Paul Bettany in just about anything:

Gangster #1
Dogville
Firewall

At the end of Firewall, he Spoiler: gets a pickaxe in the back which was too merciful a comeuppance for his brutality.

In the remake of Hills Have Eyes, there is one scene. If the whole movie was written like this one night scene the movie would be the best horror movie ever (hint: it wasn't).

Spoiler:Spoiler: There is a family consisting of Father, Mother, Daughter 1 (married w/baby), Daughter 2 (about 18, totally hot), and Husband (married to Daughter 1), and Baby. The Hill People (HP) capture the father, in the middle of the night tie him to a tree and set him on fire for his entire family to see. Everyone but Daughter 2 and Baby rush to help him. The Hill People (HP) enter the trailer and start to rape Daughter 2. Daughter 1 comes in, tries to fight them, but stops when they threaten her baby. They then continue to rape Daughter 2, and begin to breastfeed off Daughter 1. Mother comes in, gets shot. Daughter 2 stabs one of the HP, gets shot. They run off with the baby. This all within a few minutes.

Exactly the first person I thought of. Very evil in the Patriot, almost as evil as Lucius.

Clancy Brown. Great in Highlander, Shoot to Kill and he is the cartoon voice of Lex Luthor.

Soo... what was Husband doing in all of this???

Spoiler: The burning father was a pretty good distance away from the trailer where the girls were, and the husband was trying to find a way to get the father down from the tree he was tied to while burning.

Keyser Söze

And too merciful a comeuppance for his being involved in that stinker of a movie.

Ah yes...and he also plays the prison guard in Shawshank Redemption, and also Brother Justin in HBO's Carnivale. Both great villains.

I wanna be Clancy Brown...

OMG how could I have forgotten Robert Englund????? Freddy Kruger????? The old man in The Mangler?????? Oh, yeah, he made me lose a night of sleep or 3 in my younger years.

You want evil? How about a group who are so evil they inspire pain with one word?! Who give impossible quests only to watch their victim's suffering? The Knights of Nee!

NEE!

NEE!

NEE!

:lol:

Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre...well, any of the family members really. That was one fucked up movie.

I third Nurse Ratchett. That woman was pure evil.

I agree! Robert Mitchum was a much more menacing Max Cady than DeNiro was. And, with the censors back then, I was actually shocked at what they got away with in the original. Excellent movie.

Micheal Madson as Vic Vega aka Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs

Spoiler: After the three men leave, Blonde reveals his intentions to the cop. He plans on torturing him, not for information, but simply because he enjoys it. Blonde turns on the radio to K-BILLY’s Super Sounds of the ‘70s weekend and removes a straight razor from his cowboy boot. In a shocking scene, Blonde dances around the warehouse to Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You” and cuts off the man’s right ear.

how could you not think of Mr. Blonde?

I tend to find performances where actors were portraying real life monster more evil.

The guy who played the child rapist in Bastard Out of Alabama and also the guy who played Harry in Harry Portrait of a Serial Killer. Those two movies really freaked me out.

When I was a kid, the other two characters I found terrifying were Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. That witch was just pure evil. Also, I saw this movie Magic when I was a kid about a guy who was a ventriloquest and whose puppet was talking to him. Recently, I found out the actor in that was Anthony Hopkins. :D Well, that explained a lot.

Michael Wincott as Top Dollar in The Crow

Bruce Payne as Terrorist Charles Rane in Passenger 57
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ssenger_57.jpg

Still no mention of Darth Vader. A man who, for two movies tries to kill his own son or get his son to kill him.

(There can be only two sith after all).

I see a Darth Vader mention up there!

This isn't a movie but Kavvinaugh from The Shield TV series is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

Like Mal said...Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter...scariest and most despicable movie bad guy ever.

Then there's Richard Widmark in his first film, Kiss of Death...pure evil with the most insidious giggle ever.

There's a little known film named Caught (early '50's, I think) starring Robert Ryan as the insanely domineering husband of Barbara Bel Geddes. His performance is chilling.

As for Taxi Driver, I think Harvey Keitel's character was more disturbing than Travis Bickle.

How about Alan Arkin in Wait Until DarK?

Mr. Brocklehurst in any film version of Jane Eyre, but especially the 1940's one starring Joan Fontaine...don't know who played him but he's an asshole :p

Some of the most evil women...

Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?...serious childhood trauma

Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest

and in similar femme fatale roles...

Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity
and
Kathleen Turner in Body Heat

Despite the cheesy effects and John Boy in the cast, that movie scared the crap out of me for a long time. We all float down here...

