10 Horror Movie Characters Who Made Our Skin Crawl

The slimeballs, the sleazes, the arrogant a**hats and the all-out obnoxious jerks.

From Dusk Till Dawn Quentin Tarantino Richie Gecko
Miramax Films

By its very nature, the horror genre is one often littered with despicable people carrying out heinous acts, often in the most brutal of ways imaginable.

While brutality is one way to drum up dread and make an audience uncomfortable, there are so many other ways to have horror hounds wincing in their seats. And at times, there's no better way to get under someone's skin than by serving up a character who is, well, a bit of a creep.

This list isn't about the classic larger-than-life villains of horror, but more the focus is on those horror characters who were so eww-inducing that that they had you crossing your fingers that something truly dreadful was going to happen to them.

Here, it's about the slimeballs, the sleazes, the arrogant a**hats, the all-out obnoxious jerks and the like. Y'know, those characters who were able to irritate you and/or disturb you without having to slice 'n' dice their way through a pile of disposable teens to do so - and in some cases, these characters were even positioned as protagonists in their respective pictures.

With that in mind, then, here are ten horror characters who managed to continuously make our skin crawl during their time on the silver screen.

10. Todd Hughes - Hostel: Part II

From Dusk Till Dawn Quentin Tarantino Richie Gecko
Lionsgate

With his second Hostel offering, Eli Roth gave audiences several characters who were painfully unlikeable.

Of course, there's the Elite Hunting Club itself, whose particular business of torture is chillingly sinister. Then there's Stuart (Rogert Bart), the seemingly meek and mild fella who finds himself winning an auction to commit bloody murder and then goes full-on nuts.

The most disturbing, annoying piece of the Hostel II puzzle, though, has to be Richard Burgi's Todd Hughes.

Essentially a minted jock who never particularly grew up, Todd is nothing if not pumped at the prospect of getting to terrorise and torment some helpless victims. In this case, this prick is the 'winner' when it comes to an auction to kill two young American girls - those girls being Beth and Bijou Phillips' Whitney.

After all of his bravado and general 'bro' behaviour, the kicker in Hostel: Part II is that Todd completely bottles the task at hand when he finally finds himself faced with the tied-up Whitney. After accidentally scalping his victim, Todd panics, starts to cry and tries to leave the Elite Hunting Group facility.

Fortunately for audiences, Todd's would-be escape is foiled and he's tore to pieces by a pack of savage dogs.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.