Connect with us

Editorials

What Makes a Horror Villain Interesting?

Published

on

About a week ago, I wrote a post titled “It’s Time We Admit That Jason Voorhees is a Boring Character“, where I made the argument that the Friday the 13th villain wasn’t developed well nor was he the type of character that inspired any reaction aside from “Cool! He’s gonna kill people!” The post generated well over a hundred comments, many of which were less than pleasant towards me, which is something I fully expected and have no problem with.

However, it made me realize that there needs to be a broader discussion about horror characters, specifically villains, in general and what we should expect from them. After all, while horror is great when it brings a body count, the really memorable moments aren’t the kills but the killers themselves. In order for that to happen, the villains have to be memorable and they have to give us reason to want to return to them.

So let’s talk about interesting characters, shall we? Let’s figure out what are the kinds of villains we like and, far more importantly, why we like them.

I’d like to start with Dr. Hannibal Lecter because he’s such a widely recognized character, especially with NBC’s ill-fated TV series. His introduction in The Silence of the Lambs is one of my favorite villain introductions ever, especially because we get a taste (no pun intended) of his horrific deeds before we even see his face. Jack Crawford warns Clarice Starling about his ability to manipulate and deceive, saying she doesn’t want Hannibal Lecter inside her head. Then Dr. Chilton shows her photographs of a nurse that was assaulted by Lecter, supposedly destroying her face. We see none of these photos. We don’t even know what he looks like up until Starling walks down that hallway and the camera exposes us to him, standing like a statue amidst his beautiful drawings.

What we end up witnessing is a character who is urbane, charming, well-spoken, and attentive to details. But there are glimmers of his madness in everything he does. It’s the way he looks at Clarice and barely blinks. It’s how he tucks his head so that he looks at her from beneath his brow. It’s how he tries, and succeeds (although she’ll never admit it), to scare her with his notoriety and his stories. We all know the fava beans and chianti story not because of those details but because of his iconic “Ffffff” sound afterwards.

All of this is what makes Lecter so interesting and fascinating. He is obviously a terrifying monstrosity yet his presentation and writing allows him to be playful, to lull viewers into a sense of safety. It’s at those points that Lecter decides to strike, exposing his psychotic genius and revealing how much we should actually fear him. It’s because of all of that that I find myself constantly drawn to his tales.

Let’s jump to someone that’s on Jason’s level: Freddy Krueger. It’s hard to think of one without thinking of the other, especially with how much these two have been intertwined over the years.

I’ve always found Freddy to be a fascinating character, especially with how he was developed over the years. Starting with his childhood, he was a bullied and mocked kid, the story of his conception a source of great mirth to his peers. As he grew older, his own psychotic tendencies began to manifest more and more in the form of self harm and torture of small animals. From there, he began his stint as the “Springwood Slasher”, a serial killer of children.

After his arrest, the subsequent trial, and the failing of the criminal system to go by the books and follow proper protocol, Freddy’s freedom is what sent the parents of Springwood over the edge and into his territory. They trapped him in the boiler room where he killed the children and then they burned him alive.

It is that action that makes him so interesting to me. That he would cause such outrage and vitriol so as to make “normal, every day” people sink to his level and commit murder, that’s incredible. That speaks levels as to his character and the impact he has.

Of course, there’s Freddy himself, who is a delight. He’s funny, scary, conniving, deceptive, and knows how to play with his prey before he strikes. Even in the hated (rightfully so) remake, there’s a great scene where Freddy kills Jesse only to explain that once the heart stops, there is still seven minutes during which the brain remains active. He doesn’t kill simply to end a life, he kills to enjoy every second of it, to establish his dominance and power. That’s what gives him depth, more than many other villains.

I love Chucky. I really, really do. The first Child’s Play film is a classic that actually scared the crap out of me when I first watched it. It still holds up really well and the sequels are, for the most part, incredibly entertaining.

What makes him so intriguing to me is that he himself is under a deadline, of sorts. Having transferred his soul into a Good Guy doll, Charles “Chucky” Lee Ray, aka the “Lakeshore Strangler”, learns that he must do the ritual again and move his soul into the body of the first person he let know that he was alive. If he doesn’t do this, his soul will be trapped forever in the body of the doll, which will slowly become human.

As with Freddy, Chucky is witty, funny, and a hunter. He too toys with his victims and it’s not just because he’s a toy himself, it’s because he legitimately enjoys it. His delight in killing is horrifying and yet he himself is such a masterful manipulator that you can’t help but want to pal around with him a bit.

That we get to see so much of the villain and follow his path to understanding his situation and how to fix it is what makes Chucky interesting. We are forced to stay in his company, essentially being made to empathize with his predicament.

I’ll be honest and say that I’ve never seen the sequels to Psycho. I hear that some are actually really solid, so that might have to change soon. However, the original is where it’s at and I will always be in awe of how brilliantly Norman Bates is built up.

Bates is seemingly the picture perfect example of awkward innocence. He works at the motel that his mother owns because he wants to remain close to her, even though he hates what she’s become. It’s only during the above scene that we get a suspicion that there is something wrong with Norman. It’s when he leans forward and says, “You mean an institution? A madhouse?” Suddenly there is an intensity, a confidence that we haven’t seen in him until that point. The music rises sinisterly and we suddenly have a different person altogether on the screen, one that Marion Crane fears instead of treating almost like a child.

What Anthony Perkins brings to Norman is a sophisticated and nuanced performance that goes from a simpleton to a sharp and angry wordsmith that has clearly experienced pain and trauma to a deceiver and manipulator and, finally, to a broken individual, one that clearly isn’t well. It’s the performance of a lifetime and the creation of a character that still haunts viewers to this day.

What I’m saying with these examples is that time and consideration was taken into building these characters, into making them interesting. I still stand by my statement that Jason Voorhees is a boring character because the only story we have of him is that he nearly drowned as a child, somehow kept that secret from his mother, and then began killing people once his mother was killed herself. There’s nothing of substance there, nothing that we can allow ourselves to relate to.

Hell, Jason’s mother is a far more interesting character! She’s a single mother to a hydrocephalic child who loves him with all her heart. After all, he’s mommy’s special little boy. His loss pushes her to violence, to kill those that she feels robbed her of a child. That parental grief and that unwillingness to let go of her mourning and anger after so many years gives her a foundation upon which her murderous rampage is understandable, although not agreeable.

Personally, I’ve always felt that the first Friday the 13th was the strongest in the series, simply because it had an interesting villain. I’d take a new movie about Pamela any day over a new Jason flick. Well, that is unless they decide to give Jason a reason to be interesting and not just a tool that’s an extension of his mother’s rage.

Give me villains that have depth. Give me villains that have reason. Give me villains that make me question my own character as I find myself cheering them on. After all, realizing that a bit of myself can be found in someone like Norman Bates or Hannibal Lecter is what’s really scary.

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

Published

on

leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

LEPRECHAUN

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

LEPRECHAUN RETURNS sequel

Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

Continue Reading