Scariest villain you've ever seen

[ClockworkAngel]

I feel silly for even admitting this but .. Agahnim from Zelda: A Link to the Past. As a kid, he scared me so much.

Spoiler

During the part where you infiltrate Hyrule Castle after claiming the Master Sword, you come into Agahnim's chambers and he gives his evil speech, then he teleports backward toward the curtains (your clue as to where he went). The sound that plays when he teleports freaked me out, and the fact that he could just disappear like that scared me half to death. So much so that the first time I ever saw that part as a kid, I reached out and turned off my SNES as fast as I could. >____>

Runner-ups would be:

Chrono Trigger: First true encounter with Lavos.

Dead Space 2:

Spoiler

The knowing that I would have to return to the USG Ishimura. Which isn't a villain, I know, but the prospect still made my blood run cold.

 

[sumanoskae]

Spoiler: This ************!

Never even seen the whole movie, but one clip was enough.

To be fair, not sure you can TECHNICALLY count him (Or rather it) as a villain, but I can't recall another fictional character that ever got under my skin like that.

Spoiler: Runner ups; disqualified because they only really frightened me as a child

His design alone is skin crawling; lost sleep over it as a youngling.

Special mention must also be payed to these God forsaken creatures from the Rankin/Bass Hobbit film.

This was a KIDS movie!

 

[sumanoskae]

The scariest monsters to me were always the ones that stripped away a person's personality and individuality. The Borg, Zombies, The Cybermen, The indoctrinated Reaper forces; any enemy that wipes away a persons identity to absorb them into a hive mind always creeps me the fuck out.

If were going more specifically, the scariest and most disturbing enemy I've seen is The Broodmother from Dragon Age: Origins. Everything about it from its appearance, its abilities in the fight, to its fucked up creation always makes me dread fighting it. Having my party hack it to death with swords and daggers is the most merciful thing I could have done to it.

The whole Broodmother story is some profoundly fucked up shit; I wonder what the atmosphere of the Bioware office was like the day they designed that quest.

It was like the genre and mood of the story just all of the sudden went fucking INSANE, like somebody read from the Necornomicon or something.

 

[Xerosch]

While the whole movie was traumatic for me as a child, this villain took the cake. And his ultimate goal is completey batshit insane. I think Disney seldomly produced another character so utterly evil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moH836kyAqw

There was just one creature that terrified me more. It still gives me the creeps after all there years - while acknowledging that this short film is fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjgHbRrnjhU

 

[Catfood220]

Dead Space 2:

Spoiler

The knowing that I would have to return to the USG Ishimura. Which isn't a villain, I know, but the prospect still made my blood run cold.

I would go as far as to say that was the scariest bit of DS2. It had been slightly scary up to that point and the fucked up Nicole dreams were always fun. But that was the only part of the game that made me genuinely uneasy. I think it helped that DS1 terrified me and going back was some crafty game design.

As for me, The Gentlemen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer would have to be the scariest villains. First of all they are demons dressed in suits, that hover above the ground and have massive toothy grins plastered on their faces. When they arrive in town, they steal the voices of the local population. When this is done, the next night they go about their work which means going into peoples houses, having their minions pin down their unfortunate victim and then cutting the heart out of them while they are still alive, unable to scream. They are ridiculously easy to defeat, they can be killed by a womans scream, but if no one has a voice, who is going to kill them...

...Obviously Buffy, but still...

 

[Dirkie]

The skeksis from The Dark Crystal are still very creepy.
Imagine an 8 feet tall bipedal lizard/vulture mad scientist/politician and you get close.

It's about as far away from muppet crazy happy random cuteness as you can get without going into cthulhu territory.
Basically the dark side of Frank Oz and Jim Henson.

Spoiler

 

[BrawlMan]

This guy:

Nearly shat myself the first time I saw him.

Some villains from Suda 51:

<spoiler=Bad Girl>
She may be not that scary, but she's creepy as fuck! I don't think anybody wants to be stuck in a room with her.




<spoiler=Curtis Blackburn>
This sick fucker on the other hand is one of the scariest things in Killer 7. If you thought the Heaven Smiles were bad, Curtis is so much worse. Also, he rapes teenage girls, sells their organs on the black market, and turns them into taxidermy when he's finished. Kun Lan (the Big Bad) is not the scariest person in this game, Blackburn is.




<spoiler=Johan Libert>
Nothing further on Johan. You're all on your own.

 

[stroopwafel]

Probably that crazy bastard that chases you around in the Outlast Whistleblower DLC. That guy was just really, really weird. Also the first time I encountered Orphan of Kos in Bloodborne Old Hunters DLC I thought he looked pretty scary as well. But it's really the entire scene with the fishing village leading up to it and the area you fight him in; the shore with the weird sun and the way Kos comes crawling out of his washed up mother and starts to cry. The fight itself also with the way Kos screams, his frantic moveset and his huge razor sharp placenta. Stuff of nightmares man.

 

[maninahat]

The wife from Inception was pretty creepy, which is impressive when she is largely just Marion Cotillard looking sexy. I tend to find concepts or situations more scary than physical villains. Like the paranoia behind It Follows, or the sheer inhumanity in Under the Skin.

As a kid though, any of the characters in Stopit and Tidyup freaked me the fuck out:

 

[Voidrunner]

The Joker from the Dark Knight definitely, saw it at the movies and I pretty much looked away whenever he came on. He was just so violently unpredictable, I never knew if he was going to do something horrifying. Oh, and that general/some kind of officer, from Pans Labyrinth. He actually bothered me more than eyes on hands guy because again, he was violently psychotic and unpredictable. He randomly smashed some guy's face in for no reason and I got paranoid he'd do something else violent every time he came on screen.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Maybe not a "villain" exactly more of just an antagonist but Umineko No Naku Koro Ni Chiru's Erika does scare and disgust me. I would try to describe exactly how much of a ***** she is but it would take too long and it still wouldn't come close. I'll just say that she proudly describes herself as an "intellectual rapist" within the first few scenes she takes part in. That should give you an idea of how fucked she is I hope.

Also perhaps the Anti-Spirals from Gurren Lagann? They understand how Spiral power works so they make a point of inducing complete despair on all the good guys so that they can't just blow them out of the water with fighting spirit like they always do. When you have the cast of Gurren Lagann thinking "holy shit we're fucked" that has to be some scary stuff.