10 Truly Evil Horror Movie Villains Who Never Actually Killed Anyone
Evil villains who don't kill?! Next they'll be paying their taxes...
We are so used to seeing film cells drenched in blood and viscera that we often forget to observe the minutiae of the villains who made it so. This can be their motivations, their methods, or, you know, their glaring inability to actually do any of the killing themselves.
One would expect, at evil horror movie villain school, murder would be high on the curriculum, and yet there are a whole host of ne'er do wells who just can't cut the flustered victim.
Yes, there is a rogues' gallery of the evillest cretins out there who have never actually lifted their hand and done an honest day's killing. For some, it isn't really their fault -- for whatever reason, they've tried and tried again, but like Wile E Coyote, they can never land a fatal blow; for others, however, they are content to sit back and let others do the work, while ringing up the body count on their invoice.
Nevertheless, many of them remain some of the most recognised and celebrated baddies around. Here are 10 to remind you that you don't need to be lethal to be evil.
10. Mrs Ganush – Drag Me To Hell
There aren't many of us can name the villain from Drag Me To Hell off the top of our heads, but Mrs Ganush's horrifying face -- and the image of her shoving her arm down a woman's throat -- will stick with us forever.
Played by Lorna Raver in Sam Raimi's 2009 horror-comedy, Mrs Ganush is an old Roma woman denied a mortgage extension by bank loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman). Thus, she curses one of the buttons from Christine's coat, invoking the demon Lamia to torment her for three days before dragging her down to hell.
An aesthetic midpoint between sweet old lady and one of Raimi's deadites, Mrs Ganush wreaks havoc in the first act of the film, going from sombre to manic and back, fighting Christine in a parking lot and literally unleashing hell, before unceremoniously dying. She never has the opportunity to kill, and yet her intentions are as dark as they come, taking the hopelessness of her situation out on one of the bank's lowest level staff, rather than, say, the CEO...