Creating Villains

It takes a certain force of character to come across as a villain. In life I think there are people who become evil because circumstance embitters them to be vengeful. Others are easily influenced by some false icon and enter into a negative spiral of greed and deception. More aggressive ones murder their victims, or stalk them under the threat of violence. The gambit of how to be a villain has widened since Hitchcock came across with Blackmail a precursor other films where the victim sought to revenge himself on his blackmailer, where a chase would ensue and somebody would pay.

The villains I am thinking about are varied like those of the early silent film, a villain had a dark look about him. Said simply, he looked mean. Words were not needed to convey his devilishness and the fear he invoked on his victim. When horror films came out, there was a specific genre that really terrified the viewer beyond the ‘normal’ act of doing no good. The vampire, mummy and werewolf were all embodiments of that evil as were the scientists that developed monsters or creatures from their secret laboratories late at night.When looking back on these types of films I am aware of the stark contrast of the these gruesome characters against the setting of a young romantic couple taking a holiday on an island paradise or the rich woman in a mansion whose suitor comes to her aid because of a bat-like creature visiting her mansion during the night. The mixture of romantic naivety and  the unknown evil made for an effective villain. His character stood out.

Cinema Noir made its debut with the antihero playing a nefarious role and Robert Mitchum played that to a chilling effect in “Night of the Hunter”. One can admire the character’s sweet talking enough to let him into your home that he would soon rob. It is the first time I saw the use of sharp contrasts between what a supposedly religious man could do, just as any other man: kill someone, hide the evidence and then run around preaching deliverance.

Women were also depicted as villains occasionally but the tempo picked up later as they became more gruesome in their drive. Female villains in the sixties were plotters that conspired as the sinister cousin in “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte “. Here the villain was after the estate if her rich cousin and the method she devised was to drive her insane first. Aldrich did well to develop the weak point of the victim so that one might think it impossible for the victim to have any escape. The poor cousin would dose Charlotte asleep.

Hollywood capitalized on the weaponry and  became more imaginative in the type used and how danger could occur. Kathy Bates was also one who used a syringe to inject James Caan at night so that he would be too weak to seek escape on “Misery Never Dies”. Here there was the element of an unpredictable psychotic killer who would change her demeanour at a whim, then brutally punish her victim to the repeated tune of “I love you”.

Women would also  hold a potential murder weapon and  even engage in vicious fights for survival. Such was the case for Glen Close in “Fatal Attraction” as she stalked the family of the man she had a one night affair with. She would find hide herself in the attic of her former lover only to come out and threaten his wife in a chilling bathtub scene.