39 movie characters that gave us nightmares

Advance at your peril

Jacob Stolworthy

Saturday 07 September 2019 07:26 BST

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IT CHAPTER TWO - FINAL TRAILER

A truly scary character can elevate almost any film.

These characters aren’t even exclusive to the horror genre – over the decades, there have been numerous terrifying roles in films aimed at younger audiences. In fact, some of the most nightmare-inducing creations have popped up where you least expect them, from Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang right through to Toy Story 3.

One film in which you do expect to come across such a character, though, is It, the sequel of which has just been released in cinemas. Pennywise is one of the most spine-tingling characters author Stephen King has ever created and, after being immortalised on the small screen in 1990, is now enjoying success in the hands of Bill Skarsgård.

Below, we’ve compiled a list of the 39 movie characters that plagued us with nightmares.

Click through the gallery to see who made the list – and be warned… some of them might bring back some bad memories.

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

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1/4039 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Asami in Audition (1999)

Played by: Eihi Shiina

The torture sequence during the climax of horror film Audition positions the character of Asami – a woman whose dark history begins to affect her new relationship with a recent widower – as one of the scariest characters to come out of the Japanese horror sub-genre.

Omega Project

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

The Blair Witch in The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Played by: Nobody

The Blair Witch is present in every shot of the original found-footage horror film despite the fact she's never once seen on screen. It's very much what you don't see that makes every hair stand on end while watching the film.

Artisan Entertainment

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Candyman in Candyman (1992)

Played by: Tony Todd

You thought Beetlejuice was the worst thing you could summon by repeating his name three times? Wrong. Graduate student Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) learns this after completing a thesis on urban legends, which leads to her discovery of Candyman, the ghost of an artist and son of a slave who was murdered in the late 19th century.

TriStar Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Max Cady in Cape Fear (1991)

Played by: Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro has played several sociopaths in his career (Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle springs to mind), but his depiction of the unstoppable Max Cady in Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear looms large in the memory and somehow surpasses Robert Mitchum's performance in the 1962 original.

Universal Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Chucky in Child's Play (1988)

Voiced by: Brad Dourif

Chucky has racked up the film appearances over the past three decades, but the character's debut came in Child's Play, the slasher film in which the spirit of a serial killer named Charles Lee Ray possesses a popular doll.

MGM/UA Communications Co.

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

The Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang (1968)

Played by: Robert Helpmann

The Child Catcher was created by author Roald Dahl, who co-wrote the big screen adaptation of Victor Fleming's Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang in 1968. In the film, rather disturbingly, he's employed to snatch children off the streets to imprison them.

United Artists

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

The Joker in The Dark Knight (2008)

Played by: Heath Ledger

"Some men just want to watch the world burn," Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred, tells him in Christopher Nolan film The Dark Knight – and while this was also true of Jack Nicholson's incarnation of the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman (1989), it was Heath Ledger who best conveyed this terrifying aspect of the demented villain.

Warner Bros Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Stephen in Django Unchained (2012)

Played by: Samuel L Jackson

Stephen, the loyal slave belonging to Leonardo DiCaprio's unhinged Calvin Candie, watches anyone and anything that crosses his master's threshold like a hawk, which is precisely what makes Samuel L Jackson's performance in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained so unsettling.

Columbia Pictures[

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist (1973)

Played by: Linda Blair

The Graduate's Mike Nichols turned down the chance to direct The Exorcist because he thought the material would have been too psychologically distressing for a young girl to act out. William Friedkin had no such problem and went on to direct Linda Blair in the role of the possessed Regan.

Warner Bros

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas (1990)

Played by: Joe Pesci

"Funny how?" Tommy DeVito asks Ray Liotta's aspiring gangster, Henry Hill, after he compliments him on delivering a witty quip in Scorsese classic Goodfellas. What follows is a scene as tense as any film's offered, mostly thanks to Pesci's depiction of the volatile character.

