Film
Anton Chigurh
No Country for Old Men · 2007
Violence with a rulebook nobody else can read
Threat index 81
Slasher · Film
Norman Bates
The nervous young man who invented the modern horror villain
Attribute scores
Power48
Intellect62
Menace72
Fear factor88
Cultural impact92
Charisma58
Editorial estimates on a 0–100 scale, calibrated against every other character in the index. Not official canon.
Who they are
Before Bates, screen monsters were vampires and creatures. He made the monster a shy motel clerk who stammers and likes birds. The film's structure, which kills its apparent protagonist a third of the way in, only works because Bates is so unthreatening that the audience keeps trusting him. Every masked killer that followed owes him the concept.
Defining traits
Dissociated identityTaxidermy hobbyistDisarming awkwardnessVoyeurismTotal denial
What makes them dangerous
He is invisible as a suspect, which means the danger arrives after you have already relaxed.
And what undoes them
He is not in control of himself, and the personality that kills is not the one that covers it up well.
Things you might not know
- The character was loosely inspired by a Wisconsin criminal case that also fed into two other landmark horror villains.
- Theaters enforced a no-late-entry policy for the film, a novelty at the time, to protect the structural twist.
- Perkins was not present for the shower sequence; a stand-in performed the silhouette.
Why number 6 in Best in Film
He invented the modern horror villain by being a shy young man instead of a monster, and the film's structure only works because of it.
Why number 11 in Most Tragic
He is not in control of himself, and the film's final scene makes clear that the person who committed the murders is the one who has already lost.
Why number 14 in Scariest
He is polite, nervous and completely disarming, which is why the film can kill its own protagonist and leave you with nobody to trust.
If you like this villain
Film
Film
Freddy Krueger
A Nightmare on Elm Street · 1984
The one horror villain who talks back
Threat index 84