10 One-Off Slasher Horror Movie Villains Who Must Return

Way before Tim Burton and Henry Sellick combined Xmas cheer with Halloween spookiness, Silent Night, Bloody Night set a slasher flick on that most joyous of holidays, Christmas Eve.

The 1972 film came a short while before the true golden era of the slasher movie, but it contains a lot of its hallmarks: gleefully reckless blood letting, a cheapness that adds rather than detracts from the scary feel, and most importantly, a great baddy. Here, it’s the elderly Wilfred Butler, who can boast many of the slasher killer’s greatest tropes before they were codified.

A mysterious past involving supposed death? Check (he was, in theory, burned to a crisp decades before the film is set). A kind of righteous motive? Check (one involving family trauma and a mental institution, both genre stalwarts). Shady secrets abound, plus the novelty factor of Grandpa Butler being a seriously old man.

While he’s hardly the most visually distinctive killer in genre history, Wilbur’s MO of mainly bashing victims over the head with blunt objects sets him apart from most. Simple, but effective.