Traumatized by Film
Is a "favorite movie villain" the villain you love to hate? Or, the villain who is most evil? Or, is it the scariest?
I'm not a big fan of scary movies so I'm not going to waste my answer on the obvious: anyone with a chainsaw, knife, face mask, doll part, puppet face, etc...
Before I give my final pick, here's a taste of some of my contenders.
I'll get you my pretty
As a child, I was terrified of The Wicked With of the West, particularly when she first appears as Dorothy's house travels in the tornado. You think you're going to see Miss Gulch again (which is bad enough) and then... BAM ... you get the Wicked Witch looking into the window. Pure childhood fear gets her on my list.
Honorable mention goes to the Mombi/Nurse Wilson character in Return to Oz, who scared me completely shitless when I was 8 years-old. A producer probably said "Hey let's make a kids movie about Dorothy Gale getting shock treatment!" Cool. "And let's add these characters called Wheelers that are pure evil!" Sounds good. "Oh and there are severed heads in it too!" Umm. A kid's movie? I hate that movie.
Criss-Cross
The Birds in The Birds. I'll root for animals most of the time, assuming that they're main objective isn't to pluck out eyes and trap people in houses. Hitchcock's villains should be be strong representatives on any best of list, particularly Norman Bates in Psycho and Bruno Anthony in Strangers On a Train.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled...
Verbal says it best: "'Keaton always said: I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him.' Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze."
Candy Colored Clown
But the best movie villain, in my humble opinion, is Frank Booth from Blue Velvet. Insane, perverse, sadistic and creepy beyond belief, he is completely irredeemable but for the fact that he knows music and he realizes that Roy Orbison's In Dreams is probably one of the best fucking songs in the world.
Comments
omg, I was so freaked out by all the "scary things" in Return to Oz! Especially the hallway of heads. And shock treatment in a kid's movie. Way to go producers!
Return to Oz was the reason I got Netflix though. Half a year ago, my boyfriend and I were talking about the movie and wanted to watch it, but it wasn't available in any video store. I suppose it's too scary for Blockbuster.
The hallway of heads also scared me shitless when I was young. Ugh. (That and when Gremlins had one totally disturbing paper shredder scene.)
The Birds was such a scary movie that I'm still afraid to visit Bodega Bay.
http://www.norcalmovies.com/TheBirds/
Return to Oz is the most horrifying film ever made. I recently tried to convince my boyfriend of this (he still thinks I was joking) and attemped unsuccessfully to track it down at Blockbuster. There is just something wrong with a childrens movie that features Mental hospitals and Shock Therapy especially when it's pretty much saying 'If you are an imaginative kid you are going to be thrown in a locked down facility where people are tortured in the basement'. The wheelies are the creepiest characters ever, and the absolute WORST are the talking decapitated heads on shelves...and that damn witch running around without a head. This is just a HORRID movie.
My number 2 scariest children's movie is 'the Dark Crystal'. I had nightmares about that damn movie for years after I saw it.
BTW...this is completly unrelated...but is there any way I can find your 'Your daughter is insane' letter that you sent your parents under the guise of it being sent by the school? That is classic. The funniest thing I've ever read.