Iconic screen bogeymen - Myers, Krueger et al - force us to watch through fingers clamped over our eyes, while we breathlessly await their next act of onscreen savagery. If exposed to their antics at an impressionable age, youll be afraid of the dark for the rest of your life. At the other end of the scale, however, there are horror movie villains that force us to ask such important questions as Why am I watching this? and How the hell did this get made and did they think theyd get away with it? Horror is one of the hardest genres to get right and one of the easiest to screw up, and nothing spells disaster like an antagonist who either puts the audience to sleep or has them laughing in the aisles. When we should be getting worked up, with our palms moistening and our knuckles tightening, were yawning because weve been here before. Anyone who sat through the Prom Night remake knows what Im talking about. Every so often, a filmmaker will go out of their way to create an antagonist so fearsome, and fail so spectacularly, that their efforts beg that age old question, What on earth were you thinking? There are many epic fails listed here, plus a few snorers. Youll have no difficulty deciding which is which.
15. Professor Solomon (Hart Bochner) - Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
Once upon a time, Professor Solomon was a Film student whose future looked set he was going to become a world-renowned filmmaker who made simple yet thoughtful art films. That didnt work out, so he took a teaching job and began fantasising about the day hed murder one of his students and pass their film off as his own. The trouble is, the student in question has an identical twin brother who turns up and starts digging, prompting Solomon to murder everyone with a tenuous connection to the movie. Concealing his identity behind a fencing mask, he starts killing his own students, on his own campus, one after the other, little realizing the finger of blame will point directly at him when theres no one left. When Final Girl Amy (Jennifer Morrison) figures out his diabolical plan, Solomon turns into a Scooby villain, tearing off his mask and giving a speech outlining his motives. Hes apprehended following a chase, then Shaggy runs into a wall, everybody laughs and Scooby says, Scooby Dooby Doooo! etc.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
