Jokers, circus masters and demonic dolls.
Which TV characters terrify you?
Den Of Geek asked its writers that very question…
The subconscious is a terrible place; dark, mysterious and peopled by spectres from the past.
Some television fears had been ensconced there since childhood, others were more recent tenants.
Some were morally terrifying; human beings with icy hearts capable of atrocities, others were simply… atrocities.
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50.
Giger and Hieronymus Bosch was the perfect way to teach kids how to read.
All this, in aid of promoting literacy among the under-tens.
Its a wonder anyone born between the years of 1980-1984 learned to read at all.
Louisa Mellor
49.
Stoppit and Tidyup Stoppit And Tidyup (1988)
Stoppit and Tidyup freaked me out when I was five.
Dont even get me started on I Said No.
Andrew Blair
48.
(Incidentally, if you share that specific fear, dont tell your smartarse kids about it.
Theyll only delight in doing just that every time you take them to Morrisons.)
It sees a young woman plagued by a very persistent hitch-hiker.
Look it up, and see if it doesnt spook you.
Louisa Mellor
46.
Except of course when he was angry.
And if you found yourself having given Marlo cause to anger… terrifying doesnt even cut it.
Michael Noble
45.
He also possesses a malice rarely seen in anime.
Craig Elvy
44.
One of the best has to be Queen Admira fromThe Hugga Bunch Movie.
Carley Tauchert
43.
Enraged by the attack, The Devil lashes out and disintegrates the assailant without hesitation.
Note to self dont piss off the Devil.
He could be sinister in his quieter moments as well, though.
For all this jokes, smiles and pep-talks, The Devils evil enigma often shines through.
You rarely forget that hes black-mailing Sam throughout the entire series.
He couldnt half put us on edge.
Rob Leane
42.
Isnt it…?, leaving children everywhere to go into the weekend ever so slightly creeped out.
Two words, said with such relish: Oooh… Pete Dillon-Trenchard
41.
For me, scary isnt so much about creepy monsters and supernatural powers.
Even when Malvo isnt doing the work himself, hes inspiring it in those around him.
Malvo isnt a person, hes a malignance infecting Bimidji, Minnesota.
Ron Hogan
40.
But the one thats stuck with me is series 6 Big Bad Warren Mears.
As Warrens ex-girlfriend Katrina makes clear later what happens after that is sexual assault.
That attitude towards women is one that some share, out here in the real world with us.
Michael Noble
38.
So she, if you want to be melodramatic, represents the apocalypse, the end.
Mark Harrison
37.
The ultimate mother hen from hell.
Tim George
36.
Gemma commits plenty of crimes herself, of course.
Sarah Dobbs
35.
Rob Leane
34.
With that, the women become his property and are whisked away to do his bidding.
The unspoken truth about what exactly he does with his captives only serves to make him scarier.
Rob Keeling
33.
Zachary Kralik Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997 2003)
The Gentlemen?
The unseen thing that Dawn raises in Forever?
Terrifying… that anyone thought that plotline was in any way acceptable.
He went on to eat his own mother (his abuser fun times!
), and freely admitted to having a problem with mothers.
Those Polaroids… shudder… Stefan Mohamed
32.
The doppelgangers in 1960 episode ofThe Twilight Zone, Mirror Image, fall into the second category.
Young Millicent encounters her doppelganger at a bus depot, and fails to convince sceptic Paul of the fact.
Of flinching at a random creaky noise or being afraid something is lurking unseen in the shadows.
And the scariest thing is he clearly enjoys his job too.
Padraig Cotter
30.
Wielding superior strength and speed, he is physically different from Jackman and utterly out-of-control.
His victims are left physically, mentally and emotionally broken.
The most terrifying part?
Simmons didnt forget to humanise him, making him a very real monster indeed.
Michael Noble
28.
And shes right to be scared.
The doll is a pop culture icon, and his appearance in this film is terrifying.
Sure, its a little silly at times, but thats also part of the charm.
Smile now; all the mirth will go away when the final shot of the movie is slowly revealed.
Ron Hogan
26.
Having killed eighteen people, including a charity Santa, he ends up committed to Briarcliff.
And forAsylums Christmas episode, he was given his own Santa suit and allowed to run riot.
The juxtaposition between that familiar red-and-white suit and Ian McShanes gleefully evil performance is chilling.
Sarah Dobbs
25.
Duncan Bowles
See entries 25 1 on the following page.
The second, though, was properly nasty.
Sarah Dobbs
23.
Craig Elvy
22.
Duncan Bowles
21.
But Lee stands out from the glut of television hitmen largely due to his unnervingly calm demeanor.
