10 Smartest Horror Movie Villains

6. Pennywise - It

Can you really say that a killer demon that hangs around in dark places and lures children to their deaths is all that smart? Of course you can, because that reading of Pennywise (or It, more correctly, of course) disregards all of the nuance of his being.

Pennywise is a master manipulator, deceitful, conniving and cunning, who manages to tune into the fears of everyone - more through telepathy than intellect - and use them to guide a reign of terror. It's the manner in which he applies the knowledge of his victims' fears that really sets him apart, finding ways to separate groups, engineering circumstances where they incubate his terrorising themselves... It's all incredibly impressive - particularly when you consider how fragile It is to its victims fighting back.

And for him to be able to cover all of that up, using a trick as simple as a memory charm of sorts is so utterly inspired that it gets completely overlooked.