Sommerleigh Pollonais, Horror Head Writer
Horror movies can be weird. I don’t mean guy-living-next-door-is-a-vampire or don’t-get-them-wet-or-feed-them-after-midnight weird. I mean REALLY weird, like Killer Klowns from Outer Space or possessed sheep trying to kill you weird. And you know what? I’m totally for it!
Here are my TOP 10 WEIRDEST/STRANGEST VILLAINS IN HORROR MOVIES:
#10 Bunny Rabbits, Night of the Lepus
They’re fluffy, they’re cute, and they’re vegetarians. Rabbits are basically the LEAST evil creatures on the planet, yet Night of the Lepus turned a bunch of fluffy bunnies into genetic mutants and…yeah, still not scary. Then again, I was bitten by a rabbit once and that s*&t hurt like hell. So who knows, maybe they would munch on us like carrot sticks if they were ten feet tall.
#9 Trees/Wind, The Happening
Sometimes it’s hard to believe we thought M. Night Shyamalan was going to be the next Spielberg. The man went from ghosts and aliens to whatever the hell was happening in The Happening (which has to be one of the dumbest names for a movie title ever). It’s never quite made clear if the killer is the wind (talk about silent but deadly) or the trees but if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that Mark Wahlberg’s acting is the scariest thing about this movie. Period.
#8 Tomatoes, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Is it a fruit? Is it a vegetable? Is it a screenplay written by someone high on every drug that existed at the time? I think the answer is C. Still, as weird as this one was, 1978’s Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is the kind of weirdness that only works in a horror movie setting. And depending on where you stand on tomatoes (I’m not a fan) you just might enjoy watching them get blown to bits.
#7 A Laundry Press, The Mangler
I adore Stephen King, but even a fan like myself can’t defend this one. A laundry press owned by Freddy Krueger (or actor Robert Englund, I get those two confused sometimes) is brought to life by some blood getting splashed on it and starts killing people. No it doesn’t move, it doesn’t talk, it can’t hypnotise you, yet SOMEHOW this giant ironing board is mutilating people left and right. King came up with this story based on his time working at a laundry mat. Possibly a laundry mat owned by Satan. That’s my only explanation for this bit of craziness.
#6 An Elevator, The Lift
“Take the stairs, take the stairs, for God’s sake, take the stairs!” I give this movie huge props for that tagline, which probably played a large part in people actually paying money to see an evil elevator. Like The Mangler, it’s really hard to make an inanimate object scary. Then again, if you’re claustrophobic, what may be hilarious to me is probably terrifying to you. TAKE THE STAIRS!!
#5 A Pair of Jeans, Slaxx
The latest in the line of weird horror movie killers (it came out in 2020) Slaxx tells the story of a possessed pair of jeans that terrorises and kills the employees of a clothing store. I won’t say more because it’s genuinely funny and would be a blast to watch with some friends. But I will say this—just when I thought horror movies couldn’t get weirder, they hit me with killer Levis. You just can’t make this stuff up. Well I couldn’t, but they definitely did.
#4 A Lamp, Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes
I mentioned this one before in my Top 5 Amityville Movies article but there’s no way I was leaving one of my favourite weirdo killers off this list. Everything from this house was tainted with evil, yet the idea that a demon would choose to possess a lamp takes your sense of logic and smashes it like a hundred watt bulb. It’s stupid, it makes no sense, and I absolutely love it.
#3 A Snowman, Jack Frost
Okay listen, if I can destroy your ass with a lighter or a cup of hot tea, I’m not gonna take you seriously. Yet that didn’t stop them from creating Jack Frost. Like his pseudo-cousin The Gingerbread Man you aren’t meant to take this seriously. And in any other genre you would probably give this a hard pass. But as a horror movie? Jack gets to snow-off (he he) to his icy heart’s content.
#2 Whipped Cream, The Stuff
I love The Blob. It’s a great body horror movie. The Stuff on the other hand looks and feels like a more PG-13 version of that film. It’s basically a whipped cream-like substance that becomes a tasty sensation. The downside of this treat is it turns people into zombies. I guess if you dig deep enough The Stuff has something important to say about consumerism. But unless you’re lactose intolerant it’s near damn impossible to take tubs of tasty-looking whipped cream seriously as a villain.
#1 A Car Tyre, Rubber
It just doesn’t get stranger than this. A tire (we spell it “tyre” in Trinidad and Tobago) named Robert comes to life. Using his psychokinetic powers Robert kills people by making them explode. No real explanation is given here and things only go from strange to bat-crap crazy (Robert is reborn as a tricycle later on), but movies like this prove when it comes to horror if you’re committed enough, if you’re passionate enough, and if you’re crazy enough to embrace the weirdest parts of your imagination, there’s nothing you can’t do.
It might not scare the pants off your audience, but you can bet your last dollar, they’ll never forget it.
So that’s my list? Which of these do you think is the weirdest? And are there any other weird horror villains you would add to the list? For my Top 5 Scariest Horror Movie Santas you can click here. Or for a deeper dive into the insanity that is Rubber you can check out Editor Jules’s review by clicking here.
Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
Double Tap Baby!
You can also follow me as Moviejunkies Cont’d on Facebook (where you’ll get my reviews hot off the press together with lots of other cool stuff like anime, comics, horror and video games) and watch my movie review videos on YouTube. For my longer bio you can click here.