There's something delightfully masochistic about watching horror movies. After all, the idea of intentionally putting oneself in a position to feel terror doesn't exactly sound like fun — yet, moviegoers everywhere flock to their local theatres seeking the satisfaction of a good spook. And, let's be honest: Few writers do spooky like Stephen King. The popular writer has molded some of literature's most horrific monsters and madmen — and the film adaptations of his novels and short stories take things one step further, putting them on the big screen for all the world to witness their misdeeds. While nearly every character from Stephen King's bibliography is terrifying in their own right, these have to be the scariest Stephen King movie villains ever.
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00:00Why would a clown eat you alive?
00:02How can a hotel be evil?
00:03And what's so bad about a space cowboy?
00:06Stephen King has the answers.
00:07Keep watching for his scariest villains ever.
00:10Pennywise the Clown may be the scariest of all of Stephen King's villains, and with good
00:14reason.
00:15This ancient shapeshifter comes from beyond our universe and can take on the form of whatever
00:18terrifies us most.
00:19A scared human is supposedly a more delectable one, so it's only natural that a clown would
00:24be the favored appearance for a hungry creature with its sights set on a town filled with
00:27children.
00:28With its shapeshifting ability, Pennywise maintains its fresh supply of victims by psychically
00:33manipulating the citizens of Derry.
00:35Nobody really seems to notice or care too much about the disappearances of countless
00:38children and adults over the hundreds of years following Pennywise's arrival on Earth.
00:42It's not until the Losers Club bands together that the creature truly meets its match.
00:47Pennywise is portrayed by Tim Curry in the 1990 TV miniseries and Bill Skarsgård in
00:51the more recent adaptations of the novel.
00:53His reign of terror looks poised to continue, too, with reports of a prequel series in the
00:58works for HBO Max.
01:00Here's Johnny!
01:03While Jack Torrance is the primary antagonist of The Shining, it's the Overlook Hotel that
01:08provoked his gradual descent into madness.
01:11The site of countless murders and atrocities, the hotel manipulates its guests and manifests
01:15horrors for its own gruesome means.
01:18As famously depicted in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film adaptation, The Overlook takes advantage
01:22of Jack Torrance's alcoholism and abuse, and turns him into an axe-wielding avatar for
01:27its murderous desires.
01:28It also manifests the ghost of its former guests and overseers, such as the infamous
01:33Grady twins and the woman in room 237.
01:36The Overlook Hotel returned in Mike Flanagan's 2019 adaptation of King's sequel, Dr. Sleep,
01:41in which an adult Danny Torrance returns to the cursed lodgings in order to stop a group
01:45of psychic child killers.
01:47Interestingly, this is also the only Stephen King villain that you can meet in real life.
01:51If you're feeling brave, you can book a weekend at the Stanley Hotel in Colorado, which served
01:55as the inspiration for The Overlook, and was even used as a filming location for Mick
01:59Garris' 1997 Shining miniseries.
02:03Few on-screen King villains are as iconic as the blood-sucking Kurt Barlow in Tobey
02:07Hooper's 1979 miniseries adaptation of Salem's Lot.
02:11Between his classic nosferatu appearance and the way in which his supernatural influence
02:15eats away the small town of Jerusalem's Lot, Barlow is deservedly one of the most feared
02:20depictions of the vampire in cinematic history.
02:23While Hooper's version of Barlow is far more outwardly monstrous than in the original novel,
02:27it certainly worked in the film's favor.
02:29The shockingly yellow eyes, the scarred and discolored skin, the long and misshapen fangs
02:33— Barlow's haunting appearance is devoid of any humanity he may have once had.
02:37The handsome, charming gentleman vampire stepped aside for this manifestation of parasitic
02:42evil in the 79 miniseries, and the story is all the better for it.
02:46Kathy Bates' obsessive superfan from Misery may not be a demon or an alien, but her outwardly
02:51wholesome appearance is all the more disturbing in contrast with the torment she inflicts
02:54on author Paul Sheldon.
02:56Annie Wilkes can't believe her luck when she discovers the man she's rescued from a car
03:00wreck is her favorite author.
03:01Unfortunately for Sheldon, she has a serious bone to pick over his decision to kill off
03:05the protagonist of his famous series of romance novels.
03:08Trapped by his severe injuries and Wilkes' unstable threats of violence, Sheldon is forced
03:13to write a more satisfying continuation of the Misery Chastain novels.
03:16It's no surprise that Kathy Bates won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance
03:20as Annie Wilkes in Rob Reiner's 1990 film adaptation.
03:24She expertly transitions from quirky to terrifying on a dime, delivering one of the most memorable
03:29on-screen king villains of all time.
03:31Now don't be afraid, I love you.
