10 Great Horror Movie Characters Ruined By Terrible Sequels

4. Don't Breathe 2 - Norman

Don't Breathe 2
Sony Pictures Releasing

Sometimes, a horror movie villain should just be allowed to stay a villain. Case in point: Norman from Don't Breathe, played by the terrific Stephen Lang, who's best-known these days for being the main antagonist in both Avatar movies. 

In 2016's Don't Breathe, Norman was one of the finest horror movie villains of the 2010s. The film follows three robbers who break into Norman's house. As he's a blind man, they assume he'd be an easy target. He ultimately turns out to be a fierce, psychopathic killer who hunts via sound. 

He's also captured and forcibly impregnated a woman, who he's holding captive in his basement, and he later tries to do the same thing to that movie's protagonist. That part of the film was unnecessarily icky, perhaps, but Norman was otherwise a faultless horror movie monster played to fearsome perfection by Stephen Lang. 

So yes, Norman deserved to come back for a sequel in some form... but not like this. 2021's Don't Breathe 2 turns Norman into the antihero protagonist who's trying to protect his adopted daughter. It expects viewers to root for a psychopathic thug who raped and murdered his way through the original film. As such, even in its better moments, Don't Breathe 2 is a profoundly uncomfortable watch. 

 
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Film Studies graduate, aspiring screenwriter and all-around nerd who, despite being a pretentious cinephile who loves art-house movies, also loves modern blockbusters and would rather watch superhero movies than classic Hollywood films. Once met Tommy Wiseau.