# Most evil female characters in film history **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 29, 2004, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667 "2004-06-29T03:56:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Somnambulist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Somnambulist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Somnambulist)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/61 "2004-06-30T14:29:03Z")
There’s definitely something about the twisted mother… in that vein, I nominate Dianne Ladd as Marrietta Fortune in Wild At Heart. ::shudder:: ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/62 "2004-06-30T17:28:36Z")
Louise Fletcher does a wonderful job playing an evil woman. Hence, I nominate her again for Kai Wynn in _DS9_. A politician/religious leader who would have sent Machiavelli screaming for the hills. Even her dismissal of Gul Dukat after he went blind was amazingly cold-blooded, but it was her treatment of Vedek Bariel after his fatal injury that sealed my hatred of her. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/63 "2004-06-30T23:30:32Z")
I can’t believe this thread could have gone so long without anyone mentioning Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) from “the Graduate.” Duping her own daughter into marrying a man she didn’t love so that she wouldn’t have a happier life than she (Mrs. Robinson) did - that’s a bitch! And how about Regan McNeil from “the Exorcist?” Okay, it’s debatable - given that she is, well, possessed by what seems to be a male-centric demon (the statue of Pazuzu at least has a mighty long wanker!) The egg-laying queen mother from “Aliens?” Okay, again debatable whether or not she’s an intelligent creature or just an animal acting on instinct. Natalie (the Carrie-Anne Moss character) from “Memento” was a nasty piece of work. Mrs. Voorhees, the mother of Jason, from the original “Friday the 13th” deserves a mention. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/64 "2004-06-30T23:32:11Z")
Oh putz! As soon as I hit “submit” it thought of another one - Diana, the Faye Dunaway character from “Network.” She was the epitome of a soulless, corporate spiderwoman. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2004, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/65 "2004-07-01T00:08:23Z")
From Ginger Snaps 2 The young girl Ghost (about 12 or 13) who makes friends with Bridgette at the asylum and seems so innocent and sweet. She later turns out to have burnt almost to death the mother she was apparently the obedient child in visiting all the time at the hospital. Later she pretends that the horney male nurse had raped her, and gets Bridgette to feed him to the werewolf. Finally trapping the werewolf-Bridgette in the cellar of her mother’s house and using her to off Ghost’s enimies in her reign of ‘Moral Terror’. ---
**Author:** ![Beauty\_Personified](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Beauty\_Personified](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauty_Personified)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/66 "2004-07-03T06:56:13Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > Where are the cinematic counterparts to Imelda Marcos and Ilsa Koch? I couldn’t resist. 😃 [Dyanne Thorne](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0861376/) starred as Ilsa in… _[Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071650/)_ (1974) _[Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074670/)_ (1976) _Ilsa Meets Bruce Lee in the Devil’s Triangle_ (1976) _[Ilsa, the Wicked Warden](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076112/)_ (1977) _[Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078398/)_ (1977) _Ilsa Meets Bruce Lee_ is a “lost” film. It’s not listed on the Internet Movie Database. But **The Unknown Movies** website did a [reviewed](http://www.badmovieplanet.com/unknownmovies/reviews/rev420.html) a bootleg copy of the film. Go read it. It’s great! 😃 The climactic battle between Ilsa and Bruce Lee ([Bruce Li](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0508362/)) sounds absolutely _crazy_! (And, according to the review, the film apparently cost over three million dollars to make. :eek: ) And I believe the Ilsa in _[Hellboy](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0167190/)_ (2004) - played by [Biddy Hodson](http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0388336/) - was supposed to be Ilsa Koch… As for Imelda Marcos, the Philippines put out two films about Ferdinand and family in the 1960s starring [Gloria Romero](http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0739418/) as Imelda, and a documentary about her last year (2003) which has angered Ms. Marcos quite a bit. And there was a U.S. [mini-series](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0094445/) starring Gary Busey done in 1988 in which [Tessie Tomas](http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0866404/) played Imelda. Anyhoo… ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/67 "2004-07-03T07:37:44Z")
> [@The Asbestos Mango](#): > > I don’t think the little girl in _The Ring_ was evil. A monster, yes, but not evil. The movie gives the distinct impression that the parents resorted to occult methods in order for the mother to bring a child to term after several miscarriages, with disastrous results. In the hospital video, she says she’s sorry for hurting her mother (driving her insane). She doesn’t seem to have control over the damage she causes, whether it be driving people close to her insane, making weird images on X-ray film, causing horses to drown themselves, whatever. I don’t think the videotape was a deliberate creation, either. If it was, the intent was not to kill. Even in death, she was unable to sleep, and she seemed to be trying to find peace by sending whatever it was that was tormenting her away into the universe. Did you _watch_ the film, Mango? Because it’s explicitly stated that Sadako/Samara didn’t want to be laid to rest. When she was alive she may well have been sorry for the damage she caused, yes, but after she was murdered she became vengeful. The purpose of her making people copy the tape to survive was so it would be seen by as many people as possible. Since you also have to show it to someone who hasn’t seen it to escape, sooner or later there will be an awful lot of cursed people and nobody to pass the curse onto. Sadako/Samara was committing slow genocide and killing anyone who didn’t help her; you cannot define her as not being evil. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/68 "2004-07-03T11:14:32Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > Did you _watch_ the film, Mango? Because it’s explicitly stated that Sadako/Samara didn’t want to be laid to rest. > > When she was alive she may well have been sorry for the damage she caused, yes, but after she was murdered she became vengeful. The purpose of her making people copy the tape to survive was so it would be seen by as many people as possible. Since you also have to show it to someone who hasn’t seen it to escape, sooner or later there will be an awful lot of cursed people and nobody to pass the curse onto. Sadako/Samara was committing slow genocide and killing anyone who didn’t help her; you cannot define her as not being evil. Haven’t seen _Ringu_, but I watched _The Ring_ twice the weekend I rented it. I didn’t get the feeling Samara didn’t want to be laid to rest, it seemed more to me that she was _unable_ to rest, no matter what anyone did to try to help her find peace. And I really don’t agree that eventually there would be nobody to pass the curse on to. People on this planet tend to reproduce, thus making more people who have never seen the tape. I think the tape was basically Samara screaming. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/69 "2004-07-03T11:41:18Z")
Nurses make for evil female characters. Who can forget Kathy Bates’ Anne Wilkes from _Misery_. She and Nurse Ratchet would make a great evil duo. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/70 "2004-07-03T12:06:46Z")
Well, if we’re on Hitchcock’s mothers, there’s Claude Rain’s mother in NOTORIOUS, as cold-blooded a poisoner as Livia from I CLAUDIUS (just not as successful a string.) And Maleficent, the Wicked Witch from Disney’s SLEEPING BEAUTY, hasn’t been named yet. I’d give additional votes to Mrs Danvers from REBECCA and Angela Bradbury in MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/71 "2004-07-03T13:39:05Z")
MiLady DeWinter (Faye Dunaway) in _The Three Musketeers_ and especially _The Four Musketeers_ - the 70s version that actually followed the books quite closely. A brilliant performance on Dunaway’s part, and a truly amoral, immoral woman. Absurdly, when they remade the movie yet again in the 90s, they made Milady (Rebecca DeMornay) a misunderstood victim. Of course, that entire remake was sad and absurd… ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2004, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/72 "2004-07-03T22:31:10Z")
> [@Art Vandelay](#): > > The egg-laying queen mother from “Aliens?” Okay, again debatable whether or not she’s an intelligent creature or just an animal acting on instinct. I would say no. She just seems to be doing what she does to survive. I don’t think Aliens have any perception of right or wrong, just survival. ---
**Author:** ![False\_God](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee7513/32.png) [@False\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/False_God)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/73 "2004-07-04T00:32:01Z")
> [@AvhHines](#): > > MiLady DeWinter (Faye Dunaway) in _The Three Musketeers_ and especially _The Four Musketeers_ - the 70s version that actually followed the books quite closely. A brilliant performance on Dunaway’s part, and a truly amoral, immoral woman. > > Absurdly, when they remade the movie yet again in the 90s, they made Milady (Rebecca DeMornay) a misunderstood victim. Of course, that entire remake was sad and absurd… Thank you! Milady DeWinter was (as written) one of the worst of them all, willing to exploit every and all advantage if she saw an upside to it. Faye Dunaway did it best and I can’t even watch the 90s version without laughing anymore. My vote? Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam from\* Dune\*. As played by Sian Phillips. Think it over… ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/74 "2004-07-04T05:33:51Z")
