10 Smartest Horror Movie Villains

5. David 8 - Alien: Covenant

Being an android might seem like cheating in this respect, but sci-fi horror bends all sorts of rules. Which is sort of the point.

Alien: Covenant is a curious beast in that it presents itself both as an Alien prequel and something else entirely, because the story is more in service of exploring David the android as a villain rather than the xenomorphs. It's another of those promethean anxiety tales (hence its predecessor being called Prometheus), which presents David as the conclusion to mankind's deadly over-reaching.

He's an instrument of human destruction, a being intrigued by the Oedipal cycle of wanting to "kill the father" but with a cold, calculated agenda to that end and not one driven by passion. He's remarkably intelligent but adds a near-human sense of manipulation and cunning to his armoury too and while he has some flaws because of his lack of humanity, he's definitely up there with the smartest.