10 Horror Movie Characters That Didn't Deserve The Hate
2. Wendy Torrance - The Shining
There is simply no horror movie character more unfairly maligned than The Shining's heroine Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall).
For the better part of 40 years, there have been those tirelessly committed to the idea that Wendy is a meek, annoying character who didn't "deserve" to live - with some even wishing she'd met the end of husband Jack's (Jack Nicholson) axe.
Even the novel's original author Stephen King - who famously loathes Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation - called Wendy "a screaming dishrag," and reflects the attitude from many viewers that she's simply too "pathetic" to live.
That's without even getting into Shelley Duvall's performance, which received a Razzie nomination at the time, yet was recently revoked due to Kubrick's infamously abusive treatment of Duvall on set.
Yet Duvall's performance isn't even bad at all - it's a phenomenally grounded and devastatingly believable look at the corrosive effects of abuse.
Wendy, certainly not a person of strong personality, is clearly a victim of domestic abuse - whether merely emotional or also physical - and The Shining is ultimately about her journey to reclaim her agency by defending her son Danny (Danny Lloyd) from his now-murderous father.
Appreciating the context of Wendy's existence within the film, it's much tougher to dislike her, regardless of what you make of Duvall's work.