10 Lesser Known Stephen King Villains

It takes some doing to be the most horrifying, dangerous being in a story of inter-dimensional monsters, but Mrs. Carmody achieves that quite easily. How? Simple. She's human. #deep.

After a mysterious mist blankets the town, a number of residents take refuge in a supermarket, where a microcosm of society begins to unfold, hastened by the presence of the carnivorous monsters outside. Lines are drawn and sides are formed.

Now, this isn't a critique of religious people or religion itself - given the situation the residents of the small tourist town of Bridgton, Maine find themselves in, I'd be inclined to get on my knees and pray, too. I'd challenge anyone to remain logical after being attacked by giant spiders that shoot acidic webbing from their abdomens. An idiom comes to mind. Something about atheists and foxholes.

Carmody, previously regarded as a fundamentalist nutjob, becomes the leader of one of the two supermarket factions, emboldened by the support of her newly-formed congregation. The apocalypse is seemingly unfolding outside, and her words of holy rhetoric begin to ring true for many of the people who have thus far avoided being eaten alive. Or melted. Or decapitated. Or crushed by giant tentacles belonging to god-knows-what.

Her rantings and ravings are tolerable to loving husband and father David Drayton and his group right up until Carmody calls for expiation - a blood sacrifice to appease God and avoid his punishment. Her chosen victims? David's son Billy and fellow survivor Amanda. Luckily, Carmody is killed by supermarket worker Ollie Weeks, and the survivors not swayed by her words escape.

That's where the novella ends, with the plucky band of survivors heading off into the unknown, but the movie adaptation leaves the viewer with a sickening realisation: Carmody was right.