9 Classic Stephen King Movie Villains Who Chill You To The Bone

6. Kurt Dussander - Apt Pupil (1998)

Kurt Dussander is a villain to make your blood run cold. A Nazi War criminal, he is lying low under the pseudonym of Arthur Denker in Southern California. Undetected for decades, his cover is blown by the nosying of teenage school boy Todd Bowden who happens to be obsessed with Nazism and who knows who Dussander is. Todd forces Dussander to tell him tales about the Holocaust - or else he will blow his cover. He even buys Dussander an SS uniform and makes him march and salute. This is the most chilling part of the film, with Dussander marching just as if Nazi Germany is alive and well. Indeed, the evil which seemed to have been dormant for decades, is unleashed in Dussander at Todd's prompting. He tries to stick a cat in the oven. He tries to kill a hobo who saw him in SS garb. At the scene of crime, Dussander has a heart attack and Todd has to come, finish killing the hobo and call an ambulance. Eventually Dussander's cover is blown and he kills himself by injecting air into his veins. Todd, meanwhile, graduates as Valedictorian and assuredly wipes out anything that would connect him to Dussander. The film poses serious questions about identity - can you forget your past and be rehabilitated back into decent society? Do ex-Nazis still yearn for the days of the Third Reich? How far is it possible to corrupt a minor or were they corrupted in the first place? This is a film that really makes you think and it is in no small part due to Sir Ian McKellen's powerhouse performance as Dussander. Thanks to Dussander, Nazi evil is not just in the past anymore. It is up close and personal, giving an absolutely fascinating portrait of irredeemable evil.