8 Horror Movies That Tricked You Into Rooting For The Villain

Most of the entries on this list concern bait-and-switches, where audiences think the person they're following is a virtuous hero, only for them to be revealed as the killer. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon presents no such illusion: you know from the get go that Leslie Vernon has nothing but cruel intentions.

It's not the first flick told from the POV of a slasher killer, but it might just be the most playful. See, Vernon is a self-confessed horror movie nut. He's the kind of guy who'd probably love this channel all things considered, however he takes that love of the genre one step further and becomes an aspirational serial killer.

He wants to be as well known as Freddy, Jason or Michael and so stages a horror movie set up in real life, tempting a group of victims to a secluded home. There he's rigged it to perfection to follow the classic horror beats: he has smoke machines, he has his little hiding places, and he's even got a backstory for his killer.

The reason you find yourself rooting for this nutter, though, is because he's so hilariously useless. He's trying his best to be a scary murderer (which takes a lot of cardio), but he's pretty crappy at it. Seeing the effort he's put in, you just want the guy to catch a break. Even if that means someone gets decapitated.