Since birth, we’ve been indoctrinated with a love of horror, whether we knew it or not. The first game your mother would play with you involved her hiding behind her hands and then shouting, “Boo!” We would get taught folk tales that involved a witch wanting to eat children or a wolf wearing the skin of an elderly woman. Some of us were warned of the Krampus, who’d kidnap misbehaving little boys and girls. We’d play Bloody Mary and watch old Disney films. You know, the scary ones. It was a lifetime of preparation for horror. Because deep down, we all have an innate desire to be frightened. We crave it and these characters scare us better than any others. Since this list encompasses the entire history of horror, every genre (and subgenre) is represented. Everything from creature features to kinder trauma, action movies to horror comedies are eligible. I combined characters if they worked as a duo or a group and I excluded animals (save for one) unless they were supernaturally possessed or if they had an internal monologue so that we could understand their motivations. I also only included characters from thrillers if they targeted children. This list is a celebration of horror and the icons that help us lose sleep at night.
These are the 500 Greatest Horror Characters of All Time.
75. Shaun (Simon Pegg) and Ed (Nick Frost) | Shaun of the Dead (2004)
It’s a testament to the duo’s natural chemistry and likability that these characters work at all, because, with any other actors, the film may not have worked. Strip the characters of Pegg’s inherent charm and Frost’s jovial affability and you’re left with two borderline insufferable man-children that constantly fuck up, much to the detriment of everyone around them. Shaun’s idiotic plan to hold up in a pub during a zombie apocalypse costs him almost everyone he cares about and although Ed is his ride-or-die mate, every decision he makes is the worst possible one. On paper, they’re two of the most unlikable screen protagonists in history but because real-life best friends Pegg and Frost were cast, you never stop rooting for them to succeed.
74. Martin (John Amplas) | Martin (1977)
It’s a shame that audiences only wanted Romero to make zombie films because if he was allowed to make more films like Martin, odds are, he would’ve had a very interesting career. Part coming-of-age drama and part deconstructionist vampire tale, Martin tells the story of a troubled young man (John Amplas) who believes himself to be a vampire. While his “vampirism” is at the center of the story, the film really isn’t that concerned about explaining it or even getting into his psychosis.
He’s a mentally unwell man who kills people and drinks their blood and because he thinks he needs to survive, he is a vampire. Romero smartly decided to ditch the supernatural elements and to remove any tragic backstory to just focus on what it would feel like to believe that you’re a vampire. Martin is a cold-blooded killer who does reprehensible acts but you feel for him because he truly believes he needs blood to live.
Most films about Dracula or vampires in general, deal with the inherent loneliness of immortality and how living a solitary life for eternity would negatively affect someone; how it would kill them slowly from the inside. Martin is the only vampire film I can think of that deals with those same themes of isolation but without the use of long-winded monologues by some guy in a cape. All it has is a sad teenager who can’t connect to anyone because he’s different. He was born wrong which is a far more lonely existence than a sexy European constantly moping because he can’t walk around in the sun.
73. Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) | Wolf Creek (2000)
Loosely based on the tourist killings committed by Ivan Milat in the ’90s and Bradley Murdoch in the early ’00s, Wolf Creek is an unrelenting serial killer thriller set in Australia. Stranded in the literal middle of nowhere, with no help in sight, three backpackers are being hunted by a sadistic psychopath played impeccably by John Jarratt. The true horror of the film isn’t the extreme isolation of the outback or the villains, it’s the fact that Mick Taylor is so goddamn likable that you’d never in a million years suspect he’d be capable of such cruelty. Jarrat disarms you with charm and just like a koala bear, attacks when you’d least expect it. But seriously though, koala bears are terrible monsters.
72. Amelia (Essie Davis) | The Babadook (2014)
Before the LGBTQ community turned him into a mascot, The Babadook was a movie William Friedkin referred to as “the scariest film he had ever seen” and while I don’t agree with him (the man has clearly never seen Showgirls 2), the film is terrifying. Jennifer Kent’s debut works on a level not many horror films do because its success lies not in its ability to frighten you but in its masterful depiction of loss and resentment. There’s an overwhelming emotional power to the material, and it’s owed chiefly to star Essie Davis, who gives an astonishing performance as a mother who’s slowly losing her grip with reality.
