49 Fun Facts About Horror Movie Villains

Who created Freddy Krueger?

Wes Craven. He built the film on Los Angeles Times reports of refugees who had died in the grip of nightmares, and named his killer after a boy who had bullied him at school.

Which actor played Freddy Krueger throughout the original A Nightmare on Elm Street film series?

Robert Englund. Another actor, David Warner, was cast first and had to drop out; Englund, classically trained and tired of playing nice guys, kept the glove for eight films.

What colors are the stripes on Freddy Krueger's sweater?

Red and green. The stripes even get the last word: in the ending the producer pushed for, a convertible's roof snaps shut in Freddy's colours and carries the teenagers away.

In what fictional Ohio town does Freddy Krueger operate?

Springwood. Its parents burned Krueger alive after a wrongly signed search warrant set him free, and he came back to kill their children in their dreams.

Which action star was first cast as the Predator, then fired?

Jean-Claude Van Damme. He hated the red suit he had to wear in the jungle and clashed with the producer; accounts of his firing differ, but a far taller actor, Kevin Peter Hall, took over.

Jason isn't the killer in the original Friday the 13th (1980); who is?

His mother. Pamela Voorhees was played by Betsy Palmer, a 1950s television favourite who took the job because ten days' pay would buy the new car she needed, and thought the script was junk.

In which Friday the 13th film did Jason's hockey mask first appear?

Part III. In Part 2 he wore a sack; then, during a lighting check, the 3D effects supervisor, a hockey fan, handed the director a Detroit Red Wings goalie mask, and it stayed.

Which stuntman played Jason in four consecutive Friday the 13th films?

Kane Hodder. He played Jason from Part VII in 1988 to Jason X in 2001, the first actor to wear the mask more than once, yet the role was recast for Freddy vs. Jason.

Who won the Best Actress Oscar as Annie Wilkes, the 'number one fan' of Misery (1990)?

Kathy Bates. Anjelica Huston and Bette Midler had both turned the part down, so it went to a stage actress with no film name, and it made her a star.

What is the name of Michael Myers's Illinois hometown?

Haddonfield. Co-writer Debra Hill borrowed the name from Haddonfield, New Jersey, where she grew up, and the street names come from the director's Kentucky hometown.

The Michael Myers mask in the 1978 Halloween was made from a cast of whose face?

William Shatner. The production designer bought a Captain Kirk mask at a Hollywood Boulevard shop, widened the eye holes and sprayed the face a bluish white.

What do the closing credits of Halloween (1978) call the masked Michael Myers?

The Shape. For most of the film the man under the mask was Nick Castle, a writing partner of the director who went on to make family films such as The Last Starfighter and Dennis the Menace.

Who has voiced Ghostface on the phone in the Scream films ever since the 1996 original?

Roger L. Jackson. On the first film he was hidden where he could watch the actors during the phone scenes without being seen, and he never met the cast in person.

Which actor, billed only as '?' in the opening credits, played the Monster in Frankenstein (1931)?

Boris Karloff. The studio had expected Bela Lugosi, fresh from Dracula, to play the part; instead the anonymous billing ended with a little-known jobbing actor as a horror icon.

Which two teenagers were behind the Ghostface mask in the original Scream?

Billy Loomis and Stu Macher. Two killers was the trick: while one stood among the suspects, the other could make the calls or attack, so each of them always seemed to have an alibi.

Leatherface was partly inspired by the crimes of which Wisconsin murderer?

Ed Gein. The Plainfield grave robber also lies behind Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill of The Silence of the Lambs, so one small-town case haunts three of cinema's most famous killers.

Who played Patrick Bateman, the Wall Street killer of American Psycho (2000)?

Christian Bale. The studio wanted Leonardo DiCaprio and fired the director for insisting on Bale; rehired, she watched him model Bateman's empty friendliness on a Tom Cruise talk-show interview.

What was Chucky's name when he was a human serial killer?

Charles Lee Ray. The name splices three notorious real figures, Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray; in the film a voodoo chant moves the dying strangler's soul into a doll.

Who first voiced Chucky in Child's Play (1988) and came back for the sequels and the TV series?

Brad Dourif. He came to the killer doll as an Oscar nominee for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and only the 2019 remake recast the voice, with Mark Hamill.

Which actress plays Chucky's bride Tiffany Valentine?

Jennifer Tilly. In Seed of Chucky she pulls double duty, voicing the doll and playing a spoof of herself, the film star whose body Tiffany schemes to take over.

Pinhead first appeared, unnamed, in which 1986 Clive Barker novella?

The Hellbound Heart. There the leader of the Cenobites has no name at all; 'Pinhead' was a nickname the make-up and production crew gave him on the first film, and fans made it stick.

Which English actor played Pinhead in the first eight Hellraiser films?

Doug Bradley. He and Clive Barker had been friends since their schooldays in Liverpool, and he also played Captain Elliot Spencer, the man Pinhead used to be.

Before becoming a Cenobite, Pinhead was a British soldier in which war?

World War I. The sequels reveal him as Captain Elliot Spencer, an officer left so disillusioned by the war that he sought out the puzzle box and summoned the Cenobites himself.

Roughly how often does Pennywise return to prey on the children of Derry?

Every 27 years. Stephen King got the idea while crossing a wooden bridge and remembering the fairy-tale troll that lurks under one; he gave his monster a whole town to hide under instead.

Who played Pennywise in the 1990 TV miniseries of Stephen King's It?

