Each and every Halloween season (which we here call \u201cNerdoween\u201d<\/a>), folks put on their favorite horror movies and celebrate the icons that have made the genre beloved. Your Frankenstein(\u2018s monster)<\/a>, your Dracula, your Wolfman. Heading into the slasher era, you have the likes of Freddy, Jason, Michael, and Leatherface. Also Charles Entertainment Murderdoll<\/a>. That\u2019s his full name. But all of those movies are super old. Aren\u2019t there any iconic horror villains in the more recent past? B\u2019doy, of course!<\/p>\n Below are our picks for the best horror villains of the past 10 years who\u2019ve already passed into the territory of \u201ciconic.\u201d This iconography could come from their distinctive look, their killer demeanor, or their modus operandi. So without further ado, here they are in no particular order.<\/p>\n Warner Bros.<\/p>\n She\u2019s the very reason we wanted to do this list. Weapons is one of 2025\u2019s scariest and most enjoyable movies and the secret weapon (ha) to its success is the off-putting, terrifying, and oddly charming Aunt Gladys, as played by a nearly unrecognizable Amy Madigan. A dying witch who makes herself look intentionally ridiculous to put her victims at ease, Gladys unrepentantly syphons the lifeforce of those around her, creating unblinking zombies in the process. She also seems to infiltrate the nightmares of people in her orbit, which provides some of the best jump scares in ages. Her jubilance at evildoing is what really puts her over the top.<\/p>\n 20th Century Studios<\/p>\n Zach Cregger\u2019s previous film also offered up a modern horror icon in the form of a character only called \u201cThe Mother,\u201d played by 6\u20198\u2033 performer Matthew Patrick Davis. Like a lot of horror\u2019s most memorable scary things, the Mother is more of a victim than a monster. The product of decades of inbreeding from the film\u2019s real monster, the Mother is nevertheless a terrifyingly strong presence who can smash human heads and tear them in half with her bare hands. But she just wants to have kids of her own, is that so wrong? The Mother is by far the standout element of this movie, with the possible exception of Justin Long dancing to Donovan on the PCH.<\/p>\n Dark Age Cinema<\/p>\n Boy, if you have coulrophobia, the Terrifier movies really aren\u2019t for you. Art is the black-and-white demonic clown with some sort of ill-defined supernatural abilities who takes joy in eviscerating, flaying, and otherwise causing grievous bodily harm. David Howard Thornton\u2019s vicious playfulness\u2014not to mention the makeup work\u2014make Art so much more than just another clown. He takes his time, relishing in the absolute carnage he inflicts. The weak of stomach need not apply, but there\u2019s no denying Art\u2019s place as one of the pillars of horror in the past 10 years.<\/p>\n NEON<\/p>\n It was honestly surprising it took this long for someone to cast Nicolas Cage as a horror movie monster. The genius move to hide the face of this Mark Boland-obsessed Satanist until more than halfway through the movie is one of Longlegs\u2018 biggest strengths. Like some of the best of the horror icons on this list, Longlegs is fairly ridiculous as well as terrifying. His high-pitch, sing-songy voice and ghostly pallor immediately puts us off, playing up the uncanny valley to a high level. Just like in Weapons, the marketing for Longlegs cleverly kept its central villain out of most of the marketing so when we do see him, it\u2019s all the more upsetting. And yes, it is very goofy to shout \u201cHail Satan,\u201d but he believes it, so that\u2019s very scary.<\/p>\n IFC Films<\/p>\n We haven\u2019t had a proper Jason Voorhees outing since 2009\u2019s Friday the 13th remake, but his soul (or whatever) lives on in the form of undead murder monster Johnny in the indie In a Violent Nature. Effectively a Friday movie that follows the stalking slasher instead of the hapless campers, the movie is a quiet reflection on the inherent empty sadness of a mindless killing machine. But also it has gnarly, brutal, sometimes nauseating kill scenes. Not for the faint of heart. You\u2019ll never do yoga alone in the woods again. Johnny\u2019s signature look has not a hockey mask but an antique firefighter mask, which has buggy eyes. It\u2019s a great and unique visage for a slasher.<\/p>\n A24<\/p>\n Ti West made a trilogy of horror (or really horror adjacent) movies starring Mia Goth as two different characters across three different time periods. Sorry to Maxine Minx, but she is by far the less interesting character when compared to Pearl. In X, Pearl is a geriatric, sexually frustrated ax murderer who kills off the bevy of lithe adult film stars and crewmembers staying on her farm. In Pearl, we flash back to 1918 when the young, starry-eyed Pearl sees herself moving to Hollywood only to be reminded how very stuck in her station she is. And she ax murders people there too. You cannot help but feel for Pearl (partially) but she\u2019s still a psychopath. Charismatic psychos are our favorites and Pearl really is upper crust.