03:39Lizzie Kaplan also delivered an interesting take on a younger Wilkes in the second season
03:43of Hulu's now-canceled series, Castle Rock.
03:46Sadistic, unpredictable, and entirely convinced that her actions are rational.
03:50In a modern world of stan culture and obsessive fandoms, Annie Wilkes seems scarier than ever.
03:55The Night Flyer is one of King's more obscure stories, and it's more on the goofy side than
03:59it is outright bone-chilling.
04:00But Mark Pavia's 1997 film adaptation went all-in on the special effects for its aviation-enthusiast
04:06vampire villain, resulting in one of the most impressively gruesome and unsettling monsters
04:11depicted in a King adaptation.
04:12Dwight Renfield is the pseudonym of a pilot who is rumored to be responsible for a rash
04:16of bizarre killings at local airports and airfields.
04:19Miguel Ferrer's sleazy reporter Richard Deas is assigned to the case, and although he's
04:23initially skeptical of the story, it quickly becomes clear that there's plenty of meat
04:27on this urban legend's bones.
04:29Although he does have a normal human form, Renfield's ultimate appearance is a truly
04:33horrific beast with a flat snout, grotesquely wrinkled flesh, and enormous fangs on the
04:37top and bottom of his jaws to feed on the blood of his victims.
04:40Basically, he's not a looker.
04:42Apt Pupil seems to have fallen by the wayside since its release in 1998.
04:46In this movie, though, Ian McKellen gives a superb performance as Kurt Dusunder, an
04:50elderly German war criminal in hiding whose true nature is awoken by a teenage neighbor.
04:55And the character is especially disturbing in an age of heightened political extremism
04:59and impressionable, embittered youth.
05:01Apt Pupil was one of several short stories from King's Different Seasons collection to
05:05be adapted as a feature film.
05:07In this particular story, Dusunder is revealed to have served in Hitler's SS during World
05:11War II, taking part in the Holocaust before fleeing for South America and later the United
05:16States.
05:17Taking the false identity of Arthur Denker, Dusunder has managed to avoid detection until
05:21his past is discovered by a local teenager, Todd Bowden, who blackmails him in return
05:26for tales of the atrocities he committed during the war.
05:28What's truly disturbing about Dusunder isn't just his past, but how easily he slips back
05:33into acts of cruelty and violence, and how his influence quickly emboldens Bowden's latent
05:37dark side.
05:38There's little fantasy behind the evil in Apt Pupil, as the horrors of yesteryear don't
05:42always diminish with the passage of time.
05:44In the case of Todd Bowden, all it takes is a little push in the wrong direction.
05:49For the protagonists of The Mist, having to run and hide from ultra-dimensional creatures
05:53is terrifying enough.
05:54But the terror spills over entirely when Marsha Gay Hardin's Mrs. Carmody begins to whip the
05:58survivors into a religious frenzy.
06:00In particular, the superb 2007 film adaptation provides a terrifying portrayal of this deeply
06:05disturbing king villain.
06:07Mrs. Carmody is driven by a passionate and committed religious interpretation of the
06:11When a scientific experiment goes wrong at a local military base, a strange mist is unleashed
06:16upon the town below, manifesting all kinds of strange creatures.
06:19Shoppers at a local supermarket are trapped inside the building, and as paranoia and fear
06:23set in, Mrs. Carmody begins to convince others that the mist is God's punishment for the
06:27sins of our world, and her followers must help to dish it out.
06:31Marsha Gay Hardin's performance as Carmody is phenomenal, a relentless whirlwind of dogmatic
06:35preaching and manipulation of vulnerable survivors.
06:38It's equal parts enraging and terrifying to see the protagonists torn between the horror
06:42of The Mist's monsters and the evil of their fellow townspeople.
06:45"...to the beast!"
06:48"...let the abominations smell his blood!"
06:54Doug Hutchison excelled as cruel and sadistic prison guard Percy Wetmore in the feature
06:59film adaptation of King's novel The Green Mile.
07:01The story concerns the miraculous abilities of a death row inmate at Cold Mountain Penitentiary
07:06in the 1930s.
07:08Hutchison portrays Corrections Officer Percy Wetmore, a sadistic and cold overseer of the
07:11titular Green Mile cell block.
07:13He takes great pleasure in tormenting the inmates, finding every possible way to inflict
07:17pain and suffering on them without losing his job.
07:20Even worse, Wetmore's behavior is backed by his familial connections, which not only landed
07:24him the gig, but keep him in the good graces of Cold Mountain's higher-ups.
07:28Even though he eventually receives his just desserts, Wetmore's crimes and abuses are
07:32seriously tough to watch.
07:34There are plenty of horrifying moments in Mike Flanagan's 2017 adaptation of Gerald's
07:38Game, but the reveal of the Space Cowboy truly takes the cake.
