20 Greatest Horror Villains Of The 2020s (So Far)
19. The Grabber - The Black Phone
There haven't been nearly enough truly iconic masked killers in horror movies this decade so far, so The Black Phone's The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) definitely supplied an underserved genre niche.
For one, The Grabber is just a fundamentally creepy-looking piece of work, but behind his eerie mask is a flesh-and-blood man who abducts and kills children in plain sight amid an unaware suburbia.
Hawke's casting is also key here - the actor has rarely played villains throughout his career for fear of being typecast, so it's a unique treat to see him perform with such unrelenting menace.
And yet, Hawke underplays a potentially over-the-top antagonist, his voice and subtle physical movements ensuring he always cuts a pulse-quickening presence.
In fact, Hawke was so damn good in the role that director Scott Derrickson couldn't resist but bring him back from the dead for The Black Phone 2, having him live on as a Freddy Krueger-esque dream stalker, because why the heck not?