50 Infuriating Horror Movie Characters We All Secretly Wanted To Die
33. Gremlins - Ruby Deagle
Joe Dante's horror comedy Gremlins is jolly good fun, and one of the very few Christmas movies out there that is actually watchable. The key villains are the titular creatures, yet they're not the characters the audience will hate the most. That dubious honour belongs to Ruby Deagle.
As a selfish, miserly, Christmas-hating bank manager - "The bank and I have the same purpose in life, to make money, not to support a lot of deadbeats!" she says in one scene - Deagle is like a mash-up of Ebeneezer Scrooge and Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. She's horrible to everyone, she's damaged many lives with her unethical business practices, and she even threatens to murder the protagonist's dog in one scene.
That is crossing a line, and then some.
Unlike Scrooge, she doesn't change her ways and, unlike Mr. Potter, who never faces any sort of comeuppance (perhaps the single-biggest flaw in what is otherwise a masterpiece), Deagle does get her just desserts. The gremlins mess with the chair lift in her mansion and send it shooting up the stairs, causing her to fly out of the window to darkly hilarious effect.