There might not be a more multifaceted performance in all of horror. She starts the film as a victim of an otherworldly boogeyman but as the film progresses, she eventually becomes the bogeyman. Was the Babadook real? Is it a product of her fractured psyche or is it more? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter because even though the film is named after him, it’s her movie and she owns every frame.
71. Damien Thorn (Harvey Stephens) | The Omen (1976)
With the exception of a clown in the woods at night or an abandoned mannequin factory, there’s nothing more unsettling than a creepy kid. It may be an overused trope but it’s a trope for a reason. Kids are fucking creepy. There’s the Banjo boy in Deliverance, the creepy cat-sounding ghost kid in Ju-on, the religious mini monsters in the Children of the Corn, the reanimated knife-wielding moppet of Pet Semetary, and on and on and on. The list is literally endless but of all the lil hellions that haunt the cinema, Damien Thorn is by far the most evil. He’s literally the son of the devil. You can’t get more evil than that.
70. Pumpkinhead (Tom Woodruff Jr.) | Pumpkinhead (1988)
Working as a sort of southern-fried Faust, Pumpkinhead is what happens when you make a deal with the devil and the devil actually delivers. After a group of teenage campers kill a young boy in a dirt bike accident, the father (a career-best Lance Hendrickson) stricken with grief, seeks a witch that lives in the woods that can offer him a chance at retribution through black magic, but at what cost?
Directed by special effects wizard Stan Winston, Pumpkinhead is one of the few monster films that puts character above the effects. It’s a drama first, monster film second but it also doesn’t skimp on the scary shit either. It’s like a peanut butter cup: it has the perfect blend of story and monster-killing excitement. It’s a shame that Winston never directed another horror movie because his debut is one of the best.
69. Bub (Sherman Howard) | Day of the Dead (1985)
While originally dismissed as a lesser entry in the Dead series, Day of the Dead would prove to be equally as important as the first two. The trilogy actually completes a narrative arc: Night introduces the dead, Dawn argues that we aren’t that different than mindless zombies, and Day says that the dead are actually better. It’s no coincidence that the most compassionate character in Day, and the only one out of the entire trilogy to have their own arc, is undead. Bub is the first zombie in Romero’s Dead series that exhibits emotion and intelligence. Even though the zombie revolution wouldn’t officially begin until Land of the Dead, it’s not hard to imagine that Bub was the one who got the ball rolling. All great revolutions have a beginning, and Bub is the genesis of the zombie revolution.
68. Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina) | Audition (1999)
A man in mourning after the loss of his wife looks to find the perfect woman to replace her. He holds bogus auditions for an ostensible film role in order to find her but the girl who catches his interest turns out to be a much better actress than he bargained for. Without any context, that plot description could go in any direction. It could be a wacky comedy starring Sandra Bullock or a slow-burn drama a la David Fincher but Audition is unlike any other film in existence. At first glance it appears to be a dark, psychological thriller but like an infected wound that only gets worse the more you fuck with it, Audition gets uglier the more you peel away. And it will definitely leave you with a scar. There are scenes in this film that are burned into my memory and it’s been almost 20 years since I’ve seen it. Never has the phrase “I’ll wait for your phone call” been more ominous.
67. Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm) | Peeping Tom (1960)
The film’s controversial subject matter as well as its extremely harsh reception by critics and audiences effectively killed Michael Powell’s career. Released before Psycho, audiences had never seen anything like Peeping Tom. It’s a mixture of voyeurism and ultra-violence, a literal game changer. This is ground zero for the slasher genre; which makes the deranged Mark Lewis one of the most important horror villains ever. Using a camera with a mirror affixed to the top (so the victims can watch themselves die) and a bladed tripod at the bottom to record his victims as he’s slowly stabbing them to death, Lewis is not only one of horrors grandfathers but one of its most demented as well.
66. Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) | Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
In the original novel by Ira Levin, the story is structured in such a way that the reveal of what Rosemary’s baby actually is is an unexpected surprise. The reader is supposed to be caught off guard by the ending. The film doesn’t work that way. You have a pretty good idea of what those weird ass neighbors are up to by the halfway point and even the slowest of viewers should deduce what’s up after they see the devil giving it to Rosemary. But that’s the genius of the film. It works not because we’re supposed to be shocked but because we knew it was coming and were powerless to stop the inevitable.