Tim Curry. Best known then for comic turns like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, he was an unlikely choice, yet in full make-up he so unnerved the cast and crew that they kept away from him on set.

Which actor first played Hannibal Lecter on screen, in 1986's Manhunter?

Brian Cox. He modelled his quiet 'Lecktor', as that film spells the name, on the Scottish serial killer Peter Manuel, five years before Anthony Hopkins made the part famous.

In 2003, which body named Hopkins's Hannibal Lecter the greatest villain in US cinema?

The AFI. Its 2003 list of heroes and villains put Lecter ahead of Norman Bates and Darth Vader, and the TV special's host, Arnold Schwarzenegger, saw his Terminator make both lists.

Who played Hannibal Lecter in the 2013–2015 NBC series?

Mads Mikkelsen. A gymnast and professional dancer before he acted, he refused to imitate earlier Lecters and pitched the character as Satan, a fallen angel fascinated by mankind.

Which author created Norman Bates in the 1959 novel Psycho?

Robert Bloch. Alfred Hitchcock snapped up the film rights and reportedly had his assistant buy every copy of the novel she could find, so that fewer people would know the twist.

Who played Norman Bates in the 1998 remake of Psycho?

Vince Vaughn. Gus Van Sant's remake was an experiment: it copied Hitchcock's film almost shot for shot, reusing the original script and score, only in colour and set in 1998.

What was Jigsaw's profession before he became a killer?

Civil engineer. That training is how John Kramer can design and build his elaborate traps himself; a terminal cancer diagnosis is what turns him to them.

Who plays John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer?

Tobin Bell. He spent most of the first film's shoot lying on a bathroom floor as an apparent corpse, with barely a line, and still became the face of the whole series.

What does Billy, the puppet in the Saw films, usually ride?

Tricycle. Director James Wan says he made the first puppet himself, with a clay and papier-mâché face and ping-pong-ball eyes; the sequel's bigger budget made the eyes remote-controlled.

Which actor first played Clive Barker's Candyman on screen in 1992?

Tony Todd. For the first film, taken from the story The Forbidden, he let real bees swarm over his face, having negotiated a $1,000 bonus for every sting; he was stung 23 times.

Say Candyman's name five times into a mirror and he appears, with what in place of his right hand?

A hook. In the film's legend he was a painter whose hand was sawn off by a lynch mob for loving a white woman; the hook is jammed into the stump.

Which artist designed the xenomorph for Ridley Scott's Alien?

H. R. Giger. The studio at first thought the Swiss surrealist's work too ghastly for audiences, but the film-makers held out, and his creature shared in the film's Oscar for visual effects.

Why was design student Bolaji Badejo, spotted in a London pub, cast inside the Alien suit in 1979?

His height. At 6 ft 10 in and rail-thin, he gave Ridley Scott a creature that didn't move like a man in a suit; it was the only film role he ever played.

How long after watching Sadako's cursed videotape does a viewer die?

One week. A phone call the moment the tape ends starts the countdown, and the only way out is to copy the tape and show it to someone else.

Who created Art the Clown of the Terrifier films?

Damien Leone. He writes, directs, edits and builds the gory practical effects himself, and made the first Terrifier on a shoestring after his crowdfunding drive fell short.

How does Art the Clown of the Terrifier films communicate?

In mime. David Howard Thornton plays him without a word, drawing on the physical comedy he learned as understudy to the Grinch in a touring stage musical.

Who played Jack Torrance in the 1997 miniseries of The Shining?

Steven Weber. Stephen King wrote and produced this version himself because he had never been happy with Kubrick's film, and shot it at the Colorado hotel that inspired the novel.

Pazuzu, the demon of The Exorcist, comes from which mythology?

Assyrian and Babylonian. There the fearsome wind demon doubled as a protector: amulets with his image guarded infants and pregnant women against his rival, the demoness Lamashtu.

What kind of toy is the real-life Annabelle that inspired the films?

A Raggedy Ann doll. The films swapped it for a sinister porcelain figure, partly over trademark worries and partly because a cheerful rag doll simply didn't look frightening.

Who played Count Orlok in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu?

Max Schreck. Bram Stoker's widow sued over the unlicensed Dracula story and a court ordered every copy of the film destroyed; it survives only because a few prints escaped.

Pumpkinhead (1988) was the directorial debut of which special effects artist?

Stan Winston. He was sent the script only to build the monster, asked to direct instead, and then left the creature's design to artists on his own team, one of whom wore the suit.

Who wrote and directed The Babadook (2014)?

Jennifer Kent. A former actress who found the idea of film school repellent, she wrote to Lars von Trier asking to learn from him and served her apprenticeship on the set of Dogville.

Who first sang the Creeper's warning song, Jeepers Creepers, in 1938?

Louis Armstrong. He sang it to a racehorse called Jeepers Creepers in the comedy Going Places, and the tune was nominated for an Oscar long before it became a horror cue.

Who played the title villain in the first six "Leprechaun" films, from 1993 to 2003?

Warwick Davis. The former Ewok shared the 1993 original with a then-unknown Jennifer Aniston, the year before Friends made her famous.

Who wrote Jennifer's Body, in which Megan Fox plays a possessed teen?

Diablo Cody. Fresh from her Oscar for Juno, she saw the film sold to teenage boys on Megan Fox's looks and bomb in 2009; a decade later it was being hailed as a feminist cult classic.