Jack Palance in Oklahoma Crude was one evil S.O.B. As you recall George C. Scott’s character peed on Palance’s character in one scene. Jack had it comming in my opinion.
Any villian played by Christopher Walken (hell, even non-villians played by Walken are a bit creepy). Same deal for Steve Buscemi.
“Mr. Joshua” from Lethal Weapon–he’s a cold son of a bitch.
Edward Norton in American History X.
Martin Sheen in The Dead Zone.
Klaus Maria Brandaur in Never Say Never Again.
Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love.
The creepy children-catcher-guy from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang scared the hell out of me when I was younger. I don’t know whether it has the same effect now, as I’ve not watched the film in several years, but still . . . shudder
And Jude Law in Road to Perdition. Dear god.
I second Jude Law’s “Maguire” in Road to Perdition. An utter psycho. How creepy, in that conversation in the diner?
Whoever that bad guy was in Time Bandits - he scared the living crap out of me as a 7 year old.
The scary clown-looking guy in Lost Highway. I was 20ish when I saw that movie and I still had nightmares.
Oh, and Gollum from the animated The Hobbit. I was afraid for years.
scarred for life,
mle
The killer in the original Dirty Harry was scary and crazy. I knew the actor’s name at one point in my life, but my long-term memory retrieval skills are not what they once were. Some Doper out there is sure to fill in that blank. Anyhoo…he appeared in other TV and movie roles, but I could never see him without flashing on that maniacal cackling insanity.
Clarence Bodiker from Robocop. He was just plain mean.
Good call on the child-catcher dude from Chitty Chitty.
That was Andrew Robinson in what was apparently his his first movie role. Most well known to me as Garak in ST: DS9. BTW, you’re not the only one who was impressed by his portrayal of Scorpio:
I was thinking the other day that the Michael Palin character from the movie Brazil is one of the most terrifying villains in any movie I’ve ever seen. Absolute run-screaming-from-the-room type. I also second “Mr. Joshua” (Gary Busey) from Lethal Weapon, and fifth or sixth or whatever we are up to now the Kid Catcher from Chitty Chitty.
Not sure if they are really villains in the classic sense, but the Aliens in the second Alien flick still give me the heebie-jeebies.
Vincent Price without his “mask” in **The House of Wax ** (okay, I was a kid…)
Alan Arkin in Wait Until Dark
The birds on the playground in The Birds
James Mason is the best villain ever. I am talking of course of North by North-West. Polished, elegant, educated and yet cold and evil. He steals a great movie (not a minor achievement).
Incidentally I don’t think Edward Norton was the villain of America X.
That would be David Warner, if memory serves. He’s a great villain in any film. Especially awesome as the Cardassian who tortured Picard in one of the better Star Trek episodes.
Oh, and I agree with Gary Oldman’s cop character in Leon/The Professional completely. The scene that gets me is when he’s talking to the sleazy father about the effect Beethoven has on him, just before he goes ballistic. You can see the madness, boiling underneath the skin.
And the guy from Poltergeist II… “God is in… his holy temple!” Yeesh.
And Spacey in Se7en as well. What a great character.
The clown from IT.
And I so agree with the Childcatcher.
KarlGauss was referring to the 1991 version of the movie, and rjk, you’re referring to the 1962 version.
Jareth the Goblin King in The Labyrinth always freaked me out. He came across as paedophillic.
Y’know who gave me the absolute willies? The Cowboy, from Mulholland Drive. It was just… Oy?!? Wha…?!? Why…?!? STOP BEING SO CALM!!!
And in The Frighteners, the villain ghost (I forget the name) was creepy as all hell when he still had the nasty cloak on…
That would be Tim Curry and he seriously freaked me out in that movie.
He’s not the villain of the movie, in the sense of being the movie’s antagonist. But for the bulk of the movie, is most emphatically a very, very bad guy. Far more than most other traditional movie villains.