Horror movies are glorious. Or should I say, “gore-ius.” If you cringed at my last-minute pun I threw in, that is okay, but it is time to butter the popcorn and get into my top five favorite horror movie villains:
- Michael Myers (Halloween)
- Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
- Ghostface (Scream)
- Predator (Predator)
- Jigsaw (Saw)
And Mark Hoffman (Saw) as an honorable mention.
Michael Myers
John Carpenter’s Halloween, is and always will be, my first favorite horror slasher franchise. Despite the fact that the movies are not as great after the first. Michael Myers, aka The Shape and The Boogeyman, is a simple and mysterious being.
As Dr. Loomis (from the movie) and John Carpenter himself have noted, he is simply a force of evil. There is nothing to explain why he does what he does, and that is the beauty of simplicity to his character.
Freddy Krueger
While Freddy does have a history behind how he came to be in the long-run of the series, he is simply what nightmares are made of. (no pun intended this time) Completely burned, wearing a glove with razors, as his appearance is the least horrifying element of him.
The thought that he can hurt you, kill you, and control your dreams, is the most terrifying and realistic idea that may keep you up at night.
Ghostface
After the first movie, we already know who Ghostface is and why he did what he did — I will not spoil it for you if you haven’t already watched it but I recommend you add it to your watch list — thereafter Ghostface is simply something anyone can be.
It’s not someone specific, it’s not a long-term killer killing without reason. It’s a mask, which is of itself, its own identity, and conceals whoever wears it until it reveals who is behind the mask.
Instead of there being a different masked character every time, the Ghostface mask is the identity we recognize and we will continue to wonder to ourselves what is their reason for wearing this mask and continuing the bloodshed.
Predator
While this villain stands out the most from my list, it is the reason why I added them. These creatures are simply a fascinating species.
They’re the perfect predator, existing to hunt and kill for game and nothing more. The simplest of ideas are usually the best. Pun intended this time.
Jigsaw
John Kramer is a mastermind. He was diagnosed with cancer and attempted to end his life by driving off a cliff. Instead, he miraculously lived and he began testing people’s will to live. Everything he did was genius.
Even in death, his games continue, because he was the type of character to always have everything planned. Everything.
The police and media began referring to him as “Jigsaw” because of the jigsaw pieces he cut from his victims that did not survive their trap. He said to Detective Matthews in Saw II, that the jigsaw piece he cut from their skin represented a major element that was missing from them as a human, that being the survival instinct — the will to live.
Despite that fact he contradicted himself time-to-time, he was smart nonetheless, and nothing was left to chance. Tobin Bell was very dedicated to his role as John Kramer and he played him extremely well.
Mark Hoffman (honorable mention)
I have some complications about this particular character in general because of how the writers drastically altered his personality out of nowhere. After Saw VI and Saw VII fans refer to him as “going terminator” on everyone.
In other words, you can call him the Hoffminator, because by the end of VI he brutally killed three people and set them on fire, one of them still being alive. By the end of VII he killed everyone. I’m not exaggerating.
Regarding the complications of his character, the time skips of the franchise are generally confusing. If the writers intended for Hoffman to have changed over whatever amount of time that had passed, then that would be understandable. Although, most of the time there were scenes that were thrown at the audience that did not match his persona.
However, Hoffman is one of my favorite villains because of what he was not in the beginning. He may have been a “corrupt detective” to some extent, but it was for the right reasons, opposed to the wrong reasons.
In Saw VI, there is a flashback where he was doing last minute work on a trap. When he was preparing to put somebody in the trap, he carelessly dumped their unconscious body on the ground. John Kramer asked Hoffman if he liked brutality and noted that the said unconscious body Hoffman dumped was a human being.
Hoffman responded to Kramer that Kramer should admit that he wants Timothy — the body Hoffman dumped on the floor — to be punished as much as he does. Perhaps at this part, they began expanding his intentions based on a tragic event in the past where his sister was murdered by her boyfriend. Hoffman got back at him by building a rigged trap — making the scene look like a Jigsaw trap — and basically indirectly executed him.
In Saw VII, there is a flashback where he shoots and kills a homeless man who was about to kill another officer, but his character was represented as if he enjoyed brutality.
Despite his character’s drifted demeanor, he seemed to take up after John Kramer’s word that if you can predict the human mind then nothing is left to chance.
Which is probably how he calculatingly killed everyone in Saw VII. In general, Hoffman is a complex villain to look into and dissect, as well as Jigsaw, and it is why I wanted to mention him.
Overall, I hope my top five horror movie villains inspire you to look into any of these movies if you haven’t already seen them, or even rewatch them if you have.
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