How can a murderous cannibal and a vicious alien hunter be so hard to hate?
From vampires to evil twins to predatory fetuses, we can't help but root for these horror villains.
Director David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of Vincent Price's 1958 classic The Fly will
forever be infamous for the prolonged transformation of Jeff Goldblum's Seth Brundle into the half-man,
half-insect known as the Brundlefly.
However, amid all the vomiting and limb-dropping, Cronenberg and Goldblum splice in a genuine
moment of sympathy for their movie monster.
The scene in question happens shortly before the Brundlefly loses his final shred of humanity.
A near fully-transformed Seth confesses to his girlfriend Veronica, played with the perfect
balance of heartbreak and horror by Geena Davis, that he wants to become the world's
first insect politician.
His aim?
To bring order to the twitchy, chaotic, often vicious bug world.
It's an unexpectedly tender moment in a movie that's anything but.
Audiences briefly stop covering their eyes, if only to wipe away their tears as Brundle
confronts the terrifying truth of his transformation.
"I'm an insect —" gasping "— who dreamt he was a man, and loved it.
But now the dream is over."
It's proof that a human soul still lurks somewhere within the monster, a point that's hammered
home during the film's heartbreaking final moments.
In Malignant, horror maestro James Wan puts his own spin on the evil twin trope by hiding
his villain in plain sight and making the big bad the dark side of his protagonist's persona.
Some viewers might consider the hero and villain of Malignant to be two separate people: Madison
Mitchell, played by Annabelle Wallis, and her parasitic twin brother, Gabriel, played
by Marina Mazepa, respectively.
For most of the movie, that's what we're led to believe.
As the film progresses, however, we learn that Madison and Gabriel are one and the same:
a pair of twins fused together by a problem in the womb.
It turns out Gabriel is latched onto Madison's back and determined to create murderous havoc
by using her body's backward motion to move around and kill.
It's for this reason that Madison experiences the dream-like visions of Gabriel's murders.
"I saw him murdering her in her house.
And it was like I was there and here at the same time."
Root for one, and you're inevitably rooting for the other.
As Wan's modern take on the Edward Mordrake myth unfolds, we realize that, in order to
beat the baddie, Madison must regain control of her body.
As Gabriel's grizzly kill count increases, we're cheering for her every step of the way.
It's a strange concept to be sure, but Wan admitted that was the appeal.
He told ComingSoon.net,
The directorial debut of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace star Alice Lowe introduces us to
Ruth, a heavily pregnant woman who believes that her unborn baby is telling her to kill people.
However, as this slash-happy tale plays out, we learn about the heartbreaking personal
trauma that led this mother-to-be to violence.
Lowe's film is a darkly comedic comment on the often-unseen pressures that accompany
childbirth and the rollercoaster ride of becoming a mother.
"You're insane."
"I am a working mother."
The inclusion of those elements imbues Ruth with an unexpected down-to-Earth sympathy.
This is something Lowe was quick to comment on in interviews surrounding the film's 2017
release.
She told Big Issue North that the path to motherhood is not always as romantic as some
might expect, and that she intended the film to be an exploration of society's treatment
of pregnant mothers.
She explained,
The undead duo in the 1994 film Interview with the Vampire, Lestat de Lioncourt and
Louis de Pointe du Lac, share the curse of blood-sucking immortality.
"Have you said your goodbyes to the light?"
However, while Lestat, played by Tom Cruise, revels in his cruelty, Louis, played by Brad
Pitt, is haunted by a lingering human conscience.
He dedicates his never-ending lifespan to gaining a better understanding of what he
now is.
Despite being a pale, cat-eyed creature of the night, Louis' quest for meaning is undeniably
human, and it's one that viewers can relate to.
From the death of his sadistic but beloved adopted daughter, Claudia , played by Kirsten
Dunst, to the painful discovery that there may be no answer to the question he's spent
his afterlife trying to solve, Louis's journey is not without its share of tragedy.
To make matters worse, an inescapable sense of guilt travels with him all the way, like
the ghost of the mortal life he left behind.
In an interview with SciFiNow commemorating the film's 25th anniversary, director Neil
Jordan explained,
Sometimes a movie villain is simply so charismatic that you end up cheering for them despite
knowing better.
Many have thought that to be the case with Silence of the Lambs' Hannibal Lecter.
The former psychiatrist and flesh-hungry cannibal is one of the most charming movie terrors
ever committed to celluloid.
"Oh, Clarice, your problem is you need to get more fun out of life."
For the majority of Jonathan Demme's award-winning 1991 movie, Sir Anthony Hopkins' chianti and
fava bean-loving serial killer is confined to a maximum security prison cell.
It's during this time that Jodie Foster's rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling forms an
unlikely bond with the murderer.
Weirdly enough, as we watch Hannibal help Clarice track down Buffalo Bill, Starling
isn't the only one warming to Lecter in spite of their better instincts: the audience is,
as well.
This can be traced back to the way Hopkins crafted his character, lifting it from the
pages of Thomas Harris' book to the big screen.
Over the years, it's widely been reported that the star based his portrayal of Lecter
on a tarantula, but more recently Hopkins told Vanity Fair,
Hopkins' approach was undeniably effective.
