10 Most Disappointing Villains From Recent Horror Movies

We recently covered a sinister selection of the vilest villains from recent horror films, but what about the recent horror villains that made us go "Oh, bother," like Winnie-the-Pooh, in disappointment?

Some villains have become so iconic and embedded in our psyche that we expect their petrifying presence to permeate every scene in the sequels that follow. But instead, they're minimised, to the detriment of these follow-ups. Others may have set such a high horror benchmark in previous films that we're then left feeling a sense of dissatisfaction with the next outing of these supposedly chilling characters.

There have been mortal monsters brought back from the dead, but imbuing them with immortality somehow lessens their overall effectiveness. And some rogues start off with understated scariness, but then fail to stick the landing come their show-stopping reveal.

Then there are those other horror villains who have been hyped up, but leave us feeling frustratingly shortchanged, or those characters who literally live long enough to become the villain, only for the one-eighty turn to leave a lot to be desired.

So, let's take aim at these recent disappointing horror antagonists. Hey, you may even get a shot at some Razzie winners…

Ethan Hawke gave us an unnerving performance as a child serial killer, the Grabber, in Scott Derrickson's 2021 supernatural horror The Black Phone. 

In that first movie, the Grabber wasn't enhanced with the supernatural side of things. He could be your next-door neighbour. Your brother. The man in a black van pulling up alongside you at the traffic lights. The man you would help when he dropped his groceries on the ground. The everyman visiting a hardware store. He's someone who defines our absolute worst thoughts when we wonder what goes on behind other people's closed doors. He was a human who died at the hands of survivor Finney Blake (Mason Thames). 

Until 2025's Black Phone 2, that is.

Here, the sequel takes the Nightmare on Elm Street route, with the Grabber now a supernatural spectre seeking vengeance against an older Finn and his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw). And with the supernatural, anything goes.

Set within a Christian winter youth camp, the Grabber turns his ferocious focus on Gwen by distorting her dreams with terrifying and traumatising images of the killer's first victims. Seeing the Grabber invade Gwen's haunting dreamscape and pull her towards a fiery doom, while others look on in suspended terror, does give us the requisite heebie-jeebies.

However, in amongst the multiple rabbit hole mysteries, the one that should have been further explored is the Grabber's genesis. This was briefly touched upon and is something that Hawke himself has expressed interest in. What made the youth camp maintenance man nicknamed "Wild Bill" turn to a life of black balloons, amongst other things?