Saturday, October 31, 2009

Building a Better Badguy

I couple of nights ago, my roommates and I were discussing our all-time favorite villains and my answer had been Col. Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds. He is just so incredibly evil and nonchalant about it. He just doesn’t give a fuck.

Col. Hans Landa: Now if one were to determine what attribute the German people share with a beast, it would be the cunning and the predatory instinct of a hawk. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. If a rat were to walk in here right now as I’m talking, would you treat it to a saucer of your delicious milk?
Perrier LaPadite: Probably not.
Col. Hans Landa: I didn’t think so. You don’t like them. You don’t really know why you don’t like them. All you know is you find them repulsive. Consequently, a German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn, he looks in the attic, he looks in the cellar, he looks everywhere *he* would hide, but there’s so many places it would never occur to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the Führer’s brought me off my Alps in Austria and placed me in French cow country today is because it does occur to me. Because I’m aware what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.

However, last night we watched Psycho and I am extremely torn. I forgot how disturbing it is to watch the unassuming, and quite hansom, Norman Bates turn into a total raging lunatic. With Landa, you know he is evil from the very beginning, the very first scene of the movie shows exactly how terrifying this character can be. With Bates, on the other hand, you’re handed this slow evolution from this adorable, sweet and naive young man into a psychotic serial killer.

So now I am torn. Which character is a better villain? The sweet, dashing young man turned insane murderer, or the completely heartless baddy who shows you just how horrible he can be from the very beginning?

2 comments:

Zachami said...

If your question is who is a better villain, I'd have to go with Landa just because he killed a lot more people.

If you're asking who is more evil, it would probably be Landa, too.

But if you're asking who is more fucked up, or who I would least want to share a hotel room with - that would be Bates.

Anonymous said...

In my eyes Cruella Deville is the most evil. All she wants to do is kill 101 puppies to make a coat and will stop at nothing to get that coat. That's one sick bitch.