Ysanne “Iceheart” Isard in the _Star Wars: X-Wing_ series. Just the name of her famous prison, “Lusankya”, was enough to inspire dread in even the hardest of Rebels! Speaking of Mrs Danvers, what about Rebecca herself? Cruella Deville, Ursula the Sea Witch, Cinderella’s wicked Stepmother (the stepsisters were just a bunch of clueless morons). Angelica Huston in _Ever After_ and the blond daughter. (The other one, the brunette was nice, if I recall correctly, and on Danielle’s side). Alicia Silverstone as Darian in _The Crush_. Little psycho bitch stalker from hell! Nellie Olsen, the original Prairie Bitch. And of course, who could forget-Angelica Pickles!!! ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/75 "2004-07-04T08:16:30Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Ysanne “Iceheart” Isard in the _Star Wars: X-Wing_ series. Just the name of her famous prison, “Lusankya”, was enough to inspire dread in even the hardest of Rebels! I must have missed the _ **movies** _ they made of those _ **books** _. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/76 "2004-07-04T18:25:30Z")
:smack: I missed the “film” in the title. D’oh. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/77 "2004-07-05T00:46:24Z")
> [@The Asbestos Mango](#): > > Haven’t seen _Ringu_, but I watched _The Ring_ twice the weekend I rented it. I didn’t get the feeling Samara didn’t want to be laid to rest, it seemed more to me that she was _unable_ to rest, no matter what anyone did to try to help her find peace. And I really don’t agree that eventually there would be nobody to pass the curse on to. People on this planet tend to reproduce, thus making more people who have never seen the tape. > > I think the tape was basically Samara screaming. Spoilers below: 1. The result of continually making a new copy of the tape to show to a new person to save the previous persion in the chain is that in a fairly short period of time, there will be a lot of killer tapes floating around. The way the curse works makes it so that a huge number of people will eventually be killed. 2. When Samara is in the hospital and being interviewed by the psychiatrist, he says, “I know you don’t want to hurt people.” She answers, “But I do”. The first time this happens you can’t see her face, and the assumption is that she means, “I don’t want to hurt people, but I do hurt them.” The second time, we see her face, and I reinterpreted her statement to mean “But I do want to hurt them.” Think “He’d kill us if he knew”, and you get the idea. 3. Samara wants to be heard, and this is her way of telling people what happened to her. The tape doesn’t kill anybody. It initiates the curse. People have seven days to copy the tape and show someone new, not seven days to live. Those who don’t, die. This is the important part. People who don’t do what Samara wants them to do, die. Samara kills them herself, as we see near the end of the movie. Killing innocents because they don’t do what you want them to is a pretty description of evil. Whatever her motives may be, her actions certainly are evil. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/78 "2004-07-05T01:40:40Z")
Since we’re allowing for TV characters, too, I vote for the brilliantly awful Mary Cherry (Leslie Grossman) and her mother, Cherry Cherry (Delta Burke), in the sadly misnamed _Popular_. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/79 "2004-07-05T01:58:02Z")
Heartily second Gene Tierney in _Leave Her To Heaven_, and wanted to add another Ben Ames Williams book-turned-to-movie, _The Strange Woman_, with Hedy Lamarr in the title role. I never actually saw the [movie](http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=20625), but read the book, and evil hardly gets any eviller than that woman – she worked a lifetime to make people miserable long after her death. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667/80 "2004-07-05T21:58:10Z")
> [@The Asbestos Mango](#): > > The person seeing the tape can avoid death by copying it and showing it to someone else, who can avoid death by…, of course, most folks didn’t know that, and Rachel found it out by accident, but there’s still a fairly easy out. Just pass the tape along with the stern warning that _the tape must be copied and shown to someone else, or you will die_. Yeah…because sooo many people obey the warnings that they put at the beginning of a VHS tape. 😃 Anne Bancroft (Point of No Return, G.I. Jane, etc) seems to have found quite a niche playing evil old biatches. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-female-characters-in-film-history/252667.md?page=5)