10 Most Badass Buffy The Vampire Slayer Baddies

In every generation there is a chosen one – a cult show so zeitgeist-grabbing that it garners legions of rabid fans who watch, quote, live it years after its time on the airwaves. Buffy The Vampire Slayer turns 20 this year, and it’s safe to say its brand of fast quipping, hard kicking supernatural comedy drama is still massively influential to this day.

In the 14 years since its cancellation the cast and crew have found varying fortunes (for every Joss Whedon, there’s the guy who played Xander), but the episodes are timeless, the schlock of the lower budget early seasons’ monsters adding charm. A slow burning hit that eventually inspired fan devotion, people around the world still frequently enjoy the adventures of Buffy Anne Summers and her crew of loveably violent misfits.

Naturally, though, for a monster hunting show, the real stars are the monsters, and Buffy had some doozies. From the goofy and gross to the genuinely unnerving, Summerdale’s oeuvre of beasties takes (and took) some beating.

This countdown encompasses the toughest, weirdest, and most iconic monsters the Scooby gang ever locked horns (literal or otherwise) with. Points are awarded for style, ghastliness, and threat posed to the forces of good. Which will come out on top (or bottom, depending on your views on evil)?

Let's find out!

(spoilers follow for all seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, naturally)

The last season of Buffy was good, but you'd be hard pressed to call it one of the best. Its finale hit the right notes and the sense of scale was there, but The First Evil (basically a nasty old ghost) wasn't exactly the most imposing of baddies. Luckily, season seven did create one all timer, in the form of preacher of hate Caleb.

Played with real swaggering malevolence by Firefly star Nathan Fillion, Caleb is an acolyte of the non-corporeal original evil, and is essentially the right hand man to malevolence itself. Misogynistic and cruel, Caleb brands girls with his creepy ring, and seems to relish his role as the muscle of the operation.

Better known for his Han Solo-esque role in Joss Whedon's space western Firefly (and accompanying film Serenity), Fillion attacks a rare villainous role with aplomb. He seeks no empathy in his performance as one of Buffy's most evil human characters, and receives none – indeed, it is quite the relief when he is finally bested in the series' last episode.

Fillion's laconic southern drawl and mannered performance makes the character a truly eerie and threatening one, akin to Robert Mitchum in Night Of The Hunter. Caleb is a truly creepy piece of work, and it's a testament to Whedon's ability to pick actors that he found someone so versatile as the soon-to-be space captain.