07:42Depicted on screen by Carl Stricken, Raymond Andrew Jubert is a serial killer whose numerous
07:47crimes tick just about every depraved box there is.
07:50But his most frightening act is simply his presence throughout Julie Burlingame's struggle
07:53to escape a pair of handcuffs after a sex game gone wrong.
07:57While he's capable of practically every heinous crime imaginable, in Gerald's Game, the Space
08:01Cowboy prefers to watch Julie's torment from the shadows.
08:04As Julie's predicament becomes more and more desperate, the lines of reality begin to blur,
08:08and the entity of the Space Cowboy becomes all the more haunting.
08:11It's a great example of King's ability to combine our fears of the real and the imagined.
08:15Pennywise is undoubtedly the true villain of IT, but the shape-shifting creature gets
08:19along with a little help from a very bad friend.
08:22"-My person!"
08:26Local bully Henry Bowers is both the product and executor of human evil in Derry.
08:30An abusive upbringing led Bowers to become sadistic in his teen years, leading his own
08:34gang and tormenting the town's youth.
08:36This makes Bowers a right vessel for Pennywise's campaign of evil against the Losers Club in
08:40the town, manipulating him to act out his darkest tendencies.
08:44What makes Henry Bowers so scary is not just the fact that he's reminiscent of every small
08:48town's notorious troublemaker, but that he's so tragically a perfect target for Pennywise's
08:53influence.
08:54What could have been a promising young man was practically doomed by his father's abuse,
08:57long before Pennywise even set his sights on Bowers.
09:00No matter which version of IT you prefer, it's fascinating and terrifying to see the
09:03different ways in which this depiction of generational trauma and violence can be explored.
09:08An all-powerful, many-faced servant of the Crimson King from the Dark Tower series, Randall
09:13Flagg is directly and indirectly responsible for many of the terrifying events throughout
09:17King's fiction.
09:18And while he might not look so physically imposing in Mick Garris' 1994 TV adaptation
09:23of The Stand or the more recent CBS miniseries, that's kind of the point.
09:27Flagg is charismatic, mysterious, and gains support through his ability to give people
09:30exactly what they desire.
09:32He could be described as the King Universe's equivalent of the biblical Satan, but truthfully,
09:37Flagg is far more complex than that.
09:39Flagg sows discord and chaos across time and space, taking on many forms and names and
09:43corrupting everything he touches.
09:45His most recent appearances on screens include the 2017 Dark Tower film, in which he was
09:49played by Matthew McConaughey, and the 2020 miniseries adaptation of The Stand, in which
09:54he was played by Alexander Skarsgård.
09:56And of course, there's no doubt that Flagg will eventually find his way to our screens
09:59again, one way or another.
10:01Carrie was the first cinematic adaptation of King's work, and thanks to Brian De Palma's
10:05superb direction and the cast's lead performances, it's still one of the best to date.
10:10Carrie is the repressed daughter of Margaret White, a religious fanatic who has fallen
10:14apart after her former husband's departure from the family.
10:17Carrie demonstrates an untapped telekinetic ability, which begins to manifest itself in
10:21response to bullying by other girls at school.
10:24White's fanaticism is only intensified when Carrie pushes back against her restrictions,
10:28demonstrating her telekinetic abilities to prove she cannot be controlled.
10:34I shall not suffer which to live."
10:36Piper Laurie delivers a superb portrayal of Margaret, a character who appears merely eccentric
10:41to the neighborhood, but terrorizes her daughter behind closed doors.
10:44Her own trauma is weaponized against Carrie, punishing her for any transgressions by locking
10:48her in a closet to pray for forgiveness.
10:50Unlike Mrs. Carmody, White is rejected by almost everybody except Carrie, who is torn
10:55between wanting her mother's love and being absolutely terrified of the monster she has
10:59become.
11:00In light of her repressive upbringing, Carrie's fiery vengeance during the film's climax is
11:03no surprise.
11:05Sure, the threat of Cujo seems small-scale when compared to the likes of Stephen King's
11:09other villains, but this is a good example of how King writes stories that scare on more
11:13personal levels the threat of the beloved family pet.
11:16In the 1983 film adaptation of Cujo, Donna Trenton and her son Brett are terrorized by
11:21the formerly adorable St. Bernard, who is understandably still the go-to reference for
11:25rabid dogs, even after all these years.
11:28It's not exactly easy to pull off the special effects for a movie dealing with a dog like
11:31Cujo, but director Louis Teague did a fine job in capturing the horrifying transformation
11:36of the titular hound.
11:37It's made very clear during the movie that, although he is just a dog, Cujo poses a threat
11:42that most owners would struggle to fight back against.