We are Rosemary. We only have half the pieces to the puzzle and by the time we figure out It’s a cat, a cult wants to take our newborn baby. But the structure nor the film itself would work without a rock-solid performance from Mia Farrow. She anchors the film with a perfect blend of confusion and distrust. She thinks she might be going mad but we know better and because she’s so likable, we aren’t frustrated at her. We’re terrified for her.
65. Erin (Sharni Vinson) | You’re Next (2011)
Home invasion films are among the hardest genre to pull off. In order for them to work, there has to be quite a bit of suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience. You have to essentially root for a pussy(s) to survive. A pussy that’s designed to be usually dumb as fuck in order for the plot to function. It’s a sub-genre built on a foundation of weak-ass protagonists but You’re Next said fuck all that noise. In addition to creating the most hardcore home invaders in movie history, You’re Next might have the single most badass protagonist in any genre. Erin is what would happen if Kevin McCallister and Jigsaw had a baby and then Mad Max babysat it.
64. Brigitte Fitzgerald (Emily Perkins) and Ginger Fitzgerald (Katharine Isabelle) | Ginger Snaps (2000)
Not since Carrie has there been a better depiction of the teenage outcast than Ginger Snaps. Brigitte and Ginger are death-obsessed teenagers who create fake suicide and murder scenes and have even taken a blood oath to die together, by any means necessary. Even though they’re dismissed by everyone but the school bullies, the two are completely inseparable. That is, until one of them gets bitten by a werewolf and needs to be put down before they commit another murder.
Since their inception, werewolves have often been used as a placeholder for something else. The Wolf Man made it a metaphor for the hunting and prosecution of the Jews. Teen Wolf turned them into an analogy for puberty and Ginger Snaps cleverly compared turning into a wolf, with a woman having her period for the first time. It’s bloody, it’s awful and whoever is going through it wants to kill everyone in the room. It’s an ingenious setup that is anchored by two of the most unique, relatable protagonists in horror.
63. Severen (Bill Paxton) | Near Dark (1987)
Before she was the Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow was behind unique action thrillers such as the Keanu Reeves surfer–bank robber flick Point Break, the Ralph Fiennes end-of-the-century film Strange Days and 1987’s vampire-western Near Dark. There was a time when she was a far more interesting director than her now ex-husband James Cameron. He might’ve made better films but she was willing to take a chance on anything. Including hiring the semi-unknown Bill Paxton as a sadistic vampire. She clearly wasn’t the first to use him and she most likely hired him because he was Cameron’s buddy but she was the first to turn him into a legit badass.
Before this film, he played either assholes, creeps or weirdos but this film proved that he could do anything. The best scene of the film (and in my opinion the only good scene in the film) involves him massacring an entire bar of patrons. Not because he needs to feed or because he needs to defend himself — he did it because he’s a psychopath who just doesn’t care. He kills because he can and because he wants to, which makes him exponentially more terrifying than the typical amoral vampire.
62. Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) | Fright Night (1985)
What makes Peter Vincent a brilliant character, is the fact that he’s a pussy. A goddamn coward. A former vampire hunter (he’s essentially Van Helsing) on the big screen, his career has deteriorated to the point where he’s become a late night horror host. When the protagonist thinks he’s being hunted by a vampire, he enlists the aid of Vincent and soon discovers that his movie persona is nothing at all like the reality.
That’s my only problem with the surprisingly solid remake. David Tennant does a great job in the role but he’s too much of a badass for it to work. It doesn’t detract from the film but it kind of ruins the character. It would be like remaking Scooby-Doo with Tom Hardy in the role of Shaggy. He needs to be a coward for the redemptive arc to land and McDowall sells both.
61. Dad (Bill Paxton) | Frailty (2001)
Imagine you’re ten years old and your father sits you down and tells you that God has chosen him to vanquish demons here on earth. He then takes you to the shed out back and, tied to a chair, crying as if her life depended on it, is a local waitress you see every day after school. Your father then convinces your younger brother that she isn’t human but is in fact, a demon in disguise. He then proceeds to kill her in front of you. What the fuck would you do?
That’s the general plot synopsis for the critically underseen film Frailty. Matthew McConaughey may be the star of the film but the film belongs to Paxton. He’s extraordinary in the role of “dad.” He never once plays him as a villain. He’s a sympathetic man lost in his delusions. Delusions that are costing the lives of more and more people.
60. Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen) | Pumpkinhead (1988)
After a group of teenage campers kill a young boy in a dirt bike accident, the father (Lance Henriksen) stricken with grief, seeks a witch that lives in the woods that can offer him a chance at retribution through black magic, but at what cost?