But he's also Mr. Krabs....and how can you be scared of Mr. Krabs?

I watched a clip from Se7en yesterday and was reminded just how creepy evil Kevin Spacey can be...

*swoon* Clancy Brown.....He did great in Highlander

I love Clancy

Macaulay Culkin's character from "The Good son"

Pure evil and in the form of a child. Killed his brother, neighbor's dog, and countless other despicable things all with a smile on his face and manipulating adults to believe he is an angle, and all before puberty.

Christian Bale in American Psycho
John Malkovich in Mary Reilly... that man scares the crap out me just naturally.
Kevin Bacon in Sleepers
Gaspard Ulliel in Hannibal Rising... that kid is creepy.
The entire cast of Closer for mindfucking each other.
The Fanelli's... yes, all of them... from Vulgar.
Glenn Close in that bunny boiling movie.
Otik from Little Otik.... because I still have nightmares.

And, the grand finale, that creepy dude from Fright Night who was also in The Princess Bride. But Fright Night scared the beejezus out of me as a child and I've never been able to see that guy in ANY role without flinching.

Has anyone mentioned Bruce, the shark from Jaws? I also don't see the HAL 9000 from 2001. Awesome villain.

And Erin Brockovich. I don't know why.

Capitán Vidal from Pan's Labyrinth. That man was EVIL. *shudder*

Although I definitely agree with the 6 fingered man from Princess Bride...I saw that torture scene when I was about seven and it freaked me out for quite a while.

I love your sci-fi/nerdy nods to the ultimate evils that are fish and psychotic computers.
I would like to say that I found it a bit unnerving to have a villian so dark in a Disney movie like "The Incredibles". Whatever the villian's name was with the short stature and awesomely-huge quaff. Way too evil to be even mentioned in the same breath as Disney.

Buddy Pine (aka Syndrome) voiced by Jason Lee, of My Name is Earl.

Ummm...yeah...I gots kids. :rolleyes:

Well, if we're going to bring up Disney movies...then there's Geraldine Page who did the voice of Medusa in The Rescuers and George C. Scott who was McLeach in The Rescuers Down Under. Those two were about the most menacing Disney characters that I can think of. Oh, and of course, there's Cruella DeVille.

Oh yes, cartoons count, perhaps moreso than live movies because their look can be way more evil...

McLeach WAS cool, however the most memorable part of that movie was McLeach's truck!
Jeromy Irons as Scar: He kills his own brother & tries to kill his nephew, that's EVIL!
William Hurt as The Horned King in The Black Cauldron

As for live action...
I loved Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook in Hook
Robin Williams as Cy the Photo Guy in One Hour Photo, he gave a new meaning to the word "creepy."
Jack Palance as Jack Wilson in Shane.

Just remembered...

The menacing Mercedes McCambridge in A Touch of Evil.

I found Wild Bill to be much more terrifying than Hannibal. She puts the lotion in the basket...:eek:

I'm so glad you mentioned this, Shani. I was looking for this the whole time. Jasan Isaacs played SUCH a fantastic villain in this movie that it made me seriously wonder what kind of guy he was in real life. His mannerisms, way of speaking, and way of carrying himself were so perfect, it was frightening.

Also, Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator. Seriously, I absolutely hated him in this movie. He was such a slimy little pissant and it just made me so mad to listen to ANYTHING this character said. It really speaks well of his acting talent if he can make me despise him so much, hah.

Bringing up Joaquin reminds me of Nicole Kidman in To Die For.

I thought no one would mention him. Not really evil, but truly despicable.

I can't believe no one mentioned Olivier's character in Marathon Man. I mean fillings without anesthetic....how menacing is that?

If anyone else saw Silver Bullet... the Werewolf/Priest terrified me for years. I couldn't go upstairs by myself until I was 12.

Was it you, hagatha, that brought up Oliver Reed in the Hottest Men in Showbusiness thread? I seem to think it was....

But anywho, Oliver Reed in the movie Oliver! was pretty damn menacing.

He was a bastard in Tommy too, but the man was just so sexy.....

Steve Buscemy in Fargo *shudder*

Tim Roth in Rob Roy. I have NEVER hated - and I do mean hated - a character in a damn movie like his character. He's an unbelievable actor.

Although, I must give an honorable mention to the, uh, ultimate betrayer in Matchstick Men, which is really just an OK movie. But I really wanted to kill that person, who I won't mention in case you haven't seen the movie.

George Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11.