10 Awesome Horror Movie Villains With Stupid One Weakness

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The Mummy Cat
Universal Pictures

Villains, particularly in horror the horror genre, are intended to appear indestructible. They're unstoppable killing machines, walking, unstoppable monoliths that will not be deterred from their ultimate goal: gorily dismembering you.

But it would be a fairly short film, or at least a boring one, if all it featured was the protagonists running in fear for 90 minutes with no hope of survival. There has to be a final girl, a hero worth rooting for, that can finally go toe-to-toe with the evil that's manifested and either win-out or meet an untimely end.

Smart horror films find ways for such climactic showdowns are built up to a level of intensity that keeps audiences guessing, nearly pleaded for an out. The best have a kernel of thematic relevance, bringing the story to a close while resonating with the subconscious ideas the film presents.

When Michael Meyers is finally shot by nemesis Dr. Loomis at the end of Halloween, only to vanish moments later, it's not a cliffhanger. The film ends with shots of areas of the sleepy suburb of Halloween where the evil may reside, driving home the point that evil is everywhere, no matter how we try to defeat it. This coincided with the end of the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration.

But horror films can get lazy, treating their killers like big bads of video games. All you have to do is hit the right spot on the monster's body, and you're the victor.

Here are the most embarassing.

10. Jason Voorhees Can't Deal With Water...Sometimes

The Mummy Cat
Paramount Picitures

It's fair to say that Jason Voorhees has Oedipal issues that, if he were even slightly well adjusted, could have been dealt with through intensive therapy. His mother was very protective of her young son during his early days, particularly due to his deformities to which other children of the 1950s weren't exactly politically correct about. When a few camp counsellors meant to oversee the young boy snuck off for nookie, he supposedly drowned tragically.

Alas, he survived (?) in the wilderness, only to witness a counsellor decapitate his only ally in the first film. From then on, Jason has been on a rampage that has taken him from Crystal Lake to New York City (actually filmed in Toronto save for a shot or two) to space.

His relationship to water since his apparent drowning has been one of the most inconsistent aspects of the franchise but in Freddy Vs. Jason, the dream demon realizes that deep down, the machete-wielding maniac really is just a big aquaphobe at heart. That doesn't stop him from rising from the water with Freddy's head in his hand by the film's end, but who really watches Friday the 13th for narrative?

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Contributor
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Kenny Hedges is carbon-based. So I suppose a simple top 5 in no order will do: Halloween, Crimes and Misdemeanors, L.A. Confidential, Billy Liar, Blow Out He has his own website - thefilmreal.com - and is always looking for new writers with differing views to broaden the discussion.