This idea reaches its inevitable conclusion with the protagonist waking up in a box, buried alive, having asked his partner’s family-man killer to show him what happened to her, at any cost.
Dutch director George Sluizer’s 1988 film is a great movie in many ways, but it’s a classic because of how firmly it commits to its central idea, which is that evil can lurk in the most ordinary and unremarkable of men. If you’re looking for a case study in how important it can be that the villain comes out victorious, look no further than The Vanishing. David has become the movie, in the way that the best villains often do.
When it’s revealed at the end of the film that it was David, not Walter, who helped save Katherine Waterston’s Daniels from the Xenomorph, and that David now has free rein to nurse his designer aliens to full maturity, the effect is both chilling and practical: David, and by extension Fassbender, isn’t just sticking around because it’s right for the movie.
Few actors could’ve served as a better avatar for such a concept than Michael Fassbender, a guy who already looks like he was designed in a lab by Lockheed Martin, and in the role of android David - as well as a newer model, Walter - Fassbender embodied a devious, seductive danger Lucifer with a flute.
NJĭespite its middling performance at the box office, May’s Alien: Covenant had the increasingly rare distinction of being a summer blockbuster that was actually about something - in this case, the monstrosities that have been carried out by seemingly urbane men in the name of science and progress. (Her children will eventually take down the Empire, but it’s still a bum deal for her.) Empire Strikes Back gets a lot of praise for ending on a minor key, but that’s practically a Carly Rae Jepsen song compared to the symphony of sadness that is Episode III’s ending. No matter how you felt about Jar Jar and midichlorians, it’s hard not to weep as Anakin Skywalker succumbs to the dark side, the Jedi are stabbed in the back by their clone compatriots, and Padmé dies in childbirth. There was basically no way for the Star Wars prequel trilogy to give fans a happy ending, but the lack of surprise doesn’t diminish the tragedy of the final installment one iota. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) Suffice it to say, this list includes major spoilers.
In other words, we wanted movies where the hero and the villain squared off with battle lines clearly drawn, and the hero took the L anyway. We also tried to avoid films where the bad guy merely doesn’t lose, or where a seemingly good guy reveals himself as the villain at the last minute. So were films where an anti-hero wins ( Hannibal) and films where the bad guys are defeated by other, bigger bad guys ( Cabin in the Woods).
Slasher films were out entirely, since there the villain almost always wins. But what if the hero didn’t win, and instead was crushed by the evil forces arrayed against him? Then you’d have a film worth celebrating in the list below. You know the story: A hero journeys into a strange land, discovers a strange new item, uses it to defeat a villain, then returns home victorious. This week, Vulture examines villainous entertainment in all its forms.
In an age of superhero movies and TV anti-heroes, fictional villains are more complex than ever before.