They might be movie villains, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong, as there are some disturbing characters who had some justifiable reasons for doing terrible things.
A deadly insurance policy
In Saw VI, we learn that Jigsaw, aka John Kramer, was diagnosed with cancer. That’s bad enough. But then he learns that his insurance company won’t cover his experimental treatment, even though there’s a possibility that it could cure him.
It frustrates Kramer, and things only get worse when he learns that the company looks for tiny mistakes in people’s applications to deny claims. Kramer makes a point of how cruel that is. However, his solution to these problems involves some horrifying traps.
The tragedy nobody prevented
Pamela Voorhees sends her son, Jason, to summer camp, only to discover that the counselors were too busy fooling around to watch him. He ultimately dies at Camp Crystal Lake in 1957. Then, in 1980’s Friday the 13th, we learn that Pamela is still furious about it.
She’s so furious that she starts killing people to stop the camp from reopening, as she says that the people responsible for supervising Jason weren’t doing their jobs. A little boy died because of their lack of care. The thing is, those new counselors weren’t responsible for Jason’s drowning. It’s all quite complicated.
The chef who lost his appetite
In The Menu, chef Julian Slowik is really frustrated with rich people. He has spent years preparing expensive food for wealthy customers, but they barely seem interested in eating it, and they care more about the status of visiting his restaurant.
Yes, for them, the food doesn’t matter. They just want to brag about visiting his restaurant. Slowik gets frustrated with that, and he also becomes annoyed with critics who can ruin a chef’s reputation, and he takes his anger out on a group of customers. He only lets one of them, Margot, go, because she’s not wealthy and only wants a simple cheeseburger.
A creation nobody understood
Everyone thinks that the Creature in Frankenstein is a villain. It’s true, he is. But there’s some context missing, as he wakes up in a world he knows nothing about, and things go badly almost immediately. Henry Frankenstein’s assistant, Fritz, enjoys frightening the Creature with fire.
The Creature eventually kills Fritz, but only because Fritz tormented him beforehand. He’s treated badly by practically everyone he meets, so it’s no surprise that the Creature soon starts lashing out at them.
The computer that understood the danger
We see the Red Queen, a highly intelligent computer system, in Resident Evil sealing an underground laboratory. She also kills the employees trapped inside. It makes sense that people think she’s a villain, but the reality is that she’s actually trying to save people.
The deadly T-virus escapes, and it can turn infected people into zombies. The Red Queen knows that. She wants to stop it from spreading further, as allowing anyone to leave could allow the virus to get out of control. We see just how right she was when the team disables her.
The brother who wasn’t supposed to survive
Most of the time, revenge isn’t really justified. But it’s hard not to feel sorry for Belial Bradley in Basket Case. He was born physically attached to his twin brother, Duane, and their father hated the idea of having a son who looked different. He arranged for doctors to separate them.
However, Belial’s father wants him dead, although Duane does manage to rescue Belial after the operation. The two end up traveling to New York later on to hold the doctors responsible. Belial lives in a basket. His anger makes sense when you think about how these people wanted to get rid of him for existing.
The video that destroyed a friendship
It’s kind of scary how quickly a humiliating video can go viral. Laura Barns knows all about that in Unfriended. Footage of her in an embarrassing situation gets spread online, and she suffers relentless bullying as a result. She eventually dies by s***ide.
But her story doesn’t end there, as Laura’s ghost returns to attack the people who bullied her. She reveals that her supposed best friend, Blaire, was responsible for filming the original incident. Sure, what Laura does is brutal, but she’s not wrong for feeling betrayed.
A secret kept for six years
For years, Alex Hammond believes that his little sister’s death was a terrible accident. But then he finds out in Prom Night that there’s way more to the story, as four children had been playing a cruel game at his sister’s expense. They chased her, Robin, until she fell through a window.
Yet they refused to tell the police or even get help, allowing Robin to die and someone else to take the blame. Alex learns what really happened and decides to punish the people involved himself. Anyone can see that his anger is justifiable, although his brutal killings aren’t.
The final humiliation
The thing with Carrie White is that she’s both a villain and a victim in Carrie. She’s teased by other students when she gets her first period, and her mother doesn’t exactly make her life easier. Going to prom was supposed to be a chance for her to enjoy herself.
But her classmates decide to prank Carrie by dumping pig’s blood over her, and she loses control. She uses her telekinetic powers against everyone in the gym, including innocent people, and brutally kills them. Her fury at her bullies isn’t entirely unreasonable.
A family lost at sea
1977’s Orca features a man named Captain Nolan who tries to capture a killer whale. However, it all goes wrong when he harpoons a pregnant female whale instead, and she ends up being killed by the boat’s propellers. Her unborn calf dies, too.
The female’s mate watches the entire thing and begins following Nolan, attacking his boats and causing trouble wherever he goes. It has quite an elaborate revenge plan, and it’s not hard to see why the animal is so mad. Nolan killed his entire family.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
14 historical figures society once (mis)judged as villains
The thing with historical villains is that, unfortunately, some of them didn’t become that way because of what they actually did, but because someone made people believe they were villains.
