5. Ike Clanton – Tombstone: The least ruthless of this top villains list, Stephen Lang’s portrayal of Clanton also remains the most criminally overlooked. A slobbering, raging drunk, Clanton was a lot of bark and no real bite. Despite him being a rather meek criminal at heart, he was still a bastard, and a killer, and Lang should really have been nominated for an Oscar on this one. He’s so good he even steals scenes from Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday. Go to 1:35 for Ike; he’s the beet-faced guy in blue.
Best Scene: “See? A little rap on the beak get you some respect around here.”
4. Dr. Decker – Nightbreed: In Clive Barker’s 1990 film, David Cronenberg plays Philip Decker PhD as a calm and collected shrink. When night falls over rural Ontario, Dr. Decker puts on a mask made of skin, button eyes and a zipper mouth — and slashes up entire families, so he can pin his sick deeds on a poor and over-medicated patient. Wow, what an a**hole. Then again, if you had to be a shrink in rural Canada…
Best Scene: This one. Not for the squeamish.
3. Don Logan – Sexy Beast. Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast is equal parts meathead, cigarette smoke and Brut, who invades the home of a former gangster trying to go straight and inflicts cruel psychological and physical torment on him to force him back into the fold. It’s that Cockney accent and short-sleeve button up that make him almost kinda funny.
Best Scene: That end scene. Donny doesn’t go so quietly.
2. Frank Booth – Blue Velvet: Dennis Hopper plays Booth as a sadistic drug-addled psychopath, who kidnaps the husband and child of Dorothy Vallens and makes her his own slave, threatening to kill them both if she’s remotely disobedient. Rape, S&M role-playing, and serious mother issues follow. He cuts off the husband’s ear, munches on blue velvet, and rapes Dorothy on a whim. In his downtime, he karaokes Roy Orbison, hangs out with Ben, deals drugs, and gets high on amal nitrate.
Best Scene: “Pretty, pretty, PRETTYYYY!”
1. Raymond Lemorne – The Vanishing: Overlook the 1995 American remake with Jeff Bridges and Keifer Sutherland in favor of Spoorloos, the French original. The film’s hero is Rex, a man whose girlfriend one day mysteriously disappears at a rest stop and never returns. It is Rex’s obsession and madness which drives him to spend the rest of his life — as well as his new wife’s — looking for her. Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu plays Raymond Lemorne, a suave and intelligent professor, a caring if somewhat eccentric family man, and a relentless perfectionist. That same perfectionism creeps over into his sociopathic behavior, which he uses to take both Rex and his girlfriend into captivity. The best masterminds are patient, observant, and always have a Plan B.
Best Scene: The final one. Possibly where Tarantino got a key scene in Kill Bill 2 from…
See you in a week with the females.
Words by Jeff Nau (@jeffnau)