For many, it's hard not to envision a former teacher when thinking of figures you love
to hate.
Recent years have seen an uptick in horror movies centering on mental health, with a
specific focus on the ways in which society treats the most vulnerable.
These themes take the spotlight in director Rose Glass' stark seaside horror film, Saint Maud.
In this bleak tale, we follow Morfydd Clark's lonely and damaged heroine, a palliative care
nurse sent to provide end of life care to a terminally ill patient.
However, it's not long before we discover that Maud has her own demons that can't be
easily cured.
As her fascination with the power of God gives way to hallucinations and her own spiraling
mental health, Maud slips through society's cracks and falls tragically out of reach.
"I'm so sorry I was unkind to you.
You made me think of things I didn't want to."
Ultimately, her misguided choices make her the villain of the film, but make no mistake:
We're rooting for a savior to rescue Maud every step of the way.
In an interview with Big Issue North, Clark elaborated on Maud's heartbreaking character arc:
Unfortunately, Maud deviates massively and gets it terribly wrong, whilst trying harder
and harder to be good.
That's the tragedy of it."
Gory hook-handed killings aside, audiences end up rooting for the modern-day urban myth
known as the Candyman thanks to his tragic past, which contains harrowing echoes of modern-day
social strife.
Legend has it that a savage lynch mob created the Candyman, hanging a Black artist after
he impregnated a wealthy white woman.
Now, anytime that someone utters the Candyman's name five times in front of a mirror, he returns
to seek vengeance.
"Helen Lyle was out here looking for Candyman.
You ask me?
I say she found him."
The character's painful history ends up imbuing Candyman, played by actors Tony Todd in Bernard
Rose's original 1992 film and by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in filmmaker Nia DaCosta's 2021 remake,
with not only a lasting cultural resonance, but also traces of an eerie, doomed romance.
"You were not content with the stories, so I was obliged to come."
It's no coincidence that the majority of the Candyman's female summoners end up in a blood-soaked
relationship with the killer that borders on the romantic, at least when the character's
razor-sharp hook isn't at work.
During a 2021 interview with Dread Central, Tony Todd described his iconic villain as
a "misunderstood character searching for love."
Todd went on to compare Candyman to another tragically romantic movie monster, the Phantom
of the Opera, saying that the Candyman is a Gothic figure.
He added that Rose and his co-star, Virginia Madsen, used that fact as inspiration, saying,
2020's blood-soaked take on the body-swap comedy sees bullied high-schooler Millie Kessler,
played by Kathryn Newton, exchange minds with an escaped serial killer, the Blissfield Butcher,
played by Vince Vaughn.
While knife-dodging hilarity and a hefty kill count quickly ensue, this slasher switcheroo
inadvertently had us rooting for the movie's baddie.
"Have you ever seen me dress like that?
I mean, I kind of like a lot of what he's doing with it, but the point is that you've
never seen me dress like that, right?"
Vaughn's unflappable improv abilities instill any scene with a loose, laugh-a-minute energy.
Mix that with the star's perfect embodiment of a self-conscious teenager, and you'll quickly
forget that we're actually being guided through director Christopher Landon's killer comedy
by the very guy we're supposed to be afraid of.
Vaughn seemed to have a great time exploring Millie's dramatic, adolescent world.
He told Digital Spy,
As a reverse exorcist dedicated to ridding haunted houses of their human problem, Michael
Keaton's Beetlejuice is essentially the villain of director Tim Burton's cult classic.
That said, it's the movie's namesake star who makes the cinematic threat so irresistibly watchable.
Like the shark in Jaws or Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight, Keaton's "Ghost with the
Most" may have limited screen time, but it's what Keaton does with it that counts.
From Beetlejuice's explosive entrance to Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis' recently deceased
couple realizing that they've made a terrible mistake by summoning him, we're instantly
hooked on this dusty and dangerously funny undead dude.
In an interview with AFI, Burton confessed his initial skepticism about the film.
He went on to comment on how the weirdness of Beetlejuice is what makes the movie work:
Compared to the Alien series' Xenomorph, the Predator has always been the more sympathetic villain.
Sure, it's an intergalactic space hunter that enjoys violently ripping the spines out of
its kills, but unlike its drooling counterpart, there's a certain honor guiding the Predator's actions.
This contrast was kicked into overdrive in 2004's silly space spin-off Alien vs. Predator,
a crossover film that saw the masked warrior become an unlikely ally to a human as they
worked together to beat the chest-bursting threat.
The film's final moments even feature a scene in which the movie's heroic Predator, Scar,
awards human hero, Lex, played by Sanaa Lathan, a hunter's mark of her own, using Xenomorph
blood to burn it into her skin as a symbol of her bravery.
It's enough to make us tear up, especially when Scar later sacrifices himself so that
his new pal can escape safely.
While the film divided fans, Alien vs. Predator actually impressed Aliens filmmaker James Cameron.
In 2006, he rated it the third-best of the five Alien sequels at the time.
He told Ain't It Cool News,
"I actually liked it.
I actually liked it a lot."