10 Horror Movies Where You Never See The Villain

What you don't see can be the scariest thing of all.

The Entity Barbara Hershey
Fox

The overwhelming majority of horror movies see a fleet of hapless victims facing off against a murderous antagonist of some kind, whether it's a human masked murderer, a living, breathing monster, or a more ambiguous supernatural entity.

It's common for horror films to play coy with fully revealing the villain for sake of over-exposing them and diluting the tension as a result, but by act three, it's basically expected that you'll catch at least one prolonged glimpse of the terroriser.

But that's not always the case, as sometimes nothing filmmakers can rustle up will be capable of matching the sheer ingenuity of the human imagination.

For that reason - or, simply, due to budgetary constraints - these 10 films never gave audiences a proper look at their villains, if any sort of look at all.

From purely invisible spectres to monsters which remained conveniently off-camera and everything in-between, these movies were largely all better off for having faith in audiences rather than deigning to bad CGI and otherwise goofy creature effects...

10. Final Destination

The Entity Barbara Hershey
New Line Cinema

The Final Destination franchise's ingenious hook sees a host of central characters surviving sure death after one of them witnesses a premonition, only to find themselves picked off by Death itself on a second go-around.

But rather than have the characters be pursued by a CGI ghoul in a cloak, Death is never actually seen in any of the movies, depicted instead as an invisible, ever-present entity with the ability to subtly manipulate the environment to bring its targets closer to death.

Though many fans have theorised that the series' suspiciously knowledgeable mortician William Bludworth (Tony Todd) may in fact be the human representation of Death, that remains firmly in the fan theory category for now.

Keeping Death invisible not only heightened the suspense of the various amusingly convoluted set-pieces, but was also a smart way to keep the budget in check.

Considering that death as a concept isn't something we ourselves can see in any tangible way, it's apt that it's depicted here as an invisible agent of destruction.

 
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.