Best/Creepiest One-Off Villain in a MOVIE

[Hometownboy]

Fabulous Creature’s thread was for “one-off” villain on TV. Several posters missed that and went for movie villains, so I thought I’d do a thread for them.

Actually, this is just an excuse to tout Gene Simmons (without his KISS makeup) as a chilling villain in Runaway, a 1984 movie that is now old enough to vote. As the review in the link indicated, it had a lot going wrong with it, but Simmons, who underplayed beautifully, projected menace all the more threatening because of his obvious intelligence.

Others?

[Baker]

I learned something new reading this. I actually liked Runaway, but I never realized the villain was THE Gene Simmons.

Hmm. A choice for me would be Hans Gruber(Alan Rickman) in Die Hard.

[supervenusfreak]

I would have to say Jame Gumm from “Silence of the Lambs” just off of the top of my head… ;).

[BadBadger]

Just to throw a couple into the pot

Daniel Day Lewis character in Gangs of New York
Rutger Hauer in the Hitcher
Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast
Gary Oldman in Leon

[GargoyleWB]

Ray Park / Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace.

This was also an interesting shooting-self-in-the-foot event for the Star Wars series, killing off early the most interesting character in the movie series. In retrospect, if Darth Maul had lasted the run of the three movies, he could have been one of the most memorable villain characters in movie history.

[Mahaloth]

The Operative from Serenity.

Malcolm Reynolds: I don’t kill women and children!

Operative: I do.

Great villain. I also like how he delivers the line, “We’re building better worlds. All of them…better worlds.”

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Hometownboy

Fabulous Creature’s thread was for “one-off” villain on TV. Several posters missed that and went for movie villains, so I thought I’d do a thread for them.

Actually, this is just an excuse to tout Gene Simmons (without his KISS makeup) as a chilling villain in Runaway, a 1984 movie that is now old enough to vote. As the review in the link indicated, it had a lot going wrong with it, but Simmons, who underplayed beautifully, projected menace all the more threatening because of his obvious intelligence.

Others?

The reason I specified TV shows in my thread was that MOST movie villains are one-offs, because most movies don’t have sequels, and even those that do generally kill the villains off in each movie.

That said…I’ll go with Kevin Spacey’s character in Seven.

[Zebra]

The Child Snatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

[G.B.H.Hornswoggler]

@GargoyleWB

Ray Park / Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace.

This was also an interesting shooting-self-in-the-foot event for the Star Wars series, killing off early the most interesting character in the movie series. In retrospect, if Darth Maul had lasted the run of the three movies, he could have been one of the most memorable villain characters in movie history.

Well, he might have been the most memorable character design in the series, but he’s not a character in any reasonable sense of the word.

What does he like? What does he dislike? What are his dreams, his motivations? What does he do on his days off? What do we actually know about him? For that matter, what does his voice sound like?

All we know if that he looks KEWL and swings a double-bladed lightsabre. (On the other hand, maybe you’re making a back-handed comment about all of the other characters in the prequel trilogy, in which case I’m not sure I disagree with you…)