10 Horror Movies Where The Villain Is A Supposedly Inanimate Object

Spooky objects are to horror movies what sequins were to Liberace. We've had books of the dead, monkey paws, totems, creepy dolls, puzzles and boxes with everything imaginable in them (what's in the box?!). Since the very dawn of cinema, these have provided ample opportunity for horror villains to take hold of their unsuspecting victims, but what happens when these characters cut out the middle man and instead take centre-stage?

Some films simply won't settle for the cursed, hexed, possessed, or otherwise smitten object to be a mere MacGuffin. No, for some the object must live long enough to see itself become the villain. And what better way to catch the audience unaware than with something that is supposed to be inanimate? Just when we think we're safe, there's a car, a dress, a luxurious hairpiece to creep into our nightmares and pull us out screaming -- and that's only if the bed doesn't eat us first.

Thus, herein lie ten such inanimate objects that had their way with their horror film, rising up and becoming the villains they were surely always destined to be.

Peter Strickland's absurd 2018 horror In Fabric feels like someone put Yorgos Lanthimos and Monty Python in the big horror blender in the sky -- but you'll have to decide whether that's a good or bad thing.

Bank teller Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) makes ends meet while contesting with her obnoxious son's older girlfriend Gwen (Gwendoline Christie) and a string of decidedly Kafkan reprimands at work. Entranced by a flowing red dress in her local department store, Sheila soon finds herself menaced by nightmares, visions and, as it happens, the dress itself.

Simple, elegant and with a nasty bite, the dress drifts across rooms at will, destroys washing machines from the inside out, and manifests the deaths of its wearers without choking, strangling or any of the other methods of attack one might expect from sentient clothing.

Everything in the film is slightly unreal, from the dialogue to the oversaturated palette, bedding the horror in from beginning to end. And, unlike comparable features, the film pulls off a 1980s look and feel that settles into the era without resorting to neon, shutter shades or Roffe Demetre jackets. Matching the time period, Strickland is also dedicated to practical staging and effects, producing a classic horror style that doesn't care whether you can see the seams so long as you're thoroughly uncomfortable.