10 Terrifying Characters In Non-Horror Movies

We’ve all worked with someone who adheres to the rules beyond the point of all reason, all common sense. Nurse Ratched (an Oscar winning Louise Fletcher) runs the psychiatric ward of Salem State Hospital in 1975 classic One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and she is a devoted employee - only her loyalty is to petty officialdom, rather than patient wellbeing.

Nurse Ratched is a woman corrupted by minor power. While the film and base novel suggest she initially got into care for the right reasons, the control she has over the ward’s inmates has gone to her head. Her only concern is to maintain order, to ensure the patients don’t step out of line. When Jack Nicholson’s free wheeling McMurphy comes onto the scene, a war between the two begins. Ratched isn’t afraid to fight dirty, spitefully withholding the privileges of patients who have displeased her, even threatening to report on one poor young man’s behaviour to his mother.

Ratched is an icy and controlled character whose fear factor only grows as the film makes clear just how much power she has over the patients’ lives. While the film ends on something of a hopeful note, the story is ultimately a tragedy: in the end, you can’t beat the system.