There can't be a discussion about the horror genre without Stephen King's name coming up, even when talking about movies and television. He is considered by many the King of Horror and should remain so for a very long time. The author is a wordsmith and can summon fear in his readers since the beginning of his career. King has terrified multiple generations that keep returning to his words and scary visuals. He has influenced many of the most successful voices in horror today, especially in film, and that is not something many can state.
Stephen King has created a legacy with his scary stories that have been terrifying people since April 1974, when his first novel, Carrie, was released. King has played around with straight-up terrifying tales, even some that are not extremely scary but instead rather psychologically upsetting and that dive into the human condition. Nevertheless, he has created some of the most iconic villains: both human and monster.
Choosing only a handful of King's villains is not an easy task, especially because he has written over 60 novels. Here is a list of some of the best of his evil creations that were well adapted to the big and small screen.
9 The Outsider (The Outsider)
This is a newer character, as it is a monster in one of King's novels released in 2018. However, it has some of the best characteristics of his classic antagonists, being violent, mysterious, and most importantly, scary. The Outsider, also called El Cuco, is a shapeshifter monster that can transform itself into anyone it lays eyes on. The Outsider miniseries by HBO is one of the most faithful adaptations of the author's work. The terror and almost mythological characteristic of this creature that feeds into people's pain and fears are a highlight of the miniseries.
8 Kurt Barlow (Salem's Lot)
Kurt Barlow is a powerful vampire that borrows from the gothic tales and, at least in the 1975 version, had a very Nosferatu-like appearance. Barlow was played by the same actor that did Pinhead in the BBC radio drama and is about to be revived by William Sadler in the new adaptation of Salem's Lot coming to movie theaters next year. The depiction of this character is very different from the novel, but the old miniseries still conveys how purely evil and animal-like this creature is with its purpose of perpetuating its species no matter what.
7 Warden Norton (The Shawshank Redemption)
While his Captain Byron Hadley does Norton's dirty work, the prison warden is still the main antagonist of The Shawshank Redemption. He represents corruption, doing money laundering amongst other things. The sadism he has against prisoners includes killing them for his benefit. This is another social criticism in the form of a character, something that King is very fond of and can be found in other works, such as Big Jim Rennie in Under the Dome — a not-so-successful television adaptation.
6 Margaret White (Carrie)
There will always be a debate if Carrie becomes the villain of her own story, but there is no discussion regarding how completely evil and horrible a character her mother, Margaret White, is. While fundamentally a prey turned into a predator, Carrie is still the personification of what happens when you torture someone so deeply that they break.
Margaret, on the other hand, represents abuse and religious fanaticism (also seen in other villains as Mother Carmody in The Mist) and, let's be honest, how not to be a mother. Some of the scariest and most evil Stephen King characters are human: that's the truly scary part.
5 Percy Wetmore (The Green Mile)
The Green Mile is a more grounded story than most of King's body of work. Therefore, its villains are all human. Nevertheless, it is a great movie and has some horrible characters, including a serial killer: William Warthog. However, the police officer, Percy Wetmore, takes the cake as one of the cruelest villains King has ever written. With his mission to take away any joy the inmates can have before their death, he goes as far as sabotaging an execution to see a man suffer. He is an example of how true evil can live in our society today and does not need a supernatural force behind it.
4 Pennywise (IT)
The scary demon clown Pennywise is a character that is very hard to adapt to the screen. While clowns have a history of being terrifying, to be able to transport an entity that has been alive since the beginning of everything is not easy. Both actors in each version of IT that play this character are iconic in their way, and both deserve to be remembered. It's one of the author's best creations because he is unique to every character he encounters, using their fears against them. It could even be said that Pennywise is the personification of fear itself, creating a timeless character that will forever haunt its viewers and readers.
3 Annie Wilkes (Misery)
Once asked who he would least like to spend quarantine with, King answered, very wisely, Annie Wilkes from Misery. Nurses should bring calm and peace to their patients, but that is the complete opposite Wilkes does. And one of King's trademarks: take something that shouldn't be scary and traumatize his audience by never being able to see this thing the same way. Annie is brutal and completely insane in her undying love for her favorite author, Paul Sheldon. She does whatever it takes, including breaking his legs and drugging him so that he doesn't leave her.
2 Randall Flag (The Stand, The Dark Tower)
This is considered to be the main villain in the author's universe, as most of his books have connections with each other. Randal Flag became more well known because of The Stand adaptations, in which he is the main antagonist. However, he is also a part of The Dark Tower.
He is a character that tricks the audience and other characters, as he appears to be a normal man and not a powerful dark entity that thrives in chaos and destruction. Flag tries to corrupt humans and makes them kill each other. It is even up for debate if this character can ever truly die.
1 The Overlook Hotel (The Shining)
While Jack Torrance is remembered as one of the most iconic characters created by the devilish mind of Stephen King, he is not technically the villain in The Shining. The obscure forces in the walls and long corridors of the most infamous hotel in modern fiction, The Overlook Hotel, start to control Torrance's dark impulses. It's the hotel that traps Danny in the labyrinth and creates living nightmares for the family. So much so that after his death Torrance becomes a part of the hotel. In the book, King mentions how the soil it was built on was rotten, fecund with true evil.