8 Horror Characters We Were Happy To See Killed
Because sometimes dead is better.
At their very core, so many horror movies from over the decades have been built around having some basic element of Killer vs. Victim at play.
While ideally an audience should be hoping and praying for the prey to somehow evade the grasp of the threat that's on the table, we all know that's not always the case. As has been seen over the decades, there are certain antagonists who viewers just want to get behind - be that a Michael Myers, a Jason Voorhees, a Freddy Krueger, etc - that in turn throws the established dynamics of the horror genre on their head.
Sometimes people root for the bad guys and gals because of that character's status and history or just because their viewing habits have a penchant for guts 'n' gore, while other times people find themselves backing those supposed villains because the people up against them are grating, obnoxious, or just all-round in need of a good brutalizing.
Taking into account a whole variety of different reasons then, here are eight such horror movie characters who, quite frankly, we were more than happy to see killed off.
8. Barry Cox - I Know What You Did Last Summer
Hopping on the back of Scream's success, I Know What You Did Last Summer was one of the '90s movies responsible for rejuvenating the slasher subgenre.
While I Know What You Did Last Summer was a breath of fresh air upon its release in October 1997, it did still rely on certain familiar horror tropes - one of which was that a good portion of its cast were unlikeable.
Disposable young pretty things had long been a staple of the horror genre, and everyone watching knew that not all of I Know What You Did Last Summer's core cast were going to make it out of the picture in one piece. Each of the four supposed protagonists of the film all have certain layers of unlikability, but it's Ryan Phillippe's Barry Cox who is the one audiences were most wishing bloody murder on.
That murder would indeed come to pass, with the hook of pissed off fisherman Ben Willis taking Barry down while a beauty pageant was taking place. To be fair, it's a visually well-crafted scene, with Sarah Michelle Gellar's Helen on-stage and shrieking in terror as she sees her boyfriend being attacked up on a balcony.
Barry was the brash, cocksure sort who thinks he can square up and go head-to-head with the killer of the piece. And as is so often the case, that didn't work out all that well for Barry upon being confronted by I Know What You Did Last Summer's murderous fisherman.