I would nominate Angelique, the witch from the old TV show and the two movies,
Dark Shadows. She was beautiful and had a lovely voice that sounded like bells–but she was incredibly, horribly, chillingly evil. She claimed to be in love with Barnabas, yet she destroyed his life and the lives of all those he loved and who loved him.
The actress still performs Angelique’s laugh at Dark Shadows conventions–it sounds like bells, beautiful tone bells–but it’s so cold and heartless and selfish. The laugh says it all about this villainess.
I believe that Angelique is one of the reasons why this show was actually a good choice for Christians to watch. It showed evil as EVIL, not as “cute” like the show
Bewitched did. Angelique was physically beautiful, but that was the only beautiful thing about here. She was pure evil.
Lara Parker, the actress who originated this great character, has written a lovely novel called
Angelique’s Descent that explains a lot of Angelique’s motives. Yes, she was very wronged by Barnabas when they were teenagers. But did that really justify her cursing an entire family? No.
I would also nominate Goldfinger from the James Bond movie. I think he won a “Greatest Villains” poll put out by some movie organization several years ago.
'No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."
And I’m probably prejudiced because I love the actor, but I would nominate T-1000 from
Terminator 2: Judgement Day. He was so implacable, so unemotional. It was like watching a spider attack. No awareness that he was killing people. I’ve read a lot of reviews of this performance, and most of them call it a brilliant portrayal. I will admit that he’s not exactly “fun”, but it is cute when he wags his finger at Arnold Schwarzenegger.
FInally, I think that Boris Karloff’s “mummy” was really frightening. He walked so slow and limpy, but he always caught his victims who were running like mad to get away from him.
