10 Horror Movie Victims Who Were Worse Than The Villains

Every once in a while, horror movies feature victims who are even more terrible than the ostensible villains. In theory, horror movie villains should be reviled by audiences, while the heroes who defeat them are beloved. However, horror is a tricky genre with a lot of complex psychology behind it, and horror villains can often end up becoming unlikely cult icons. From the earliest depictions of Dracula being seen as a sex symbol to M3GAN’s eponymous killer gaining a massive fandom who adore her sassy attitude, horror movie villains are constantly treated like antiheroes by viewers. This led some slasher franchises to make killers like Freddy Krueger their main attraction.

However, if viewers start to root for the killer, they are likely to stop caring so much about their victims. One of the earliest slasher movies, 1974’s original Black Christmas, made its heroines sympathetic and their deaths truly tragic. In stark contrast, the later Friday the 13th movies actively encouraged viewers to root for Jason Voorhees by introducing absurdly obnoxious victims for him to dispatch. Sometimes, this idea is taken too far and horror movies manage to introduce victims who are more evil than the villains of their movie.

10 Nathan In Ex Machina (2014)

The sci-fi horror movie’s CEO was worse than his killer invention.

Ex Machina is a twisty sci-fi horror movie wherein Domhnall Gleeson’s unassuming Caleb joins Oscar Isaac’s arrogant Nathan to partake in a strange scientific experiment. Nathan’s android Ava is so lifelike that the CEO wants Caleb to test whether she can pass as a human being. However, the experiment inadvertently exposes Nathan’s callous cruelty and wild egotism as he brutally mistreats his android servants and human employee Caleb alike. By the time the power-mad tech entrepreneur has finished psychologically torturing Caleb, it’s almost a relief when Nathan is taken down by his own invention.

9 John Milton In Scream 3 (2000)

The Scream sequel’s Ghostface was no match for this twisted producer.

Every long-running slasher series features plenty of unlikable victims, but the Scream franchise’s worst movie includes a victim who is significantly worse than the outing’s version of Ghostface. Lance Henriksen’s John Milton is an odious Hollywood producer who took advantage of Maureen Prescott when she was a young, innocent actor, and his horrific abuse of the rising star set the events of the series in motion. His unacknowledged son, Roman Bridger, is the one committing the murders, but it’s impossible to see the troubled young man as a bigger monster than his unrepentant, appalling father.

8 Low Shoulder In Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Jennifer Body‘s band, Low Shoulder, was guiltier than the movie’s eponymous monster.

Like Scream 3, Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body includes characters intended to satirize the toxic side of the entertainment business. However, where the Scream sequel’s villain abused a young woman, Low Shoulder, the indie band of Jennifer’s Body, sacrificed an innocent teen to Satan to ensure they gained more fame and success. Low Shoulder’s members eventually got what was coming to them when Jennifer’s friendly Needy violently avenged her death. That said, they were still much worse than the surprisingly sympathetic Jennifer, even at her most demonic, since their crimes were committed in cold blood, whereas she was under the influence of a demonic force.

7 Hoskins In Jurassic World (2015)

This arms manufacturer caused innumerable deaths with shortsighted power grabs.

Many of the human villains in the Jurassic World and Jurassic Park movies would qualify as victims who were worse than the franchise’s “monsters” because the dinosaurs aren’t malicious so much as they are misunderstood. However, Vincent D’Onofrio’s comically evil Jurassic World villain, Hoskins, is comfortably the nastiest of these antagonists. An arms manufacturer, Hoskins is obsessed with utilizing dinosaurs as weapons of war. To this end, he attempts to steal raptors, takes over Jurassic World during a catastrophic park-wide security breach, and eventually causes his own death by foolishly trying to control the raptors.

6 The Bullies In Let Me In (2010)

Kenny and his friends were more lethal than a literal vampire.

Let Me In’s Abby — like Eli in the Swedish original, Let the Right One In — is one of the more sympathetic horror movie villains. However, even if she were an outright monster, she would have had a hard time outdoing the movie’s human antagonists. Abby is an ageless, misunderstood child vampire who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a lonely human boy, Owen. His bully, Kenny, is a full-blown psychopath who attempts to drown Owen and almost cuts out his eye. When the vampire swiftly kills Kenny and his friends to save Owen’s life, it is hard to feel for them despite their youth.

5 Aunt Jane In Five Nights At Freddy’s (2023)

The human villain of Five Nights at Freddy’s outdid the animatronics.

While the villains of Five Nights at Freddy’s do kill numerous people, they are also the spirits of small children who were kidnapped and killed. As such, it’s easy to feel for them despite their crimes. In contrast, Five Nights at Freddy’s Aunt Jane is an unambiguous monster who tries to get custody of her nephew’s sister revoked solely so that she can pick up the girl’s social welfare checks. This cartoonishly evil scheme eventually goes awry when Freddy Fazbear kills Aunt Jane off-screen, but it is tough not to feel like she got off relatively lightly.

4 Ms. Carmody In The Mist (2007)

Stephen King’s fundamentalist was a bigger monster than anything in the mist.

The Mist’s villains are more ferocious than the dinosaurs of the Jurassic Park movies, but it is tough to view them as outright antagonistic. They are wild monsters that attack anything that moves, but this is just their nature and not evidence of malicious intent. In contrast, The Mist’s human villain, Mrs. Carmody, actively utilizes a horrific situation to garner a following of religious zealots and needlessly persecute innocent townspeople. Mrs. Carmody is significantly more evil than the monsters in the mist because she has human intelligence but chooses to use it to make matters worse for everyone already trapped in a tense, terrifying siege.

3 Ms. Deagle In Gremlins (1984)

Ms. Deagle deserved to meet her fate at the claws of the gremlins.

The villains of Gremlins are sort of the movie’s heroes. They do pull some pretty violent pranks, but the little monsters are undeniably hilarious, and it is tough to call them evil, thanks to Gremlins cutting the original script’s gory deaths at the behest of producer Steven Spielberg. However, Ms. Deagle is a truly evil villain. She is first introduced trying to get a dog put down and the movie’s protagonist fired, and her behavior only gets more objectionable as the story progresses. By the time the Gremlins launch Ms. Deagle out a window, it’s easy to see why she thinks they are there to drag her to Hell.

2 Chris In Carrie (1976)

Carrie’s bully made her infamous rampage seem reasonable.

Before Let Me In’s murderous middle school bullies, there was Carrie’s Chris. A high school girl with a mean streak a mile wide, Chris’s first action in all movie versions of Carrie is bullying a sheltered homeschooled girl by humiliating her about her period. Chris then hatches a plot to teach Carrie a lesson and ends up killing an innocent student in the process. By the time Carrie kills Chris via telekinesis, it is hard to call the movie’s title character a villain despite her rapidly rising kill count.

1 AJ In Barbarian (2022)

The horror movie’s secondary protagonist was far worse than its ostensible monster.

The indie horror hit Barbarian has a twisty structure that takes a while to get going, but the second half of the movie proves that its ostensible villain is much more sympathetic than one of its apparent heroes. Barbarian’s ending sees Justin Long’s AJ push the heroine, Tess (Georgina Campbell), off a rooftop to save himself after confirming that he’s guilty of the sexual assault that he denied earlier. Cowardly, murderous, and unashamedly craven, Long’s character more than deserves his fate when Barbarian’s tragic monster rips AJ’s head in half with her bare hands to protect the horror movie’s heroine from him.