Warner Bros

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Michael Myers in Halloween (1978)

Played by: Nick Castle

Also known as "The Shape", Michael Myers is Halloween's babysitter-hunting antagonist. Interestingly, his mask was a Captain Kirk one, made from a cast of William Shatner's face and painted white, which is terrifying in itself.

Universal Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Pinhead in Hellraiser (1987)

Played by: Doug Bradley

Inspired by Bram Stoker character Dracula, Pinhead, from Clive Barker's Hellraiser series, is one of the most visually terrifying villains in horror movie history – and not because he looks like he's walked out of an acupuncture clinic a bit too early.

Entertainment Film Distributors

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Played by: Christoph Waltz

It's the unpredictability with which Christoph Waltz plays Hans Landa – also known as the Jew Hunter – that puts every viewer of Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds on edge.

Universal Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Pennywise in It (2017)

Played by: Bill Skarsgård

Pennywise is quite literally the stuff of nightmares. Taken from the pages of Stephen King, the It character is an embodiment of the fears of every adult and child who comes across him.

Warner Bros Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Fiona in Kill List (2011)

Played by: Emma Fryer

Perhaps a left-field choice, but the Phone Shop star was perfectly cast as the seemingly unimportant date of one of the central characters in Ben Wheatley's Kill List. The moment in which she excuses herself from the dinner table to etch a symbol on the back of Neil Maskell's bathroom mirror is the first hint that nothing in this film is what it seems.

Optimum Releasing

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Norman Stansfield in Leon (1994)

Played by: Gary Oldman

When actors take on the role of corrupt villains, they surely must revisit Gary Oldman's performance as Norman Stansfield. The heart-rate quickens every time his explosive Drugs Enforcement Administration agent shows up on screen in 1994 thriller Leon.

Gaumont Buena Vista International

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Annie Wilkes in Misery (1990)

Played by: Kathy Bates

If you're a famous figure, Misery's Annie Wilkes is one fan you don't want to have. She's so obsessive that she's willing to go to extreme lengths to keep you under her care, which makes for some pretty harrowing – and, in Bates's case: Oscar-winning – scenes.

Columbia Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Played by: Louise Fletcher

Fletcher won an Oscar for her role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. She's not your stereotypical villain, but her cold, heartless, and passive-aggressive personality chills to the bone.

United Artists

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Reverend Harry Powell in Night of the Hunter (1955)

Played by: Robert Mitchum

Mitchum's performance in Night of the Hunter was way ahead of its time – in 1955, this film about a religious fanatic who kills sexually active women left viewers ashen-faced and, thanks to the actor's performance, it still packs a punch today.

United Artists

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Played by: Robert Englund

Just because Freddy Krueger's stripy jumper and clawed hand is so iconic doesn't mean he's any less terrifying. With the character, Wes Craven created a horror figure for the ages.

New Line Cinema

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men (2007)

Played by: Javier Bardem

Anton Chigurh in the Coen brothers's No Country for Old Men could be the scariest villain that doesn't feature in a horror film. It really feels like there's no escape from the Terminator-style hitman, who'll stop at nothing until the job he's been tasked with is done.

Miramax Films

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Captain Vidal in Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Played by: Sergi López

Forget all the fantastical creatures featured in Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth; it's ruthless fascist Captain Vidal who is the scariest aspect of the film.

Warner Bros Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Toby in Paranormal Activity (2009)

Played by: Nobody

Just like with Blair Witch, it's what you don't see that makes the hairs stand on end when watching Paranormal Activity. Later films attempted to explore why this particular demon was haunting the poor couple featured at its heart, but not knowing why is what makes the first film the spookiest of the lot.

Paramount Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Norman Bates in Psycho (1960)

Played by: Anthony Perkins

Psycho may have been parodied to death, but there's no denying that Norman Bates smiling at the camera with the skeleton of his mother's face transposed over his own is one of the most chilling final shots in cinema history.

Paramount Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Minnie Castavet in Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Played by: Ruth Gordon

For the first few hours of Rosemary's Baby, you find Minnie Castavet rather irksome. By the end, though, after being revealed as a demon-worshipping witch, she's embedded herself onto a list of people you most certainly wouldn't want as your neighbour.

