Who are your favorite movie villains?

Undoubtedly, a key ingredient to any great movie is a great villain. You could even say this about any story in general; or, if villain is too strong a word, try antagonist. There is no Othello without Iago, no Jean Valjean without Javert, no Captain Ahab without Moby Dick. In the movie world, though, the pressure is mounted a little more. We have to see them, they have to look a certain way, talk a certain way. They have to be truly evil, cunning, ruthless, distinct, and have their own diabolical attitude.

The first time I paid attention to the art of the villain was when I saw Hans Gruber, played brilliantly by Alan Rickman in Die Hard (1988). He was suave, sophisticated, and cultured. He quotes Alexander the Great with ease and rhythm: “Benefits of a classical education”, he says smugly. He reminisces how as a boy he loved to build toy models because of his love for detail. He is up to date on the latest fashion, boasting of his John Phillips suit. I can’t remember a villain with a more laid back air about him and at the same having cultivated sensibilities.

Gruber was a great villain because of a worry we all have. I think of the Germans in World War 2: how they thought that a good education would solve nearly all of society’s ills. But come to find out, a good education just better educates us on how to kill more people more creatively. Gruber is the educated sophisticate, proof that intellectual cultivation does nil to make one a person of virtue.

How can evil coexist with smarts? The villain that perfected this mix was Hannibal Lector, the brilliant psychologist who happens to have a taste for human flesh. But aside from the visceral response we feel to cannibalism generally, we feel a horror that such bestial behavior could be coupled with an elite mind of genius. I remember feeling aghast when his mood would switch without warning: one minute he is enamored by Mozart and the next he is biting someone in the jugular.

And while we’re in this category, it’s hard to forget John Doe, from Se7en (1995). What particularly struck me was the discovery of his private journals. They were voluminous! The scene where Morgan Freeman’s character reads a sentence or two, chronicling the normal sociopathic response to normal everyday situations: how he barfed all over a man because he was sickened by his banalities - and how he couldn’t stop laughing.

I think of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979). It seemed he started out sane. But after a while, seeing all the horrors of war, he turned into something that is hard to categorize. A part of you wants to say he lost his sanity, but that seems too simple. Another part wants to say he began to see things the way they really are. He peered into the abyss until the abyss peered right back, as Nietzsche would say. Here Colonel Kurtz is, alone at some godforsaken outpost, worshiped as a god by the natives, fully embedded in the ‘Heart of Darkness’ itself. It’s too late when Captain Benjamin L. Willard comes to the rescue. The ensuing monologue from Kurtz to Willard is one of the high points of American cinema. Two T.S. Elliot poems are read: The Wasteland and From Romance to the Grave. Kurtz himself reads from Hallow Men. It’s not what is said so much as how it’s said. The horror of war really shines through Kurtz’s raw voice. It’s a hallow voice, hallowed out by the atrocities of war he’s witnessed.

Another antagonist with an intellect, but which is no help against falling prey to evil. Now these are the villains that appeal to me the most. Daniel Plainview could fall into this category. The other type could be called the weasels. I’m thinking of that despicable guy in The Green Mile (1999). Then there are the mindless monsters like Alien (1979) or Predator (1987); or you have the villains who start off creepy, but their sense of humor eventually just makes them a caricature of themselves, like Freddy or Chucky. The mindless juggernauts like Jason or Michael Myers are particularly unnerving. You wonder why they never talk. Have they been through something so bad they’ve lost the will? Does complete evil remain silent? Is it that silence keeps you guessing about how evil they are, so they keep quiet?

As a kid, I remember watching Misery (1990) for the first time. I always tell people that this was the first movie I ever covered my eyes to. Years later, I can watch it all the way through, and I’ve grown to see it for the dark comedy it is. But there is no denying that Annie Wilkes is an eerie personality. The scary thing is that you always wonder if there’s really people out there like that. I take that back. We do know that there are people out there like that. People just define their identities by celebrities and if the scenario in Misery played out in real life, you’d almost be surprised not to see it recur. She is a child in a lot of ways and her hissy fits are tinged with spookiness because they go with a dominant personality that just so happens to have complete control over your movement. She is lonely and drifts in and out of depression. The hobbling scene is a doozy. The one flaw in the movie is the end: the mystique is gone and she turns into a cliche’d axe murderer. When I saw the trailer for the first time, the oddest thing for me was the scene when she oinks like a pig. There's a great ‘less is more’ foreshadowing here. We’re thinking, ‘Who is this screwball lady?’

I’m leaving out so many. But we can all agree that when you got a good villain, it’s almost certain you got a good movie.