As Mick Taylor plunges his knife into yet another victim in the second season of Wolf Creek on Stan, it got us thinking about the scariest characters on television. Not just cold-bloodied sociopaths, although they obviously make an appearance, but those characters who only have to walk onto your TV screen to send a shiver down your spine. Here’s our (chilling) list.
Mick Taylor – Wolf Creek
Australians love to hate Mick Taylor. A wise-cracking killer with a penchant for dispatching tourists in gleefully bloody ways, Taylor, as played by John Jarratt, is a one-man killing machine who has now featured in two movies and a TV series. Whether cackling behind the wheel of a coach full of unsuspecting passengers or moving in for the kill as a victim screams for mercy, Taylor is a terrifying creation and someone you definitely do not want to bump into when you go walkabout.
Bob – Twin Peaks
Lurking in the dark recesses of David Lynch’s mind, Bob (played by set decorator Frank Silva) was created, according to the stupendous eighth episode of Twin Peaks third season, when the first atom bomb was successfully tested in White Sands, New Mexico, in 1945. Is Bob the manifestation of the pure evil that dwells in all men? Only David Lynch knows. But what we do know is he is the entity from the Black Lodge who possessed Leland Palmer and killed Laura Palmer.
Dexter Morgan – Dexter
A serial killer with a difference, Dexter Morgan (played by Six Feet Under star Michael C Hall) works for the Miami police as a blood-spatter analyst. Often investigating murders he committed himself, Dexter is in the perfect position to ensure the authorities never look his way. It helps that the sociopath is fastidious when it comes to detail, and that he only kills bad guys, especially when the court system threatens to let them off. Clinical in execution, his murder scenes and victims are glad-wrapped within an inch of their lives, quite literally, so no blood is spilled.
Pennywise The Clown – It
Years before the most recent adaptation of Stephen King’s It terrified cinema audiences and made a killing at the box-office, there was a mini-series version of the prolific author’s epic tome. Lurking in the nightmares of a group of outcast kids who called themselves “The Loser Club”, Pennywise, played by Rocky Horror Picture Show star Tim Curry, is an unnerving creation who returns every 28 years to prey on the fears and kill the inhabitants of a small town called Derry.
Ramsay Bolton – Game Of Thrones
Just when you thought that Game Of Thrones wouldn’t give us another character as purely evil as Joffrey, along comes one of the most vile and despicable villains to ever appear on television. The bastard son of Roose Bolton, Ramsay Bolton (played by Skins star Iwan Rheon) has a crazed bloodlust even stronger than his father’s as he flays, kills, rapes and tortures his victims. After taking Winterfell, he captured Theon Greyjoy and slowly tortured him into submission.
Fiona Goode – American Horror Story: Coven
It’s so hard to pick only one character that Jessica Lange has played in Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s nightmarish anthology show American Horror Story. Whether belting out show tunes as Elsa Mars in Freak Show or picking up a bad habit as Sister Jude Martin in Asylum, the actress has made a scary show even scarier. However, it’s her role in the recent Coven storyline, as Supreme Witch of the Salem Descendants Fiona Goode, obsessed with eternal youth, that she truly terrifies.
Davros – Dr Who
Prone to hysteria, Davros is a meglomaniac intent in ruling the Universe using his minions-on-wheels, the Daleks, to destroy all in his path. Played by various actors over the years, Davros has been a key adversary of The Doctor since he first appeared in the Tom Baker story Genesis Of The Daleks. Born on the planet of Skaro, he is horribly scarred and disabled, existing in a life-support chair that resembles the lower half of the Daleks. His appearance spied at by generations of kids hiding behind couches.
Gustavo Fring – Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul
He may be the smiling face of chicken joint Los Pollos Hermanos, but Gustavo Fring, as played by Giancarlo Esposito, is also a major methamphetamine distributor in Southwestern America. Seen in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Fring is a heartless clinical killer who will stop at nothing to stay on the top of his game. His dead-eyed stare a major weapon in his arsenal of villainy.
Omar Little – The Wire
Whistling “The Farmer in the Dell” while he stalks the streets, the mere utterance of the words name “Omar comin'” sends shivers down the spine of your average street-level drug dealers in Baltimore. As played by Michael Kenneth Williams, Omar Little is a cold-blooded killer with a strict code of ethics and a surprisingly tender side when he isn’t viciously killing bad guys. Luckily, he refuses to kill the innocent but you still wouldn’t want to meet him down a dark alleyway in downtown Baltimore. Even if Barack Obama named Omar his favourite character in his favourite show. “Yo, String!”
Hannibal Lecter – Hannibal
First played by Brian Cox in Michael Mann’s Manhunter, the character of Hannibal Lecter became a chianti-quaffing cannibalistic Oscar-winning sensation when Sir Anthony Hopkins wore a victim’s face to play the medical deviant Jonathan Demme’s masterful adaptation of Thomas Harris’s chilling thriller The Silence Of the Lambs. After a succession of progressively worse sequels, Lecter set his sights on television and Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen took on the role opposite Hugh Dancy’s disturbed FBI agent on his tail. The show was a gothic grim delight, and Mikkelsen was nothing short of chilling.
