Now that the nasally challenged Lord Voldemort has zapped back into theaters in the final “Harry Potter” flick, it’s a good time to chart some of our favorite movie villains.
Being evil and despicable isn’t enough. The character needs to make us buy into in him/her while also dreading him/her. Most of all, they need to serve their purpose: make us cheer more for the downtrodden hero.
The “Harry Potter” series overflows with villains, so does James Bond. Prison wardens are a go-to standard. Villains are good for business. But when charting the baddest of the bad, it also helps to decide who is the genuine Darth Vader.
Freddy and Jason are more killing machines than villains. Is the shark the villain in “Jaws,” or is it the mayor and his community cronies? Norman Bates in “Psycho” is one of cinema’s all-time creeps. Evil yes. But Bates is more of a serial-killer-peeping-tom-transvestite-whack-job than a villain.
Our best of the worst, in ten treacherous categories:
Outer Space Scary
The Emperor in the “Star Wars” saga.
V-factor: Yes, Vader grabs the headlines, but the dark robed Emperor Palpatine is a chilling Satanic presence. With ashen skin and red around the eyes, Palpatine, on the Soviet block dental plan, looks and speaks like death. (Originally voiced by Clive Revill in “The Empire Strikes Back,” he is played by Ian McDiarmid in “Return of the Jedi” and the subsequent sequel-prequels.)
Comical Cutthroat
The Joker in “The Dark Knight” (2008).
V-factor: What’s so brilliant about Heath Ledger’s performance is that he injects just enough camp for the comic book origins, just enough Charles Manson menace to keep us on edge, and just enough clever criminal to pull it all together.
Green-Skinned Shoe-Seeker
The Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939).
V-factor: The laugh. The voice. The phrasing: “These things must be done delllll-icately.” Margaret Hamilton is in a league of her own for creating the single-minded sicko who pesters Dorothy. Bonus points: Associated with flying monkeys.
Animated Animus
Scar in “The Lion King” (1994).
V-factor: Superbly voiced with purring petulance by Jeremy Irons, Scar represents centuries of scheming relatives, from the Greeks through Shakespeare, jealous of the throne and willing to do anything to get it. He lies as easily as he breathes.
Psych Ward Willies
Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975).
V-factor: Few things are scarier than a cold woman who controls your medications, and your future. Tormenting Jack Nicholson’s McMurtry, Louise Fletcher played the icy head nurse to perfection.
Meal-Time Mayhem
Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter in “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991).
V-factor: Anthony Hopkins proved that the soft-spoken criminal, even shackled behind bars, can be utterly terrifying. Bonus points: Knowing that, at any time, he could eat you.
Megalomaniac Mother
Eleanor Shaw Iselin in “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962).
V-factor: Angela Lansbury as the make-your-skin-crawl matriarch is willing to sacrifice her closest relatives to achieve her political goals. Seeing her lay that incest-kiss on Laurence Harvey always leaves me a little unhinged.
Greed on Wheels
Mr. Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946).
V-factor: The blustery, money-grubbing, foreclosing financial titan was one of film’s earliest iconic villains. Lionel Barrymore continued the tradition as the sinister, snarling Mr. Potter, who delights in dancing on the graves of the less fortunate. He is the perfect foil for George Bailey’s lived and unlived lives in Bedford Falls/Pottersville.
Skyscraper Scoundrel
Hans Gruber in “Die Hard” (1988).
V-factor: Alan Rickman delivers a master class as the calm, well-read killer-kidnapper matching witticisms with Bruce Willis’ “yippee-ki-yay” cop, John McClane.
Nazi Nemesis
Amon Goeth in “Schindler’s List” (1993).
V-factor: We started with Voldemort so it’s fitting to end with another Ralph Fiennes performance. As Goeth, he embodied everything officious, heartless and terribly twisted about the Third Reich. Based on a real-life SS officer, Goeth killed his Jewish prisoners with casual efficiency, as if he was pulling laundry off the line. A whole other stratosphere for movie evil: it seemed so terrifyingly real.
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