<\/p>\n Universal Pictures<\/p>\n We got to see Black Phone 2<\/a> and thought it was pretty fantastic, but even if we hadn\u2019t, Ethan Hawke\u2019s child murderer and his modular, smiling devil mask would still likely make our list. One thing that makes icons icons is iconography (ba-doy). You can\u2019t really do better than a distinctive mask, especially when the man behind the mask is frigging Ethan Hawke. His voice, like the presenter of a kids TV show, belies and yet enhances his menace as he traps young people in his basement and keeps them around just long enough to make their suffering unbearable. The titular Black Phone, in which our hero kid can talk to ghosts, may or may not just be in the kid\u2019s head, but if anyone would have a ghost phone, it\u2019d certainly be the Grabber.<\/p>\n A24<\/p>\n We were delightfully surprised by Hugh Grant\u2019s (again) charmingly sinister portrayal of a man toying with a pair of Mormon missionaries in his makeshift tabernacle. The movie provides some incredible sequences of tension as the young women try not to be rude to Mr. Reed but quickly realize he\u2019s not being fully forthright with them. Does he have a legitimate angel in his basement or is he merely exercising some sick game to break down beliefs? If not for Grant\u2019s performance (not to mention those of Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East), the material might not have landed the way it did. And let\u2019s not understate the fact that Grant received Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and BAFTA nominations for playing Mr. Reed. Iconic.<\/p>\n Universal<\/p>\n It\u2019s a testament to the, again, uncanny nature of the design of M3GAN the AI-powered doll companion that she could maintain her status as a modern horror icon after the sequel\u2014M3GAN 2.0\u2014immediately nerfed her. For my money, I wish the first movie had gone further with the murderous robot aspect of the character. I think it pulled back a bit too much. But you can\u2019t deny the viralness of the small wonder dancing and swinging a paper cutter around. That\u2019s some good shit right there. Will we ever get Ma-FOUR-gan? Who knows. But we sure hope not at this point. Let\u2019s just live in a world where that one movie exists.<\/p>\n A24<\/p>\n Is this a cheat? Kind of. But while the titular witch of Robert Eggers\u2019 debut The Witch is certainly scary, she\u2019s hardly the main horror icon of the movie. That honor falls to a gnarly looking, long-horned Billy goat named Black Phillip. He\u2019s scary even if we didn\u2019t see the end of the movie. But as the family of puritans in the film each succumb to deadly sins, the square-pupiled Phillip seems to look on knowingly. He eventually gores the patriarch (Ralph Ineson) during the film\u2019s climax, making his body count at least as high as the witch herself. But that\u2019s not the best part. After the entire family is gone, Black Phillip reveals his true nature, that of the Devil himself, asking young Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) if she wants to live deliciously. Why yes, why wouldn\u2019t we?!<\/p>\n Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus<\/a>. You can find his film and TV reviews here<\/a>. Follow him on Letterboxd<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Each and every Halloween season (which we here call \u201cNerdoween\u201d), folks put on their favorite horror movies and celebrate the icons that have made the genre beloved. Your Frankenstein(\u2018s monster), your Dracula, your Wolfman. Heading into the slasher era, you have the likes of Freddy, Jason, Michael, and Leatherface. Also Charles Entertainment Murderdoll. That\u2019s his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2080674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[348272,348273,391101,391100,391102,312982,391099,306598,391103],"class_list":["post-2080673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-amy-madigan","tag-aunt-gladys","tag-charles-entertainment-murderdoll","tag-horror-icon","tag-horror-icons","tag-horror-movies","tag-horror-villains","tag-jason","tag-matthew-patrick-davis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Top-10-Horror-Movie-Icons-of-the-Past-10.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2080673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2080675,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2080673\/revisions\/2080675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2080674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2080673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2080673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2080673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Aunt Gladys \u2013 Weapons (2025)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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The Mother \u2013 Barbarian (2022)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Art the Clown \u2013 The Terrifier Franchise<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Longlegs \u2013 Longlegs (2024)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Johnny \u2013 In a Violent Nature (2024)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Pearl \u2013 X & Pearl (2022)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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The Grabber \u2013 The Black Phone (2021) and Black Phone 2 (2025)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Mr. Reed \u2013 Heretic (2024)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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M3GAN \u2013 M3GAN (2022)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Black Phillip \u2013 The VVitch (2015)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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