The Female Of The Species Is More Deadly Than the Male: The Best Female Villains In Horror

Halloween is the season of the horror film. For weeks now you’ll have been hearing people discussing what they’re going to dress up as on the day, and the cinemas have become flooded with genre films. There’s also a lot of chatter about who the best movie villain is. Attention always focuses on the likes of Freddy, Jason, Michael, Leatherface et al, but what about the ladies? They can be bloodthirsty homicidal maniacs too, so here’s a little list of our favourite female villains.

Baby – The Firefly Family Series

A family that slays together, stays together.. or at least in the Firefly family they do. Baby is, as her name suggests, the baby of the clan of killers and has been brought up with an appetite for destruction. Baby’s reign of anarchic murder has proved to be so popular that she’s had three on screen outings to slash and shoot through victims. Some killers have an MO for their preferred victim, but Baby is not picky in terms of her prey, murdering all genders, ages and races equally. Basically, if it has a pulse, Baby wants it dead.

Sadako – The Ring Franchise

Along with Kayako (more on her in a minute), Sadako is one of the most memorable female horror icons. Sadako pretty much single-handily started the Japanese horror trend of scary ghost girl. For those not familiar with Sadako’s work, she haunts a videotape, one that causes the viewer to die in seven days. Upon delving deep into her past, it’s discovered that she was subjected to a horrible amount of cruelty in her life, it all culminating in her spirit becoming vengeful after her death. Once turned, Sadako relishes the darkside and happily haunts any and all who witness her cursed videotape.

Kayako – The Grudge Franchise

Kayako may have come after Sadako, the original Japanese ghost girl, but we can’t help but feel that she’s the more sinister of the two. Brutally murdered by her husband in front of her son Toshio, Kayako’s death saw her transform into a vengeful spirit and place a curse upon the house. The curse sees all that move into the property die, slain by Kayako and son Toshio, and witnessed by their pet cat. What makes Kayako slightly more creepy than Sadako is that she makes a goosebump-inducing death rattle noise, and moves like a spider. She also has reinforcements in the form of her son and pet cat; Toshio himself is mighty frightening. Just thinking about his cat wail has the skin crawling.

Debbie Jellinksy – Addams Family Values

Now, Addams Family Values might not technically speaking be a horror film, but we couldn’t not include Joan Cusack’s Debbie Jellinsky. Debbie infiltrates the Addams Family by posing as a nanny for new addition Pubert. Her real reason for being there though is to seduce and marry Uncle Fester, then murder him and take-off with the money. It’s a con that she’s played before, and though no one knows her real identity, she is infamous as serial killer The Black Widow. Debbie finds Fester a much more difficult mark than usual however, and may have bitten off more than she can stomach with the creepy and kooky Addams family. Her villainous deeds include seducing Fester, using her womanly wiles to manipulate and control him, alienating Fester from his family, sending the older Addams children to summer camp, and trying to kill Fester several times. Unfortunately for Debbie, Fester seems to rather enjoy all the murder attempts and she is eventually forced to try and kill the entire Addams Family. Her plan is thwarted and she finds herself a resident in the family plot.

Amanda Young – The Saw Franchise

Amanda Young was the first person to survive a trap orchestrated by the serial killer known as Jigsaw. A drug addict that will do anything to get her next fix, Amanda’s trap had her strapped into a helmet constructed out of a reverse bear-trap. Her task was to get the key to secure her freedom, which had been surgically implanted into the intestines of her dealer. Amanda showed no hesitation and happily hacked him up, and in doing so escaped. After being granted a second lease on life, rather than enjoy every moment, Amanda replaced her addiction to drugs with devotion to John Kramer. She became one of his first accomplices, but didn’t quite understand John’s vision for second chances. Her traps were inescapable and cruel, and with this she moved from victim to tormentor.

Nancy – The Craft

The Craft‘s Nancy (Fairuza Balk) is the type of villain that teenage girls know all too well. She’s the girl whom is unnecessarily mean to you without explanation, before trying to become your best friend. Her intentions aren’t pure though, she’s just using you for what she can get and will all too happily turn your friends against you. All this and more happens to new girl at school Sarah (Robin Tunney), whom after joining Nancy and her coven of teen witches, finds herself fighting for her life. Cracks begin to show in the friendship early on when Sarah falls for Nancy’s ex, Chris (Skeet Ulrich). Chris is a player whom tossed Nancy aside after he got what he wanted, and attempts the same with Sarah. Undeterred by him spreading rumours about her around school, Sarah casts a love spell on him much to Nancy’s annoyance. The spell gets out of hand however, and after attempting to force himself upon Sarah, Nancy under the guise of sisterhood, goes after him. Her true intentions though are to get her man back, even if that means posing as Sarah. When her plan backfires, she throws him through a window. He’s not her first victim though, she also uses a spell to kill her creepy stepdad, and now, having a taste for death, she sets about murdering rival Sarah to claim her magic for herself.

