10 Smartest Horror Movie Villains

3. Pinhead - Hellraiser

Pinhead is a rare breed, considering where his debut came in horror movie history. Far from the brainless slasher monsters that were popular in the 1980s, he was designed to be the antithesis of such simplicity - a quiet but intelligent creature with more in common with Count Dracula.

Producers at the time thought it was a mistake, given the successes of the likes of Freddy Krueger, but Clive Barker dug his heals in, sticking to his belief that intelligence is fundamentally terrifying. And he's correct - monsters like Pinhead are all the more devastatingly scary because they are clearly aware of what they're doing: his twisted intelligence is even more affecting than his iconic look.

He's no animal and instinct doesn't really come into it as an excuse: his is a measured, considered evil that means he's weighed up the morality and the implications of what he does and rejected them anyway.