[Editorial] Top 10 Scary Women in Horror Films

What makes a female villain in a horror film especially frightening? There's no easy answer. Each woman's motivation provides an eerie window into a disturbed soul, and no two women are ever identical. Whether she's turned her violence against an adult, a child or even herself, a scary woman in a horror film can lurk in a viewer's mind long after the credits roll. 

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

Asami: Audition (1999)

Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike is known for the shocking violence of his horror films. Audition (based on a novel by Ryū Murakami) is the definition of a slow burn – in fact, it starts as more of an oddball romance between a lonely widower and a shy young woman, portrayed by Eihi Shiina. But Asami's masochism comes out in the end, as she tortures her new lover almost to death. Her soft voice enthusiastically repeating, "Deeper, deeper, deeper" as she forces needles into her lover's body is what makes her a chillingly unforgettable villain. 

Annie Wilkes: Misery (1990)

Kathy Bates took home both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for her scene-stealing role as Annie Wilkes in the film adaptation of Stephen King's book Misery. She plays an obsessed fan of Paul, a novelist who ends up stranded at her home after a storm. She gleefully uses this situation to her advantage, but she quickly turns on him after she takes issue with his latest unpublished book. Annie makes her mark in horror movie history when she takes a sledgehammer to Paul's ankles in order to "hobble" him and prevent him from ever leaving her. 

Sadie: The Invitation (2015)

As Sadie in The Invitation, Lindsay Burdge gives a truly creepy performance. Both her name and her overall stoned hippie vibe are nods to Susan Atkins, a member of the Manson Family nicknamed "Sexy Sadie." As she slinks around the home where the film takes place, we don't quite know what she has planned, but we know it can't be good. When the protagonist catches Sadie making a series of faces at herself in the mirror, it's impossible not to think that she's practicing being human, as a true sociopath might. 

She: Antichrist (2009)

Lars von Trier's eerie film Antichrist stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as characters simply known as He and She, respectively. What begins as a meditation on the effects of grief (He and She are a couple who recently lost their young son) slowly turns into a horrific tale about nature and… lack of nurture. He slowly realizes that not only has She been putting the wrong shoes on their son's feet (thus leaving him with a deformity), but we also learn that She could have prevented their son's death, but she opted not to. Watching her as she passively watches her son fall out a window is a traumatizing experience.

Psyché: Climax (2018)

Gasper Noé's nightmarish Climax is a one-of-a-kind film. After a group of French dancers are dosed with LSD after an energetic rehearsal, chaos ensues, and almost no one is spared from the orgy-like evening of rape, violence and ultimately death. At the end, the viewers see Psyché (played by Thea Carla Schøtt, who is also a dancer in real life) casually drop LSD into her eyeballs. Her nonchalance is juxtaposed with the brutality she kicked off by spiking her fellow dancers' drinks with acid, making her a truly unforgettable (and truly evil) villain. 

Corrine: Flowers in the Attic (1987)

Flowers in the Attic was originally a lurid novel by V.C. Andrews, an iconic and prolific author whose main themes were sex (usually incest) and girls in trouble. The film stays true to the book as it follows the Dollanganger family. After their father is killed in an accident, ethereally blond siblings Chris, Cathy, Carrie and Cory are uprooted by their mother Corrine, and they all move into Corrine's childhood home. The children (and the viewers) quickly learn that their parents have been persona non grata with Corrine's parents because their father was actually Corrine's uncle, and thus… the children are the product of incest. Or as their grandmother calls them, the "Devil's spawn." The children discover that instead of caring for them and protecting them, Corrine has actually been keeping them prisoner in the attic under false pretenses – and in fact, it's likely she's been poisoning them (even killing her son Cory in the process). 

Eleanor: The Haunting (1963)

Eleanor is in a category all her own. She's frightening not because of who she is, but because of how quickly she spirals out of control in The Haunting (based on Shirley Jackson's terrifying novel The Haunting of Hill House). After her mother's death, an emotionally fragile Eleanor (portrayed by Julie Harris) stays in a haunted house with a small group to assist a paranormal researcher. Her transformation from a shy, depressed and lonely young woman into a suicidal woman driven mad by a house is scary because it shows just how quickly a vulnerable person can fall into mental illness (and/or evil spirits).

Sadie: The Last House on the Left (1972)

The second Sadie on this list is just as terrifying as the first. Played by Jeramie Rain, she's part of a trio of psychopaths on the hunt for prey in The Last House on the Left, Wes Craven's directorial debut. While horror films most often have men violating women, Sadie shocks in this film (easily one of the most disturbing American films of all time) as she inflicts just as much harm as her male counterparts. Seeing a woman endorse and in fact participate in such brutality against other women is what makes Sadie such a uniquely frightening character.

Nancy: The Craft (1996)

Cult classic The Craft is a film about weird outsiders triumphing against their enemies (and it's a film that kicked off a new interest in witchcraft for teen girls). But Fairuza Balk's character Nancy becomes drunk on power and begins using her witchy abilities to harm others. She turns against two of the other girls in her tiny coven against Sarah (Neve Campbell), even slashing Sarah's wrists herself. Nancy's misuse of her feminine powers and her willingness to manipulate her friends make her the ultimate high school nightmare. 

La Llorona: The Curse of La Llorona (2019)

As the Mexican legend of La Llorona goes, this weeping woman is a ghost who drowned her own children and now lurks around bodies of water, looking for other children to subject to this dire fate. Marisol Ramirez stars as the titular spirit in this American interpretation of the tale, which centers the story in Los Angeles. In The Curse of La Llorona, a social worker who protects young children invokes the wrath of La Llorona. The primal horror of a parent killing their own children is a theme in many horror films, and the inescapability of La Llorona and her ability to manipulate the minds of other mothers in this horror movie leaves a frightening impression on any viewer. 

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