Chilling: Top 5 Creepiest Villains

I’ve stated before that I’m not a fan of horror – and I’m not.  I’ve never seen a Saw movie, The Ring freaked me out for ages, and I won’t be seeing Paranormal Activity.

That being said, I do enjoy being spooked.  It’s great fun to get just creeped out enough, to get chills, but not so many that they block out the warmth of the real world.

I find TV horror is pretty much the speed for me – even when it’s on cable, I’m sitting in my living room, with the lights on, keeping any monsters at bay.  That’s not to say that TV can’t be scary, though.  Indeed, I think the last ten years or so have provided us with villains and monsters even more memorable than some big-screen features.

Here, now, are my Top 5 Creepiest Villains on TV.  Some of these shows had several options, but I decided each show would be represented by only one of the scariest.  I know I might be forgetting someone, or might not have seen a particular show, so feel free to chime in with your picks as well.  Still, I think you’ll agree, these baddies set the bar fairly high.

5.  Maryann Forrester, True Blood – Maryann does creepy in several different ways – most of her scenes leave you feeling vaguely unsettled, and her pig companion might be disturbing.  But the first shot we ever get of her monster form, silhouetted in the woods before she slashes Sookie, is truly frightening.

4. Sylar, Heroes – Ok, recent seasons of Heroes might have taken the teeth out of Sylar, but think back to that first season.  The sheer mystery of Sylar – why does he cut open skulls, what does he do with the brain – led us to imagine the worst things we could. Zachary Quinto’s disturbing creepiness made this particular network show feel more gory than it even was.

3. Hands of Blue, Firefly – Two by two, these men in suits and blue gloves added a touch of pure horror to the charming space western, proving that in the world of imagination, less is more.  I’m far more creeped out by Hands of Blue than the Reavers, for example, because I now know too much about the latter.  Oh, and I know some back story for HoB was provided in a later comic – in my mind, never happened.  Less is more.

2. The Gentlemen, Buffy the Vampire Slayer -  “Hush” is one of the most elegant Buffy episodes, and The Gentlemen are the perfect one-off baddies.  Just the sight of them is enough to scare you – and a good thing, because you won’t be getting much in the way of audio.  From the very first on-screen minute, they establish themselves as some of the most iconic villains from the show – and all they needed was a too-wide smile, graceful, eerie movements, and a little heart extraction.

1. Weeping Angels, Doctor Who – The episode “Blink” starts out differently from most others; the protagonist has seemingly nothing to do with the Doctor, and indeed, the Doctor is hardly in the episode.   There’s a gentler, more old-fashioned feeling about the pacing, the mystery.   The Weeping Angels embody this contrast from the norm, taken to the extreme – motionless statues that move with terrible speed in the split second you look away, even to blink.  This episode is almost perfect in ramping up the scares – just when the whole “Was that statue in that position before?” schtick starts to get old, the Weeping Angels are taken to a completely new level.   If one were to give any episode of Doctor Who a try, it should be this – especially if you prefer your scares to be old-fashioned.