10 Horror Movie Villains Who Were Completely Unprepared

By and large, horror villains tend to be fairly well prepared. After all, if the genre was filled with bumblingly incompetent antagonists who got caught off guard every time the protagonist fought back, it is safe to say that horror movies would illicit more roars of laughter than shrieks of terror.

With that being said, a key concept that always seems to fly over horror villains' heads is just how badly their victims want to live. The often unhinged nature of the personalities of these characters mean that they are genuinely gobsmacked at the notion that people don't want to be savagely murdered. As such, there are several notable instances of terrifying baddies who were caught completely unawares by the level of viscerally determined resistance coming back in their direction, often ending in their bloody demise as a result.

Underestimating one's potential prey is another notable factor that often leads to a sticky end for these villains. While they may have been prepared to murder, maim and wreak general bloody havoc to their heart's content, several horror antagonists have made the mistake of fatally letting their guard down when faced with a seemingly innocuous adversary, abjectly unaware of the distinct possibility that they may have just backed a wounded animal into a corner.

For one reason or another, this curtain call of villains all found themselves completely unprepared for the events that invariably resulted in their gruesome demise.

In all fairness to the titular Strangers of the franchise's second offering, Prey at Night, most aspiring slasher baddies would likely be caught off guard by a pair of teenagers who fought back with the ferocity demonstrated by the film's sibling protagonists, Luke and Kinsey.

The second Strangers outing saw the premise reimagined by director Johannes Roberts, as a family are terrorized while visiting a trailer park on vacation. The original was more of a psychological horror, while Prey at Night falls more within the bounds of the slasher sub-genre, featuring considerably more action. The film also chillingly utilizes a soundtrack of songs that would be more appropriate in a karaoke bar, as opposed to the backing music for a group of bloodthirsty killers.

Unfortunately for the masked murderers, the three villains turn out to be wholly unprepared for the level of resistance they find themselves faced with from the aforementioned teenagers. In the film's superbly shot pool fight sequence, Luke brutally stabs Pin Up Girl to death before going toe to toe with the Masked Man, despite the latter wielding an axe.

Luke is wounded and taken out of the action but the Strangers are no more prepared to deal with his sister. Kinsey gets the upper hand over Dollface and executes her before seemingly dispatching the Masked Man with a baseball bat to the dome. While the fate of the psychotic murderer is left deliberately ambiguous, the fact that the Strangers picked the wrong family for a nice easy murder spree is not.