There’s nothing that can beat a good horror performance. Usually, the attention and praise go to victims who overcome the threat of monsters and gather the necessary empathy to make viewers cheer for them. However, a good villain can have a performer solid enough to win over the hearts of audiences.
In the case of the following performances, they stand out because they added an element of authenticity and sheer terror, regardless of how horror is seen in today’s industry. The term is controversial, but they elevated the movies by personifying pure evil in films that were already scary. These are the ten perfect villain performances in modern horror.
- Longlegs - Longlegs (2024)
- Abigail - Abigail (2024)
- Rose - Get Out (2017)
- The Grabber - The Black Phone (2022)
- Rose the Hat - Doctor Sleep (2019)
- Ellie - Evil Dead Rise (2023)
- Red - Us (2019)
- Kevin Wendell Crumb (and Others) - Split (2016)
- Pearl - Pearl (2022)
- Chef Julian Slowik - The Menu (2022)
I do not agree with this at all. Although I love Nicolas Cage, I found Longlegs to be boring, and really neither scary or relatable. Compared to movies that are not even mentioned, like Smile, Speak no evil (the original), Midsommar, Mother etc, i don’t feel like Longlegs should be at the top!
I actually even feel that M3gan was better than Longlegs both as a whole and as a singled out villain.
Conversely, I was unmoved by Smile, thought Midsommar was fine but was just redoing the Wicker Man and I hate Mother. Meanwhile, I was unnerved by Longlegs which is not something that happens often these days, although it was less about Cage (who doesn’t have much screentime) and more about how it was directed. He does deserve to be on the list for the film, but not quite so high and M3gan should definitely be in the mix. I’d also throw in Dan Stevens’ character from Cuckoo.
Longlegs was extremely disappointing for me. The trailers invoking “Silence of the Lambs” was an insult. I went in expecting Lambs and instead recieved a supernatural story. I think my expectations would’ve been more tempered had the trailer not brought up Lambs.
I can only assume the writer either has very different taste in horror from me/us, or we’ve been (not so) cunningly been sucked into engagement bait. Include the movie on a list of modern horror? Sure. I had some issues with it, but whatever. Longlegs himself, though? Oof.