14. Baby Firefly (House of 1000 Corpses/The Devil’s Rejects)
Besides hardcore metal tunes, Rob Zombie is good at creating something else: a family full of sadistic freaks. The Firefly family has mutilated, sexually assaulted, and tortured hundreds of people, and yet Zombie humanizes them so we sort of cheer for them.
Baby is no exception to that. She uses her childish and sexual behavior to lead people in her family’s traps. She’ll faint in the road to lure an old lady out of her car, and pretend to be a hitchhiker to get a group of teens to take her home. And even with all of those murders under her belt, you still want to be her best friend. Her playfully begging to get some Tutti Frutti ice cream with her brothers made viewers forget that she just murdered someone in the scene before.
And of course she gets a few fun torture scenes of her own, such as “the guessing game.” In case you don’t want to get your scalp cut off, her favorite actress is Betty Davis.
13. Bellatrix Lestrange (Harry Potter)
Everyone knows about He Who Must Not Be Named but what about his fanatical worshippers? Bellatrix Lestrange constantly thought of herself as Voldemort’s most loyal follower. Expressing heavy romantic feelings towards him, she would literally die for him despite him not returning the feelings.
Due to her time in Azkaban, she’s incredibly sadistic and violent, known for her brutal torture methods. Torturing Neville Longbottom’s parents into insanity was one of her many “games”. She didn’t even have a problem with murdering her own family, killing her cousin Sirius Black and niece Tonks without a second thought. She only seemed to show amusement for these tragic situations– and even bragged about them! This made it even more satisfying seeing Molly Weasley take her down in that tense showdown.
12. Ms. Eva Ernst (The Witches)
Roald Dahl was the master of creating kids’ nightmares in the most whimsical way possible. Whether it was about a chocolate factory or a child flying on a peach with giant bugs, there was never a dull moment. This trend lives on in The Witches.
In the film adaptation, Miss Eva Ernst looks like a beautiful, snobby aristocrat on the outside, but in her true form, she’s Donatella Versace post plastic surgery. Her plan is to gather witches all around the world and help them unite in destroying the worst plague of all time: children.
While child-free people may be jumping up and down with joy, it doesn’t sound like much fun for Luke, who gets turned into a mouse in her clutches. She also doesn’t do too well with people questioning her plans. She might blow you up with her purple eye lasers.
11. La Femme (Inside)
In horror films, the villains are usually pretty standard; whether they are supernatural beings or serial killers, it seems to be the same predictable route. However, in the French horror film, Inside, the situation gets turned up about ten notches, thanks to La Femme.
For the majority of the film, La Femme is a complete mystery to viewers. She seeks out to torment Sarah, a pregnant woman who lost her husband in an accident, for her unborn child. At first, it’s a mystery as to why she wants to stalk this poor woman, but by the end it leaves the viewers disgusted and maybe a little sympathetic to her cause (though not likely).
From brutally murdering police officers to stabbing Sarah in her stomach, La Femme’s gory methods to get a baby fetus makes her one of the more desperate female horror villains out there. You ever heard of adoption, lady?
10. Mrs. Voorhees (Friday the 13th)
It’s a known fact that a mother will usually do anything for her child, but Mrs. Voorhees might have taken it a bit too far. There are not many mothers who will go and kill a bunch of camp counselors just to avenger her son that died 30 years earlier. Mother of the year award anyone? The famous Jason Voorhees that we know and love isn’t properly introduced as a killer until the sequel.
In the first film, He is simply known as a boy who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake while his counselors were getting it on. Mrs. Voorhees seems to still hold a little grudge against camp counselors ever since then. This results in her brutally stabbing the sexually charged teenagers one by one. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, she chants “Kill her Mommy, kill her” over and over again as if it’s Jason who is encouraging this. Well, if she was around for the other films, I’m sure she would be a very proud mom.
9. Catwoman (Batman Returns)
We’re not talking about Halle Berry or Anne Hathaway here; we’re talking about the seductive and catty Michelle Pfeiffer. She made Catwoman into one of the most iconic female super villains (and she didn’t even need to show off on the basketball court).
At work, Selina Kyle is shy and underappreciated by her boss, Max Shreck. However, when he pushes her out of a window, she develops catlike abilities that turn her into the anti-villain that we know and love.
From there, she becomes the sexy and snarky jewel thief who can make a building explode as easily as saying meow. Her skin tight suit and her talent at cracking whips Indiana Jones style has security guards saying, “I don’t know whether to fire or fall in love”. And that’s her exact reaction when it comes to her encounters with Bruce Wayne. At night, they’re arch enemies; in the daytime, they’re head over heels for each other. It’s quite awkward once the cat’s out of the bag.
8. O-Ren Ishii (Kill Bill)
Quentin Tarantino is one of the masters of creating fascinating female characters. The Bride and Jackie Brown are examples of great female protagonists, while O-Ren Ishii is an example of a great female antagonist. She’s a woman of few words who uses her sword to say what’s she thinking.
After seeing her parents brutally murdered, she became an assassin at age 11 to avenge their deaths (as told in an awesome anime sequence). From there, she became one of the best-hired killers in the world and the head of the crime organization known as Crazy 88.
Working in a man’s world, O-Ren has to maintain dominance so the crime council will continue taking her seriously, and she does so through bloodshed. She decapitated a man for insulting her Japanese-Chinese-American heritage, so that should be your first clue that this girl doesn’t fuck around. If anything, O-Ren is known for her epic fight in the snow with the Bride. In a way, it was an honorable way to die. It fit in perfectly with her tragic story.