10 Film Characters Who Were Secretly The Villain All Along

2. Mayor Larry Vaughn - Jaws

The main threat of Jaws, perhaps unsurprisingly, is of course Jaws itself. After all, without the terrifying killer shark chowing down on everyone it can, the film wouldn't exactly have a plot. However, it's also worth remembering that the events of Jaws would have been completely avoided had the Mayor of Amity Island not totally ignored the police chief's efforts to close the shark-infested beach.

While Jaws is obviously the major threat of the film, the beast is only doing what any shark instinctively does, albeit made worse because it's a huge, terrifying shark with a particular thirst for human blood. But it's not exactly unusually evil for a shark to hunt - whereas it's pretty messed up that the Mayor was willing to have people made into fleshy shark jerky just to keep the tourism the beach provides going.

You could argue that at this point people weren't totally sure a man-eating beast was haunting their waters, but the film explicitly has a medical examiner state that the first victim was killed by a shark attack, so the chances of one not still lurking around were pretty damn slim.