Internet is full of lists about the greatest villains of all time. Names like Norman Bates, Hannibal Lecter, the Joker and the Terminator are always among those. But there are some really bad guys that never make into those lists. Many of them were never given a chance to show the audience how evil they are, maybe for being in very obscure movies, maybe for never really have had much time on screen. Well, for those underrated baddies, we've created this list that proves that you don't need to be famous to haunt the nightmares of your viewers.
10 Peter McCabe (Michael Keaton) - Desperate Measures (1998)
Used with Keaton as a superhero? Than, take a look at this 1998 Barbet Schroeder movie, where the former Bruce Wayne plays a deranged psychopath who is taken out of jail so he can donate his marrow to a little boy who has leukemia. The boys father, a cop played by Andy Garcia, tought that would be a quick operation, and soon McCabe would be back behind bars. But the prisioner had no plans of going back to jail, and brings hell to that hospital, killing anyone who gets in the way of his escape.
09 Noca de Antonia (Irandhir Santos) - Besouro (2009)
Noca is a fast talking, drunk, coward and racist foreman of a sugarcane plantation in Brazil, at the beggining of the XX century. When one of his slaves, Besouro, starts using capoeira to attack the owners of the plantations, Noca is sent to stop him. The character could become very unpleasant with the wrong actor, but Irandhir Santos, one of the most charismatic Latin actors alive, steals the movie with his accent and deliciously outrageous lines.
08 - Baron Frankenstein (Ralph Bates) - Horror of Frankenstein (1970)
I know what you're thinking: "How can Frankenstein be a overlooked villain, his one of the most famous characters of all time!". Well, even tough there are no doubts about how well known Frankenstein is, there's one particular rendition of the character that almost nobody talks about. In this Hammer movie (only one of the series where the character is not played by Peter Cushing), Frankenstein is a young and ruthless scientist, obsessed with creating his monster. Nothing different about that, but the way Bates plays it is very refreshing: a ladies man and a cold blooded killer living in a castle, almost as an arrogant Beverly Hills playboy with a monster in the lab. Not as memorable as Cushing's version of the doc, but still worth a look.
07 Ygor (Bela Lugosi) - Son of Frankenstein (1939) and Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)
Bela Lugosi is always remembered for his vampire roles, but his greatest performance has to be as Ygor, the hunchback madman with a broken neck who wants his brain to be taken into the body of Frankestein's monster, so he can live forever. Ygor appears in Son of Frankenstein and Ghost of Frankenstein, and is, maybe, the one memorable character in this two rather bland movies.
06 Dr. Laurence Jeffries (Anthony Perkins) - Someone Behind the Door (1971)
In this interest French movie, Anthony Perkins plays a doctor who plans to kill his wife after discovering she has a lover. When he gets to treat a amnesiac patient (played by Charles Bronson), he finds the perfect way to do it. First he takes the anonymous patient home and start suggesting that he is the one with a cheating wife. Slowly, Jeffries convinces him to murder her when she gets home, but there are certain things that don't come up as planned...
05 Irving Wallace (Clain Parker) - Stage Fright: Aquarius (1987)
Irving Wallace is a serial killer who escapes a mental institution and murders a member of a theatre company that is rehearsing a play about... a serial killer! When the director of the show decides to use the crime to promote the play, he couldn't expect that Wallace was going to take the place of actor who plays him and get into the rehearsals. Now, armed with all kinds of killing devices, he is going to give those actors a night to remember.
04 Preacher (Roy McArthur) - Escape from Safehaven (1989)
This is a very, very rare movie with a cheap production and a script that tries too hard to be Escape From New York. But, apart all that, the movie does have a strong villain, Preacher, played by Roy MacArthur. In a post apocalyptic future, Preacher is a leader of a gang of punks (off course!!!) that controls Safehaven 18, a fortified town where survivals of World War III go take shelter. Needless to say that he and his friends spread terror among the refugees, and have to be stopped by a group of rebels. How can you not love a villain who has lines like: "Too bad your wife died. You see, I always wanted to **beep** her!"?
03 Goose (David John) - Dead Boyz Can't Fly (1992)
Goose is not only scary because of his cruelty, he can give you the creeps just for standing there. A sociopath gang leader with a fetish for wearing women's clothes and wigs, not to mention a huge Oedipus complex, Goose is every big town citizen's nightmares come thrue. Along with his two pals, Buzz and Jo Jo, he breaks up into a office bulding and starts to torture and kill everyone he meets. Why? Just for the sake of it. What makes him more frightening is the idea that our cities have plenty of Gooses walking around. Now, that's something Freddy Krueger doesn't have.
02 Marcus (Moussa Maaskri) - Requiem (2001)
Evil and loving it! Marcus is also a gang leader, but unlike Goose he is a man with a plan. After being betrayed by one of his henchmen and sent to jail with the rest of the gang, he spends years planning to get out and get even. After a bloodly escape from prison, the group invades an monastery and take the monks as hostages, without knowing that one of them is the traitor that put them behind bars. Marcus' fury is huge, he has no problem in killing priests or children who stand in his way and pushes his victims to the limit, to the point where even men of God have no escape but face him in the same way.
01 Eric (Jean-Hughes Anglade) - Killing Zoe (1993)
Eric's plan is to rob a federal bank in Paris. It was a good plan, and everything would work smoothly... if it wasn't for his thirst for blood! Eric can't help his maniacal tendencies, and turns what could be the perfect heist into a killing spree. The violence in Killing Zoe is, at the same time, realistic and cartoonish, and Eric is the one character that could make this possible. Believe me: not even death can't stop him from destroying people's life. All that makes him the number one overlooked villain of this list.
Matt Ferraz
FMO's on
