and while he may be able to imagine himself blood-soaked and naked in a room of body parts,
05:23he simply isn't there.
05:25Number 4. Mini Castavet in Rosemary's Baby
05:29Rosemary's Baby may best be remembered for the controversy surrounding director Roman Polanski,
05:35the breakthrough performance of star Mia Farrow,
05:37or the iconic poster that still hangs on thousands of bedroom walls,
05:41but perhaps its most important and intelligent feature is its villain.
05:45Ruth Gordon plays Minnie Castavet, an old-age, upper-middle-class New Yorker with a nose for other people's business.
05:51She is meddlesome, loud-mouthed, and exactly the kind of person one finds in everyday life,
05:56blending so seamlessly into the melange of the day-to-day that her preoccupation as an evil acolyte of Satan almost goes unnoticed.
06:03Tricking Rosemary into conceiving and carrying the spawn of the devil,
06:07Minnie and her unholy coven have the younger woman doubting her sanity up until the last minute.
06:12As if that wasn't enough, she is complicit in seizing the child from its mother,
06:16drugging her, and telling her that it died during childbirth.
06:19Sure, Minnie doesn't kill Rosemary or the baby, but for the sake of all humankind, it might be better if she did.
06:25Number 3. John Kramer in Saw
06:27Better known by his alias Jigsaw, John Kramer is the antagonist of the Saw series,
06:33his exploits spanning eight films, nine if you count Spiral, and an untold body count,
06:38even though he died in the third installment. While his base motives may be just often seeking
06:43to offer his captives a shot of redemption,
06:46aim and mutilate themselves in order to pay penance for their crimes, sins, or in some cases,
06:55really just accidents. And yet, Jigsaw never actually kills any of his-
07:00Famous track record of aggressive passivity could all be subject to change.
07:04Number 2. The Entity in The Endless
07:07The Entity is a unique villain, in that it has neither shape nor form,
07:12existing instead in a sort of limbo where it can influence time and the world while inhabiting neither.
07:17Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's The Endless puts a unique spin on both the time travel and
07:22cult horror subgenres by making their central antagonist a mysterious god-like being that has
07:27dominion over the people of Camp Arcadia in Backwoods San Diego, a friendly commune or UFO death
07:33cult, depending on who you speak to. Every individual in this remote community and those
07:38in their immediate orbit is beholden to the whims of the Entity, who has trapped them within an
07:43infinite time loop. Like a cat playing with a mouse, it gives them just enough rope to hang
07:47themselves with, allowing each to go to the point of their death before pulling them back to where
07:51they began, with rough memories and recollections of what came before.
07:54A creative brand of evil, this is one instance in which it might be better if the villain did
07:59actually make with the killing.
08:01Number 1. Pell in Midsommar
08:03Pell is nothing but bad news. Often operating in the background of Ariasta's sunny, chiller Midsommar,
08:10Pell nonetheless serves as its overarching antagonist. The impetus for the whole damn movie,
08:15Pell entices his anthropology classmates to return with him to his native village in Sweden for a
08:20Midsommar festival. Once there, however, the gang gradually discover that they are in the
08:24midst of a sinister group of cultists, still practicing a sort of medieval Scandinavian
08:28paganism. The members of the commune drug, flay, burn and murder their guests, all in the lead up
08:34to a final ceremony of human sacrifices while Pell smiles on.
08:38Unlike many other apparently impotent villains, Pell never has a revealing moment. The face he wears
08:44every day is his true self, and he wholeheartedly believes that the way his commune operates is the
08:49way things should be. Sacrifices are necessary, and American college students are a dime a dozen.
08:54He's chill, he's pleasant, and he's deadly in the most polite, sincere, and non-violent way possible.
09:01And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments
09:04below, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
09:09Also head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias just
09:13by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day,
09:18and I'll see you real soon.
Comments