15 Most Monstrous Villains In Television

4. Paul Ellis (Luther)

Ramsay Bolton Game of Thrones
BBC

In the first two (untitled) episodes of season three of the BBC’s police psychological thriller Luther, the antagonist is a serial murderer by the name of Paul Ellis – a mute, seriously deranged fetishist. Mentored by a depraved, dying old murderer, William Carney, Ellis is now enacting his own violent fantasies.

Brought to disturbing life by actor Kevin Fuller, Ellis is a real monster of a man, all straining sinews and set, crazed face. Masquerading as a hunched little man with social issues, Ellis transforms when he removes his wig and glasses into an unstoppable brute. Such is the horrible power of Fuller’s wordless performance that he seems to grow two foot taller in doing so.

People across Britain were obsessively checking the crawlspaces and hidey-holes in their homes for weeks after this storyline first aired, and it’s lost none of its shock value. Ellis’ first victim gets is asleep for some minutes before the monster is revealed, in a genuinely horrible moment, to be hiding underneath her bed the whole time. His second attack sees him scratching about in the attic, simply waiting under a dustsheet until his victim comes close enough to pull the sheet off.

In the end, outmanoeuvred and confronted by clever, cantankerous Luther, Ellis simply leaps to his death three stories down. If you can find the episode, check out the look on his face one second before he crashes through the window, though. It’s sheer, insane malevolence: one of the most chilling things you’ll ever see.

Contributor
Contributor

Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.