4. Alex DeLarge - A Clockwork Orange
Played By: Malcolm McDowell The thing that makes Alex so terrifying is the sheer glee he gets from dealing out horrific acts - rape and brutality are merely past-times to him. Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece exists in a dystopian London that features violent episode after violent episode and none more infamous or chilling than Alex's rape of a woman whilst singing along to Singin' in the Rain. The thing that haunts most about Alex is his stare - sinister, yet nonplussed - it lingers on your mind long after the film has closed. Alex has no reasons to do the things he does other than to gain enjoyment, and more vile the crime, the greater the glee. Alex has no concept of morality, which is what makes him the great screen villain he is. He does what he does simply because he can, whether that is beating up a defenceless homeless man or rape a woman in front of her husband. He has no need for empathy and is without redeeming qualities. Even when he is 'good', it is because he has been forced to be. Despite his reprehensible ways, Alex is charming and cultured - he listens to Beethoven and it is impossible not to sit up and listen when he speaks - he is a leader of men and knows it. Alex DeLarge is perhaps the closest thing cinema has seen to a pure form of evil - he is impossible to figure out psychologically and is as chilling as anything set to celluloid. Malcolm McDowell deserves all the praise in the world for embodying such a complex, vile and evil character.
3. Jack Torrance - The Shining
Played By: Jack Nicholson The Jack Torrance that inhabits Stanley Kubrick's horror masterpiece is far less sympathetic than the man that inhabits Stephen King's inferior novel. Jack Nicholson is better than anybody at doing crazy and in The Shining he takes crazy to an entirely new level of evil. Torrance is influenced my evil manifestations in the spirit of the hotel and he descends into a tragic state of madness from which he never returns. Jack's downfall is his rage and violence as he attempts to murder his wife and young son. His diabolical intentions overcome him as he loses sight of reality and is outwitted by his son which leads to his death in the snow. Jack Torrance is one of cinema's most frightening characters, purely because of how human he is but when he really descends into madness, there is little of the real Jack left and he no longer controls his will. Jack's actions in the movie have entered pop culture lore and scenes from the movie are often imitated and parodied because of the level of popularity that the film reached, but that does not make Jack any less evil or villainous.