20 actors who played creepy perfectly

The Apple TV+ series Severance excels at capturing the depressing nature of modern corporate servitude. It’s filled with great performances. One of the most notable is Patricia Arquette, who portrays Harmony Cobel, one of the bosses of the sinister and mysterious Lumen Industries. There’s a feverish, sometimes almost demented, intensity to Arquette’s performance, even more obvious when she goes beyond her official remit and adopts a fake identity to spy on her employees. She’s certainly one of the most memorable roles that Arquette has taken on in her prolific and versatile career.

With her patrician manner and impeccable delivery, Anjelica Huston has excelled at playing chilling and creepy grandes dames and sorceresses. No one could ever forget her appearance in The Witches, the viscerally creepy film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel. Her iteration of the Grand High Witch, whether in her human or true form, isn’t easily forgotten. Huston wears her creepy mien with ease, and her witchy character is definitely the stuff of every kid’s deepest nightmares. 

Thanks to her appearances in a number of slashers, Mia Goth has established herself as one of her generation’s great horror actresses. She’s particularly striking as Pearl in both X and its prequel, Pearl. There are moments when Goth’s sinister charisma simply radiates out from the screen, whether she’s playing Pearl in her older, more decrepit form or in her younger years, when she’s desperate for fame and will do anything, or kill anyone, to get it. It’s easy to see why Ti West built an entire franchise around Goth.

Mia Farrow’s Rosemary is obviously the emotional heart of Rosemary’s Baby, but it’s Ruth Gordon who steals the show. On the surface, she’s a kindly but somewhat batty old lady; beneath that, however, she’s a ruthless Satanist who plans to use Rosemary as the mother of the Antichrist. Gordon expertly balances these two elements of the characters, and the revelation that she is truly a monster makes her old lady shtick both strikingly artificial and bone-chillingly creepy. It’s fitting that she received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. 

With his distinct features, Willem Defoe has always excelled at playing strange characters who often verge into the creepy. In Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, for example, he is truly terrifying as Norman Osborn/the Green Goblin. This remains a beloved performance from Defoe since he makes the character legitimately frightening to Peter Parker and the audience. He crackles with sinister energy and malice, and he makes for a fitting foil for Spider-Man, someone who is a source of relentless chaos and destruction.

Jordan Peele’s directorial debut,  Get Out, is a terrifying look at the virulent potency of racism in the US. It has many great performances, but Bradley Whitford is particularly unsettling and terrifying as Dean Armitage, who takes the brains of privileged older white people and puts them into the bodies of young African American men. At first, Armitage seems like a gregarious patriarch, but his chipper demeanor hides his racist ruthlessness, and this juxtaposition makes him so breathtakingly creepy.

Bill Skårsgard comes from one of Sweden’s most acclaimed acting families, and he has certainly made a name for himself playing creepy characters. Arguably, the apex of this trend is his portrayal of Count Orlok in Robert Eggers’ remake of Nosferatu. Even with the heavy prosthetics, Skårsgard’s performance shines through, and he endows this fearsome creature of relentless appetite with a chilly creepiness that is ultimately as alluring as it is terrifying. The film is a fitting update of one of the classics of German horror cinema.

Kathy Bates is one of the most beloved actresses of her generation. She has remarkable versatility, and she is particularly striking in Misery, in which she plays Anne Wilkes, a nurse who becomes obsessed with the author who falls into her clutches. It’s a masterclass in acting from Bates, who perfectly captures the character’s deranged and obsessive spirit and her cheery-faced cruelty. It was so great that Bates won an Academy Award for her performance. 

Barry Keoghan excels at playing characters who are essentially little agents of chaos. This is particularly true in the thriller Saltburn, in which he plays Oliver Quick, a young man who infiltrates a wealthy family’s home and essentially causes all sorts of chaos and death. There’s something unsettling about him from the very beginning, and it’s clear that he excels at being a chameleon. Keoghan’s striking physical features make him a perfect fit for the role, and the audience finds themselves drawn to Oliver even as they’re repulsed by his actions.

In addition to being a mainstay on Ryan Murphy’s beloved horror series American Horror Story, Evan Peters gave a haunting performance in Dahmer–Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. His performance as the titular serial killer never humanizes him, and, if anything, he brings home to the viewer just how much of a predator and monster Dahmer was and how much damage he did to those he killed and the families they left behind. There are times when Peters disappears into the role, which only increases the creep factor.