Paul Ready somehow manages to portray a man who simultaneously has a permanently short fuse and an effortless unflappability.
Craig Elvy
20.
It almost did me.
John Denton
19.
Queen Bea Prisoner: Cell Block H (1979 1986)
You want to meet someone scary?
Say hello to Bea Smith, played with brutal menace by Val Lehman.
(Her way with the steam press is the main reason Ive sworn off ironing for life.)
Whenever there was a scrag fight in the prison, Bea was in the middle of it.
When the series began, Bea was already in prison for murder.
Bea never carried the burden of worrying about the health of others.
Scissors to the head, punching, kicking, pushing people around and these were her friends!
Ebony McKenna
18.
Maybe it is because everything about him makes no sense.
With his unblinking gaze and rictus grin, he looks like a lesser-known resident of Lewis Carrolls Wonderland.
He is super-strong, seemingly invulnerable, he can fly and hes packing heat.
And when we learn his backstory, it just makes him even creepier.
Tim George
17.
Ramsay is a truly malevolent presence with no discernible conscience whatsoever.
He kills, rapes and tortures as he sees fit and whats more, he revels in every moment.
Its impossible to say just what horrors this unhinged horror will resort to next.
Rob Keeling
16.
Chinga Chinga, The X-Files (1993 2002)
Okay, look, I know what youre thinking.
Rob Keeling
15.
Craig Elvy
14.
He is truly the stuff of childhood nightmares.
Becky Lea
13.
Being first of course helps, as the story and world were new and unfamiliar.
But Old Yellow-Eyes has other qualities that put him above the rest.
The real strength of Yellow-Eyes, though, is the actors who played him.
Juliette Harrisson
12.
Amongst the shows many crowning achievements is its portrayal of the Clown Prince of Thieves himself, The Joker.
Padraig Cotter
11.
When I watchedBlinkfor the first time, the Angels were nothing more than background, albeit sinister, accessories.
Yet they are, apparently, the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely.
Thats if they dont scare the crap out of you in a blink of an eye first.
Katie Wong
Anyone who watchedThe X-Filesfirst season will remember Eugene Victor Tooms.
He appeared twice in the shows inaugural year, and remains a highlight of the entire run.
Like an evil Reed Mr. And what did he use this strange ability for?
Did he fight crime and take on evildoers with fantastical names?
He did the next logical thing: crawled through ventilation ducts to murder people and feast on their livers.
Kyle MacManus
9.
At times, the Borg are like zombies: slow-moving, but difficult to fight and incredibly numerous.
They are, essentially, the reanimated dead only theyre reanimated by technology, not mysticism.
They can even turn you into one of them.
Other times, their threat is almost political.
Becoming a Borg involves the total subversion of your individuality in service of a greater whole.
And of course, the Borg represent the fear of progress without ethical restraint.
Any one of those things would make a race of villains scary.
Lets just say we can see why they quickly becameTNGs most compelling foes.
James Hunt
8.
Katie Wong
7.
He was the perfect spooky spectre.
Carley Tauchert
6.
Dracula Count Dracula (1977)
Lord save us from over-emoting Draculas.
But theres no overacting, no grotesque laughter and no bared fangs.
Instead Jourdan a Hollywood heart-throb in the 1950s and 1960s brings a weary, aristocratic intelligence to the role.
He is mesmeric, seductive, and very frightening.
And underneath the charm?
Aliya Whiteley
5.
Kyle McManus
4.
For the 1990 TV mini-series, then, the production team had a head start in creating something terrifying.
Juliette Harrisson
3.
Is it that blank, yet hollow face?
Is it his appalling ideology of genetic superiority and unflinching hatred of the other?
Arguably all of those things play their part, but for me theyre not it.
No, what makes Davros so utterly terrifying is something far simpler.
Davros simply thinks hes right.
As the central concept of one ofBuffy The Vampire Slayers most popular episodes, that is surely terrifying enough.
But not for Joss Whedon.
To this ultimate nightmare scenario Whedon insisted on adding The Gentlemen.
Juliette Harrisson
1.
Its difficult to describe who or what Bob actually is.
A personification of the evil that men do?
The Id brought to life?
An alien from another dimension looking for his creamed corn?
All of these theories have been postulated.
Some have even been confirmed.
And yet none of them comes close to capturing what it is that makes Bob so utterly terrifying.
Like so much of David Lynchs work, Bob doesnt operate in the zone of narrative clarity.
Bob is an enigma.
And yet, despite that seeming lack of definition, hes also creepily familiar and utterly relatable.