Paramount Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Sadako Yamamura in Ring (1998)

Played by: Rie Inō

The image of Sadako crawling out of the television screen in Ring is as iconic as any the horror genre has offered – and to this day, remains just as terrifying.

Toho

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Billy the Puppet in Saw (2004)

Played by: Nobody

If you see Billy emerge from the shadows, you know you're in trouble. The toy was the puppet used by the franchise's Jigsaw killer (Tobin Bell) to communicate to his prisoners what deathly traps they're stuck in.

Lionsgate Films

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Don Logan in Sexy Beast (2000)

Played by: Ben Kingsley

Film creations don't come more erratic than Don Logan. His violent gangster, who demands Ray Winstone's character take part in a bank job, tears up Sexy Beast like a whirlwind and earned Kingsley an Oscar nomination in the process.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Amon Goeth in Schindler's List (1993)

Played by: Ralph Fiennes

Schindler's List is filled with several moments and characters you want to forget about the moment you've seen them and Ralph Fiennes's career-best performance as Nazi war criminal Amon Goeth is absolutely one of them.

Universal Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Jack Torrance in The Shining (!977)

Played by: Jack Nicholson

Oh, Jack Torrance. For the first half of the film, he's just a guy who's trying to get along and settle down to write his book. Once he's finally driven mad by the strange goings-on of the Overlook hotel, though, he becomes hell-bent on murdering his wife and kid. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy...

Warner Bros

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Played by: Anthony Hopkins

It's testament to the brilliance of Anthony Hopkins's performance that you almost like Dr Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. We say "almost", because there's no forgetting he's a heartless murderer who'll feast on you if he could. If anything, it's his humanity that makes him even more unnerving.

Orion Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Pyramid Head in Silent Hill (2006)

Played by: Roberto Campanella

Just look at the picture and you'll see why Pyramid Head is on this list. One of the rare characters from the Silent Hill video game that was made even scarier on the big screen.

Alliance Atlantis Communications

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Doyle Hargraves in Sling Blade (1996)

Played by: Dwight Yoakam

Singer Dwight Yoakam put his all into the role of Doyle Hargraves in the Billy Bob Thornton-directed drama Sling Blade. The result is one of the most violent, abusive awful creations imaginable.

Miramax Films

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Played by: Gunnar Hansen

It's the way that Leatherface – the villain at the heart of 1974 horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – flails around, chainsaw in hand, that terrifies the most. There's no method to his madness, but he'll probably catch you anyway.

Bryanston Distributing Company

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

The Monkey in Toy Story 3 (2010)

Voiced by: Lee Unkrich

The cymbal-banging monkey may be reformed by the end of Toy Story 3, but his introduction as a security guard holding watch over the toys trapped in Sunnyside daycare is chilling as hell.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Voiced by: Douglas Rain

The soft, calm and conversational way in which HAL 9000 speaks to the occupants of the Discovery One spacecraft in 2001: A Space Odyssey only serves to make the sentient computer more terrifying when he goes rogue.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Terence Fletcher in Whiplash (2014)

Played by: JK Simmons

Jason Blum is best known for producing horror films featuring all kinds of malevolent characters – and yet the scariest of all isn't in one of those; it's in Whiplash. Blum produced the Damien Chazelle film, which sees JK Simmons play the fearsome jazz band maestro, Terence Fletcher.

Sony Pictures Classics

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Black Phillip in The Witch (2015)

Played/voiced by: Charlie/ Daniel Malik

The breakout star of The Witch is also its scariest – a living breathing goat who becomes possessed by the devil named Black Phillip.

A24

39 scary movie characters that gave us nightmares

Grand High Witch in The Witches (1990)

Played by: Anjelica Huston

There's no doubt that the scene in which a young boy stumbles upon a convention of witches in Nicolas Roeg's adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl novel has given every kid nightmares at one stage or another.

Warner Bros

It: Chapter Two is in cinemas now.

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