The most scary literary villains in books/ films

[Lampros]

I'll start...Miss Trunchbull. Still scared when I read the book or watch the films as a 35yo!

The snow queen in narnia was a book character that scared me thinking about it.

@LadyMonicaBaddingham he was really creepy in that film....

The Chairmaker in Iain M. Banks' Use of Weapons is truly monstrous.

That false vicar in Jamaica Inn.

Mr Bunting in the Imaginary - horrific.

@BunnyLover7 @CatChant I could not bear to re-read I’m the King of the Castle. Or Lord of the Flies - but Susan Hill is more disturbing.

Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men

You’ve spammed this three times. Why?

The grand high witch

Angel Clare was pretty bad too.

Laura - Bring Her Back

Some of the giants from Roald Dahl’s BFG especially one of them, think he was called Bonecrusher or something

nurse ratchet

I used to have nightmares about the Emperor's red guards in Return of the Jedi. The Emperor was terrifying too, but the guards gave me the dreams.

The young girl Josephine in Crooked House (Agatha Christie). Also nightmare inducing.

Dickens is good for scary villains.

Uriah Heep
Mr Tulkinghorne
Bentley Drummle
Bill Sikes

(And other characters who are just ratbags like Fagin, Skimpole, Pecksniff and Smallweed snr)

(Dickens being a massive misogynist, has no female villains)

I agree that Heep is the creepiest but he'd be absolutely no match for Tulkinghorne.

Hands down it's Reverend Kane from Poltergeist 2

George Harvey - The Lovely Bones
Williams mother in Goodnight Mister Tom
Jim Fenner in Bad Girls (that’s a TV show but he was pure evil)

Dickens was not a “massive misogynist”. Quite the opposite. Have you read Clare Tomalins book about him? Would recommend.

He put alot of effort and money working with a wealthy lady to set up a home for girls headed for prostitution to teach them a trade. He was often heard to say what’s the point of sons when you have daughters? His marriage was bad granted - he married the wrong woman and couldn’t get divorced.

The scary trio in the second Superman film (Chris Reeve version). The woman especially gave me the creeps.

Gary Oldman as Norman Stansfield in Leon. Mental.

I love Dickens' writing but, with the exception of Lizzie Hexam in Our Mutual Friend all his female characters are either fainting, ridiculous or dutiful, and his treatment of his wife was wrong. So I think my opinion is fair enough. He would have recognised coercive control, see Nancy's failure to leave Sikes, so I'll give him that.

Reflective of the times, maybe, but I can think of other writers from that time and place that did better than him.

Heathcliff
Saruman
the child catcher
Peacock family in the x files (tv not film but nightmare inducing for years)

Can’t remember her name but the woman who “fostered” young children like Oliver before he was shipped off to the work house was pretty villainous.

Count Fosco, Quint, General Woundwort, Biju-Ram (The Far Pavilions), Madame Fisher (The House in Paris).

Mrs Squeers was pretty nasty!

Also just remebered Jane Murdstone.