10 Horror Villains Who Were Just Misunderstood

Given their tendency to off anybody who dares to cross their path in stomach-churningly gruesome ways, horror villains can often get a bad press. After all, it’s hard to sympathise or identify with a character with body counts in the hundred who seemingly kill without out a morsel of remorse … at least for most of us.

But some horror villains may be more deserving of our sympathy than first glances would suggest. Some have backstories and childhoods so tragic it’s really not surprising they turned out a bit messed up, while others are simply acting on their own instinct to survive. Some of these poor, tragic villains didn’t even commit half the gruesome butchery their characters are forever associated with while some you could say even did the world a favour by offing some of their victims.

While these guys aren’t heroes or even antiheroes, they’re certainly not the total bastards they’re made out to be. Take a look at these villains in a more sympathetic light and you might just find they’re not so evil after all – just a little misunderstood.

Poor Jason Voorhees had it rough from the start. Born with several physical deformities and raised in isolation by his loving but overbearing mother, Jason’s first time in the company of his peers at Camp Crystal Lake saw him bullied mercilessly and led to his death by drowning which went unnoticed by negligent camp counsellors because they were too busy being horny teenagers.

Then it turns out he didn’t drown after all but brought himself up in the woods alone never really mentally maturing beyond his pre-adolescent years only to witness the decapitation of his mother at the hands of yet another pesky teenaged counsellor years later. Basically he’s just a big kid in a scary, murderous man’s body with a completely understandable dislike for camp counsellors and teens in general.

As for most of the sequels, it’s not like Jason asked to be raised from the dead by that meddlesome Tommy Jarvis and he’s only doing what comes naturally to paranormally resurrected serial killers … which is apparently kill even more people.