Mrs Voorhees – Friday The 13th

Thanks to that opening trivia quiz in Scream, everybody now knows that it is Mrs Voorhees that butchers the frisky camp counsellors in the first Friday the 13th movie. Her seemingly deceased son Jason would go onto to continue his mother’s work, and get all the credit, but we shouldn’t forget just how cruel Mrs Voorhees was. After the accidental drowning of her darling son, she vows revenge on those that were charged with watching him. But rather than take down the teens that were actually responsible, she is more than happy to kill them by proxy through the camps newest wave of counsellors. Were we to watch her take down the neglectful ones, we might view the film from her point of view, a la I Spit on Your Grave, but by killing randoms whom just happen to be working at the same institution seems rather drastic. Her character is one of the first slasher instances of a female killer, a trait that has been continued several times over the years, but in Friday the 13th it was so unexpected that it would be a ‘meek’ older woman offing the likes of the young and strong Kevin Bacon, that it got people’s attention.

The Grand High Witch – The Witches

It might be a children’s film, but The Witches is not only one of the most frightening children’s films of all time, it features one of the most terrifying movie villains, The Grand High Witch. Based on the book by Roald Dahl, The Witches follows a young boy Luke and his Grandmother as they go on holiday. Unfortunately the hotel they’ve chosen is the same one that the annual meeting of witches, complete with an address by the Grand High Witch herself. Played by Angelica Huston, the Grand High Witch is the meanest of all the witches, and despises all children. Her plan to wipe out the world’s population of children by turning them into mice hits a snag when Luke and his Grandmother interfere, but she certainly succeeds in inducing the odd nightmare or two upon the first viewing. Huston plays both halves of her character wonderfully. Even before she has been unmasked, she is menacing; but once her true form has revealed, things get truly horrifying. Her make-up is the stuff of nightmares and is unrecognisable as the stunning beauty Angelica Huston. How this film was granted a PG certificate and allowed to be viewed by children, I’ll never know.

Mrs Carmody – The Mist

Are there many horror movie villains more hated than The Mist‘s Mrs Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden). I certainly can’t think of one. The character is infuriating to watch, and this feeling builds and builds upon repeat viewings. We’re now at a point in my house where we’re close to throwing things at the screen whenever she appears. So what does she do to earn all of this eternal hatred? Drown puppies and eat babies? Neither, she just capitalises on a terrifying and inexplicable series of events, using her warped words of God to whip frightened people into a frenzy. She’s a religious zealot, with an obsession for the word ‘expiation’. Although initially shunned as the local crazy lady, she soon gathers a following of devoted followers as they become desperate for explanation and someone to look after them. Once she has the crowd under her control, she manipulates them into turning against the only people actually trying to help puzzle the mystery out and get the stranded to safety. At the mobs wildest, they participate in the mass slaughter of the innocent Private Jessop (Sam Witwer) purely because the organisation he worked for might have had something to do with the strange mist that has consumed the town. Luckily our heroes led by Thomas Jane’s David Drayton escape before she can carry our her plan for even worse deed, the sacrificial slaughter of David’s young son. The absolute most terrifying thing about this character though, is that Mrs. Carmody’s exist all around the world. All use their religious manifesto, politics, or popularity to coerce the pliable to their twisted way of thinking.

Julia Cotton – The Hellraiser Franchise

Julia may be the best villain of horror for either gender. Played to perfection by Clare Higgins, Julia is, on the surface at least, the epitome of the eighties good wife. Underneath though she is pure personified evil. Her spiral into darkness began when she met her husband’s brother Frank. Julia was instantly taken with him and the pair quickly struck up a passionate (and rather kinky) love affair. The affair was over all too fast however, as Frank disappeared, but Julia never forgot about him. When he found his way out of his self-imposed Hell, he sought Julia out to help him return to the living. You see, although alive, Frank was in need of some skin, and Julia was only too happy to oblige. She then started to seduce random men before taking them home, luring them to the bedroom, before bludgeoning them to death, all so that Frank could consume them to become mortal again. For Julia, love really was blind; Frank used her as a means to return to the land of the living only to happily drain her lifeforce to so that he can flourish. Julia though is no pushover, and plays the Frank game herself in Hellraiser II: Hellbound, gaining her body back through more seduction and murder. She doesn’t do it so that she can live again, she’s out for blood, Frank’s blood, and proves that a woman scorned really is not to be messed with.