The various horror series that Mike Flanagan produced for Netflix were renowned for their skilled use of actors, and Midnight Mass is particularly striking in this regard. No one who has seen the show could forget Samantha Sloyan’s performance as Bev Keane. She is the quintessential religious zealot, with the fiery eyes and prim demeanor of someone who believes that hers is the only way to be in the world. As the town is overwhelmed by the power of its resident vampire, she leans into the creepy, and she becomes key to the series’ exploration of the connections between religious devotion and horror.

Russell Crowe’s Maximus is the most important character in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, but the film truly sings thanks to the presence of Joaquin Phoenix. Phoenix plays the mad emperor Commodus, who tries to destroy Maximus because he’s jealous of the bond the Roman general has with Marcus Aurelius, Commodus’ father. Phoenix pours himself into the rule, transforming the emperor from a caricature into something more terrifying. This is a man with a twisted mind who wields absolute power, and there’s nothing more terrifying than a deranged dictator.

Neve Campbell might be the heart and soul of the Scream franchise, but Skeet Ulrich often steals the show in the first film. His Billy is, at first glance, quite handsome and kind to his girlfriend Sidney, but, as it turns out, there are many dark layers to his personality. The scene in which he reveals that he is the murderer — and that he also killed Sidney’s mother — is one of the most terrifying in the entire series. Ulrich makes the role his own, ensuring he will always be seen as one of the creepiest slasher villains.

Bette Davis is one of those actresses who was willing to play almost any role. One of her most memorable came rather later in her career when she played the dangerously deluded former vaudeville star Baby Jane in the horror thriller Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? With her face caked in makeup and childlike demeanor, she is the very definition of creepy. Since she was once associated with Hollywood glamor, Davis deserves credit for being willing to make herself look so abject on-screen.

Brad Dourif was already known for his creepy horror roles before he appeared in Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers, but he certainly outdid himself in the role of Wormtongue. With his lanky, greasy hair and his whispering demeanor (as well as his lack of eyebrows), he is the epitome of the sneaky counselor. He manages to cause quite a lot of damage before he is banished by King Théoden and Gandalf, but thanks to Dourif’s creepy performance, he isn’t so easily forgotten, right up until the moment that he dies on the pinnacle of Orthanc. 

Javier Bardem is nothing less than terrifying in No Country for Old Men, in which he plays the psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh. From the moment he appears, there’s a quiet menace to his characterization, and the viewer is on the edge of their seat, wondering who is going to end up being on the business end of the character’s gun. Bardem perfectly captures the character’s utter lack of empathy or human compassion, and the fact that he moves through the world with such inviolability only adds to the terror.

It’s not every actor who could play Hannibal Lecter, considering the long shadow cast by Anthony Hopkins. Mads Mikkelsen brings his unique brand of suave charm to the role in the series that bears his name. There’s a rich complexity to Mikkelsen’s performance as the character. While he might be suave and charming, he never quite lets the viewer forget that he is also a ruthless killer, and this unique combination makes him so unsettling to watch.

Matt Damon put his boyish good looks to excellent use in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name, it follows Tom as he ingratiates himself into the lives of others, sometimes with fatal results. Even though he tries to be charming, the truth is that Tom is often a very creepy character, something picked up on by various characters, often to their detriment. It’s to Damon’s credit that he manages to be both so handsome and so terrifying at once.

There are many great performances in the Coen Brothers’ beloved Fargo, but Peter Stormare deserves particular praise for his dead-eyed Gaear Grimsrud. He’s the type of man who seems to have almost no interiority or conscience, which is why he’s capable of killing people without batting an eye. While Steve Buscemi’s Carl Showalter is constantly freaking out, Grimsrud is eerily and icily calm, except for when he erupts into violence. He’s the epitome of all the darkness in this noirish world, and it remains one of Stormare’s most notable roles.

Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster deserve the praise they receive for their performances in The Silence of the Lambs, but the film wouldn’t be nearly as terrifying if it weren’t for Ted Levine. Levine plays the serial killer Buffalo Bill, who kills women and skins them. Levine’s flat affect is perfect for the character, a person with a twisted psychology that leads him to perpetrate horrific violence on women. The fact that he is so attached to his dog is the icing on the cake of this creepy performance.