10 Movies That Made You Root For Monsters

By Helen Jones / August 21, 2018

Movies have a funny way of manipulating our emotions so that we feel a certain way about certain characters. By positioning someone as a hero, a nice guy (or gal) or as a person deserving of our sympathy movies coax us into somewhat blindly cheering on a character. We’re encouraged to overlook the protagonist’s flaws and questionable actions when upon closer examination they actually spend their time on screen doing some pretty awful things.

Sometimes it’s not even that subtle, however. Often a character can be overtly villainous or at least more of an anti-hero and while the film in question doesn’t exactly shy away from those facts they’re portrayed in such a way that you can’t help but root for them even as they commit acts of downright evil.

But that’s the weird world of movies in which we’ll willingly gloss over all kinds of transgressions – from adultery and vandalism to cannibalism and terrorism – just because we’ve allowed the film to hypnotise us into falling for its hero or anti-hero.

Here’s ten of the worst offending movies that blurred the line between the good guys and the bad guys and had us all willingly cheering on characters that are actually rather despicable.

10. Beauty And The Beast – The Beast

It’s obvious that Disney wants us to see village sex pest Gaston as the villain of Beauty and the Beast and while he’s undoubtedly a tw*t of the highest order, when you really think about it the Beast isn’t much better himself.

Not only does he take poor, unassuming Maurice hostage in his dungeon for merely trying not to get eaten by wolves but when Belle bravely comes looking for her father he forces her into trading his freedom for her captivity. Maybe things were different in rural 18th century France but nowadays that kind of carry-on would land you a kidnapping charge or two.

He might give Belle the odd concession here and there like giving her a nice room instead of having her sleep in his dungeon or allowing her access to his library but he’s still essentially holding her prisoner against her own will until she falls in love – or rather falls in Stockholm syndrome – with him.

And let’s not forget what got the Beast into his predicament in the first place: being a spoilt brat to an enchantress just because he thought she was old, ugly and poor. Can we really say for sure that a decade living as a bear-lion-wolf hybrid has changed him or is he still the same man-child he always was except now with a penchant for kidnapping old dudes and young girls?