Top 5 Most Evil (Human) Villains
2.) Langiva (“Black Death”)
“Black Death” came out around the same time as Nic Cage’s “Season of the Witch” and actually looked like the cheap knock off. Well “Season of the Witch” may have had the bigger budget, more A-list actors (at the time) and a larger marketing campaign, but it turned out “Black Death” had the actual quality. The story is that during the black plague in England the church wants to send a group of knights (led by Sean Bean) to investigate a town that has been said to have been unaffected by the plague. A young monk (a young Eddie Redmayne) volunteers to lead them to the town, but actually has no idea how to get there. The real reason is because he has a woman that he loves and wants to meet up with her to leave the church. Unfortunately she’s not at the rendezvous but they do eventually find the town and like the story goes the plague has not found its way there and all the villagers seem happy and accommodating, just a little too much so.
Spoiler Warning if this sounds interesting to you and you want to watch it, I highly recommend the film.
It turns out the leader Langiva plans to torture these men slowly. She’s managed to convince the town that she has magic powers to protect them. It turns out she’s just an evil, clever woman with an axe to grind against organized religion and uses everyone’s beliefs against them. Now I don’t want to get into a religious argument, but I do feel one’s faith is a very personal thing as long as you’re not forcing it on someone it’s completely okay, so using that to control/trick someone is something I don’t suffer lightly which is exactly what this woman does. Now the way the church and many people acted during this time is indeed a black mark on humanity. But a thing to remember with this time period is that many people really did believe what they were doing was right and had a limited understanding of how the world actually worked. That doesn’t make what some did okay but remember Langiva knows the score, knows she’s manipulating people, and has resolved to become what she claims to be fighting against. I feel the greatest evil one can do in this world is not what they actually end up doing but the hate they leave in the world and what they inspire in others. And thanks to this woman Eddie Redmayne becomes the evil she claims to be trying to expose, which he wouldn’t have become if she hadn’t entered his life.
1.) Noah Cross (“Chinatown”)
“Chinatown” is a fantastic movie, like “The Godfather” level you need to see this classic. You may not like it, but it is a really quality made movie. It’s also one of those that may take a few viewings to fully appreciate. It has a complex mystery and plot. If you’re not actively paying attention, the film will not hold your hand. Which is fascinating since apparently the original script was even harder to follow. Roman Polanski helped give it a more coherent structure and I believe it as when they did the sequel, “The Two Jakes,” the only main creative force missing was Polanski and the main issue with the film is that it’s not as easy to follow as “Chinatown.” So again go watch the actual film if you haven’t because we’re about to go over it.
It starts of with a Private Eye (Jake Gittes) being hired by a woman (Mrs. Mulwray) to spy on her husband. He does and it gets into the papers then the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) shows up to tell him they will be suing him. Realizing he’s been set up, he goes to talk with Mr. Mulwray who turns out has been murdered. Eventually he finds out he was killed by Noah Cross, Mrs. Mulwray’s father, for discovering his plan to steal and redirect the water (based on real events). He’s already considered the richest and most powerful man in L.A. but wants even more money and power – he wants the future.
But that’s not the extent of his evilness, he’s also raped and impregnated his daughter. John Huston makes his guy into just the slimiest, nastiest human being imaginable. For someone who grew up with this guy as the voice of Gandalf, it’s quite unsettling to see him in here. One fascinating thing about him is, how much like John Doe, we actually NEVER see him doing any of his evil deeds in the film. We hear what he has done or intends to do and we see the scars left on his victims and it is chilling what we don’t need to see and how you never miss it. By that I mean you don’t feel like, “oh he doesn’t seem so bad,” because we don’t actually see his actions. Not that I’d want to see the raping even if that wasn’t the case. Also consider this at the end of the movie, HE WINS. Our hero fails, Faye Dunaway is dead and the daughter/sister is taken in Cross’s custody and we can imagine what happens to her after that. Given what this man has already done, I’d prefer not to think about it. It’s not like other stories where the bad guy wins in the end and it’s luck going his way or the hero especially messes. It more feels like the heroes never even stood a chance against him. This guy was going to win from the beginning and nothing could be done to stop it.
