10 Ridiculous Horror Movie Villains That Shouldn’t Have Worked… But Did

Horror villains have come in all shapes and sizes over the years, covering everything from deranged killers, demonic children, malevolent ghosts, unknowable cosmic terrors, and everything else in between.

In a genre where anything goes when it comes to the antagonists, it’s not surprising that filmmakers have attempted to turn even the most everyday item into a monstrous creation. Typically, the more ludicrous the villain, the closer the film gets to becoming a comedy. Whether these flicks are made to be intentionally silly (Killer Sofa) or genuinely tried to make their insane ideas work (Night Of The Lepus’s killer rabbits), it's impossible to take these laughable villains even slightly seriously.

Sometimes, though, the weirdest concepts for villains work to surprising effect. While these characters may not be as iconic or feared as their contemporaries, they nevertheless made their mark on audiences for all the right reasons.

While it would be easy to write them off as silly attractions, doing so would be a mistake. By embracing the weird and absurd, these frequently underrated horror oddballs helped make their respective films as genuinely frightening as they were wildly entertaining.

If Adam Green’s Hatchet films look like trashy B-movies, that’s because they are – but in the most fantastic way. Set in the bowels of a Louisiana swamp, each of the four films in the series thus far sees a group of characters being brutally and creatively axed-off by the vengeful spirit of Victor Crowley, who’s played by Jason Vorhees actor Kane Hodder.

A disfigured child who lived deep in the swamp with his father, Victor met his unfortunate end one Halloween night when a group of children, wanting to scare him, inadvertently set the Crowley house on fire. Victor’s father tried to save his son by breaking down the door with a hatchet. But unaware that his son was on the other side, accidentally killed him. Now Crowley roams the swamp each night in a murderous rage.

Given how self-indulgently schlocky everything else about these films are, one would expect Crawley to be just as ridiculous. This isn’t the case, however.

Not only does Hodder’s imposing onscreen presence make Crowley a threatening and seemingly unstoppable presence, but the levels of violence he displays is sickeningly visceral. If anything, the comedy is a welcome palette cleanser to accompany Crowley’s carnage.