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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Radheyan Simonpillai, Alaina Demopoulos, Veronica Esposito, Andrew Pulver, Francesca Carington, Jesse Hassenger, Pamela Hutchinson, Charles Bramesco, Scott Tobias and Benjamin Lee

‘Genuinely disturbing’: Guardian writers on their scariest horror villains

Annie Wilkes Count Orlok Michael Myers Los Angeles Hugo Bob Clark Dracula John Carpenter Kathy Bates Paul Sheldon
composite image of woman holding axe, person waering black hat screaming, person with long fingernails, and person with head against window blinds
Kathy Bates in Misery, Rebecca Ferguson in Doctor Sleep, Nick Castle in Halloween and Max Schreck in Nosferatu. Composite: Allstar/ Alamy

Billy – Black Christmas

You wouldn’t have Michael Myers if it weren’t for Billy from Black Christmas. We’re not talking casual inspiration here. According to director Bob Clark, John Carpenter asked him what he would do with a sequel to his now 50-year-old cult holiday horror pic. Clark responded that his killer who preys on assertive and sexually empowered young women would escape from an institution and return to town … on Halloween. A genre was born.

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