10 One-Off Horror Movie Villains Who MUST Return

1978’s Halloween may’ve kicked off the Golden Age of slashers, but Bob Clark’s Black Christmas entered the genre four years earlier, and it arguably did it better than Carpenter’s masterpiece.

Black Christmas’ power lies in its ruthless, enigmatic, and frightening villain – Billy – who spends his time hiding in the attic of a sorority house as he regularly harasses the sorority sisters and knocks them off one-by-one.

Billy’s murders – which include the use of a plastic bag and a glass unicorn sculpture – are simple but disturbing and inventive. Yet, it’s his vulgar and demented phone calls to the women that make him unfathomably scary. At times, he sounds downright demonic, and his allusions to having dissociative identity disorder and/or schizophrenia enhance his complexity and intrigue.

Billy’s wickedness is bolstered by the film’s climax, when protagonist Jess Bradford’s boyfriend – Peter – gets blamed for the massacre after being killed by Jess with a fire poker. Thus, no one ever learns that Billy even exists, so he’s free to continue his murder spree as Jess sleeps in her bedroom with an officer ostensibly protecting her outside.

Neither the polarizing 2006 remake of Black Christmas nor the It’s Me, Billy fan film duology count as officially bringing back this Billy. So, for all intents and purposes, he’s yet to have the canon comeback he deserves.