10 Awesome Horror Villains Trapped In TERRIBLE Movies

When awesome horror baddies get stuck in AWFUL films.

Legion Ice Cream Man
Sony Pictures Releasing

What is any horror movie without a memorably terrifying antagonist? Not a lot, that's what.

The single thing that any horror film worth its salt needs to nail is a compelling villain, whether by way of a unique design, inventive power set, or bone-chilling performance from the actor playing them.

Great horror movie villains can elevate otherwise mediocre entries into the genre far above their station, but sometimes a film is just bad enough that not even the finest antagonist can do much to salvage it.

And that's absolutely the case with these 10 horror movie baddies, each of which is an attention-grabbing character in their own right, but regrettably found themselves trapped in a mostly awful movie not remotely worthy of them.

On one hand these films would've clearly been even worse without these creative and unforgettable villains, but at the same time, it's tough not to wish that the writing, direction, and overall filmmaking did them better justice.

Making any movie is hard work no matter its quality, but these ones clearly came up with their bad guy first and then tried to figure out everything else afterwards...

10. Chauncey - Imaginary

Legion Ice Cream Man
Blumhouse

The recently released Imaginary is centered around Chauncey, a demonic entity which takes the guise of an imaginary friend to children in the form of a teddy bear, effectively allowing him to hide in plain sight.

It's a killer idea for a horror movie villain, and for all of the film's many creative deficiencies, Chauncey's demonic form - a grotesquely monstrous version of the bear - is one of the most memorably terrifying monster designs in recent horror cinema.

And because that's not enough, Chauncey's final form is arguably even scarier - a giant spider, because why the hell not?

It's just a shame, then, that Imaginary settles for being a snoozily generic horror flick that's doing little interesting narratively or visually, outside of Chauncey's strong design. 

The PG-13 rating doesn't help either, ensuring Chauncey can't even deliver a smattering of creatively gory kills.

On paper it's easy to see how Imaginary could've been a zeitgeist-y horror hit like last year's M3GAN, but the poor fundamentals ensured it had to settle for being a critical failure and modest box office success instead.

 
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.