Working as a sort of southern-fried Faust, Pumpkinhead is what happens when you make a deal with the devil and the devil actually delivers. The reason the film works as well as it does, is the fact that it holds the audience accountable for their own bloodlust. At first you want to see the terrible teenagers all die but once they start getting killed–you, like Harley–want it to end. It puts you in the shoes of the protagonist. You completely understand why he’d make the deal but then you root for him to kill the goddamn thing. The monster might put the ass in the seats but the film doesn’t work without Ed Harley and his decision.
59. Tommy Jarvis (Various) | Friday the 13th (Franchise)
Friday the 13th is the only major horror franchise without a consistent protagonist. Each film hit the restart button on the franchise until The Final Chapter (spoiler: It’s not the last one) introduced Tommy Jarvis. Originally played by Corey Feldman, Tommy is a horror-obsessed 12-year-old who actually outwits and ultimately kills Jason in their first encounter.
In Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Tommy (now played by John Shepherd) is a little bit older and a little bit more crazy than the last time we saw him. He’s living in a halfway house and is suffering from hallucinations. He’s trying to get his life back together but the past won’t leave him alone. Jason is back to his old tricks. Or is he? And in his last appearance in the series, Tommy (now played by Thom Mathews) has to contend with a super-powered zombie Jason in Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives.
Even though he was only in three out of the twelve films in the franchise, Tommy Jarvis has nevertheless become a fan favorite and if we’re being honest, his three are unquestionably the best in the series.
58. Tucker McGee (Alan Tudyk) and Dale Dobson (Tyler Labine) | Tucker & Dale Vs Evil (2010)
Hillbilly redneck cannibals are such a prevalent villain in horror, that the film The Cabin in the Woods used them as one of their cliche monster du jour. Like zombies or Nazis, they’re an easily identifiable albeit unremarkable baddie. But what makes Tucker and Dale Vs Evil so brilliant, is that it takes that lame-ass villain and all of the cliches associated with it and flips it on its head
Tucker and Dale are hillbillies but they’re not murderous in any way. They keep unintentionally putting themselves in situations that make them look like they’re deranged killers, the group of teens they keep running into ends up accidentally killing themselves because they’re trying to avoid them. Tucker and Dale are just minding their business but due to a hilarious misunderstanding, everyone around them ends up dead. The film is ingenious and the duo are the funniest horror protagonists since Abbott and Costello.
57. Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd & Ewan McGregor) | The Shining (1980) & Doctor Sleep (2019)
Poor Danny Torrance. On top of the voice in his head named Tony who tells him weird ass shit, he has to deal with a nasty ass hag from room 237, a power called the Shining which he doesn’t understand, a pair of creepy ass twins (who happen to be dead) who won’t stop pestering him to play and an axe wielding manic who just happens to be his father. Thank god Hong Kong Phooey is here to save the day. Oh wait. Few, if any, children have gone through as much as Danny in The Shining, which explains where he ends up in the sequel Doctor Sleep. Traumatized by the events at the Overlook Hotel, Danny struggles with alcoholism and anger, much like his father Jack. He suppresses his psychic abilities for years, but the emergence of a young girl named Abra, who also has the “shining,” pulls him back into the supernatural conflict. Danny becomes her mentor and protector against the True Knot, a cult that feeds on children with the same abilities.
McGregor’s portrayal shows a man burdened by his past but trying to find redemption. His arc in Doctor Sleep deals with trauma, recovery, and reclaiming his psychic gift. The film pays homage to The Shining, revisiting the Overlook Hotel and many of the horrors that still reside there, but it also gives Danny closure, allowing him to face the ghosts of his childhood in a final confrontation. Together, Lloyd’s and McGregor’s performances present a character who evolves from a frightened child to a damaged but heroic adult, making Danny Torrance one of the most complex and enduring figures in Stephen King’s universe.
56. Sadako Yamamura (Rie Inō) | Ringu (1998)
Before Ringu, Japanese monsters were either hopping vampires, big ass Godzilla Kaijus or creepy old ghost ladies. After Ringu, every horror movie released, to this day, is either ripping off its iconic black hair-over-the-face ghost or is tying ghosts to technology like a haunted cell phone or some shit. Ringu‘s ghost design might be as important to Japanese culture as Romero’s zombies were to the West. But that’s not all Ringu brings to the table. It doesn’t just have a scary-ass ghost, it has a scary-ass ghost that can crawl through your TV. You’ll never look at VHS tapes the same.
55. Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) | Scream (Franchise)
For as many final girls as there are, Sidney Prescott is the only one to appear in every film of her respected franchise (Scream VI? Never heard of it). The fact that she survives the entire series is a big deal. Nancy, Ripley, and Laurie are arguably the three biggest final girls but two of them died and the third technically never got a conclusion since she was replaced by the actress that played her (New Nightmare is extremely meta) but Sidney was there from the beginning to the end.
In addition to being the ultimate survivor, she also has one of the best character arcs; with each subsequent film making her more and more capable. Ghostface may be the face of the series but it wouldn’t work without Sidney.
54. Annie (Toni Collette) | Hereditary (2018)
Some horror films live and die by their premises. They ask the audience to believe a guy can kill you in your sleep or that a little boy can see ghosts. Some horror films live and die by their villain. Others by how much sex and violence they promise.
And a few live and die by the performances. Hereditary would not have worked if the lead was weak. The character of Annie needed an actress who could run the full gamut of emotions, who could inspire sympathy and disgust in the audience. You needed to believe her but there also needed to be doubt. Is she crazy or is something malicious happening to her family?
Hereditary is a perfect example of a film being completely dependent on the strength of the central character and Toni Collette knocks it out of the park. She gives one of the best performances in any horror film to date.
53. Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig) | The Devil’s Rejects (2005)
When Tarantino and Rodriguez teamed up to make Grindhouse, the ultimate goal was to invoke the feeling of seeing a double bill at a seedy drive-in. The good ol’ days when you could potentially see Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS paired up with a sleazy cannibal film. The plan was ultimately a failure since no one went to see it but as awesome as the experiment was, neither Death Proof nor Planet Terror were technically a “grindhouse” film.
Both films were inspired by the idea of the grindhouse experience but neither actually would’ve existed in the 70’s. The Devil’s Rejects on the other hand feels like it would’ve been on a double bill with either I Spit on Your Grave or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s a nasty bit of exploitation but that was the point. Grindhouse films aren’t supposed to be fun. They’re supposed to feel dangerous and to that point, not since the release of the Last House on the Left has there been a more dangerous group to hit the cinema than the Firefly Clan.
Every one of them is a rotten human being and while Captain Spaulding is debatably the least horrible, he’s easily the most entertaining. Although he’s dressed as a clown, Spaulding is the defacto ringleader of the family of killers. He may not kill as many as the members of the clan but he’s certainly the one holding the leash.
52. Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) | Saw (Franchise)
To summarize a backstory that gets increasingly more and more convoluted as the series progresses: After being diagnosed with an inoperable tumor, John Kramer (Tobin Bell) decides to take his own life. Miraculously, the suicide attempt fails but instead of counting his blessings or hitting the titty bar, Kramer decides to dedicate his life to punishing those who take their life for granted.
From that point forward, he becomes Jigsaw: torture game enthusiast with a penchant for puppets and pig masks. If you ask a hundred horror enthusiasts why they like horror, I’d bet over half of them would say the gore effects. There’s nothing better than seeing creative kills done practically and the Saw series has some of the most ingenious kills in all of horror. And that’s far more important than whatever bullshit backstory they use to pad the length of these films.
51. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) | The Sixth Sense (1999)
Bruce Willis has been phoning in his career for so long, it’s hard to remember a time when he was a good actor. Even before he consigned himself to direct-to-video trash, he was an actor known mostly for action and action comedies but somehow, M. Night Shyamalan was able to get a subtle, poignant performance from him.
After getting shot by a patient in the opening scene, Malcolm Crowe is a psychiatrist who, in a desperate attempt to “fix” his previous mistake, takes on a peculiar patient who reminds him of the man who shot him. The patient? A ten-year-old boy (Haley Joel Osment) who claims he can see ghosts.
Once Osment is introduced, it immediately becomes his film and while he gives a phenomenal performance, Willis has the equally hard job of doing two things at once. Everything he does in the film takes on a completely different meaning the second time you watch it. Osment’s performance sells you on the premise of a little boy who can see ghosts and Willis’ performance makes the twist unforgettable.
100-76 | 50-26
What do you think of the list so far? Which characters do you hope will make the cut?
