TAKING STOCK

THE EMOTIONLESS K ILLER

Celebrating the standout stock characters in movies…

Anyone who has woken, sweating, from a nightmare where something sinister is chasing you knows the fear of the emotionless, ruthless killer that just keeps going, like an evil Energizer Bunny.

It doesn’t matter where or how fast you run; it will find you. A distinct character type from the serial killer or slasher, these aren’t your standard horror fare. They’ll have a reason, a mission, maybe even their own code of ethics. But it’s useless trying to appeal to their better nature for mercy. These antagonists are incapable of sympathy and will singlemindedly see their plans through to the bitter end, while remaining coldly indifferent.

Whether artificial, supernatural or just plain human with a big old dollop of psychopathy, Buff celebrates the movie menaces who can’t be bargained with, can’t be reasoned with, don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear... and absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!

ANTON CHIGURH

JAVIER BARDEM, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)

From the moment he silently manoeuvres his handcuffs to his front and uses them to strangle a hapless police officer to death, the Coens’ bizarrely haired psychopath is a terrifying and seemingly unstoppable ruthless killer. He’s a man without vanity (see the hair), but with his own set of horrific principles that see him commit murder rather than break his word. ‘The challenge was to create this person who would feel nothing,’ said Bardem of the man who lets a coin toss decide people’s fate. ‘In the gas station scene, I was always thinking there was a superior voice that was making a decision through me,’ he mused on the performance that rightfully earned him 2008’s Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Pigeons should beware his drive-by target practice.

T-800

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, THE TERMINATOR (1984)

A literal killing machine purpose-built to seek out and eliminate targets. Whether it’s leaping through flames to punch through a windshield or as a titanium endoskeleton, the cyborg is the stuff of classic nightmares: in fact, the image of a chrome skeleton emerging through flames came to writer/director James Cameron in a fever dream. As time-traveller Kyle Reese explains in the classic ‘It can’t be bargained with’ speech, it’s never going to stop until its mission is complete and you’re worm food. Originally auditioning for Reese, Arnie was so full of suggestions for the now-iconic character that he talked himself into the role. He took inspiration from Yul Brynner’s android in Westworld, down to keeping his eyes on the target while reloading his weapons.

HEADLESS HORSEM AN

CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999)

A European mercenary who came to the US ‘for the love of carnage’, the Horseman was decapitated with his own sword and buried, planting a ‘seed of evil’ in the woods he now haunts. He stalks the village on his horse, picking off inhabitants and keeping their heads. ‘I play disturbed people a lot,’ Walken has noted, and this is no exception. With piercing blue eyes and teeth filed down to sharpened points, he has a demonic, otherworldly feel in a dialogue-free role (not counting snarling). But he’s not just a swinging sword; he’s smart, too. When the townsfolk take refuge in a church, he improvises a harpoon from a fence post to skewer and snatch Baltus Van Tassel (Michael Gambon).

VINCENT

TOM CRUISE, COLLATERAL (2004)

Michael Mann’s training for Cruise in preparation for playing the ice-cool hitman ranged from mock-assassination exercises to having the A-lister briefly pretend to be a FedEx courier to test if he could blend into a crowd. The effort paid off, with a performance that confirms Cruise should branch out more often from his safer blockbusters, and play bad guys. A manipulative assassin with a mission to eliminate five grand-jury witnesses in one night, Vincent is a charismatic, methodical professional with a penchant for improvising and adapting to the environment, who co-opts Jamie Foxx’s unfortunate taxi driver into ferrying him from job to job. He’s matter-offactly philosophical and single-minded, and bends people and circumstances to his will.

DR. MANHATTAN

BILLY CRUDUP, WATCHMEN (2009)

Psychopaths are often described as having a ‘God complex’ – the belief that they are invincible and superior to other people, and that they know everything. A nuclear accident transforms Crudup’s doctor Jon Osterman into all this and more. An omnipotent being walking among mere mortals, Dr. Manhattan becomes detached from his emotions and disconnected from humanity. The superhero finds humans as boring as termites, while also considering the living and the dead to be of equal value, since the atoms in both remain the same. It’s this bleakly objective view – plus the ability to manipulate matter – that enables him to win the Vietnam War for the US by eviscerating the Viet Cong and hastening its surrender. Even his fellow Watchmen aren’t safe, with Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) suffering the same grisly fate.

AGENT SMITH

HUGO WEAVING, THE MATRIX (1999)

Cold, emotionless AI turning on humans has fascinated (and terrified) audiences ever since HAL refused to open the pod-bay doors in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Pipping the millennium, evil algorithm Smith’s defining look involved a suit, sunglasses and an earpiece. A computer program whose only real feeling is a disgust for humankind, believing it to be ‘a disease, a cancer of this planet’, Smith exudes natural power. He can dodge bullets, jump buildings and morph into any person. Plus, horrifyingly, he can make your mouth disappear so you can’t even scream for help. Weaving wanted Smith to be not robotic, but not really human, and always kept in mind the style of 1950s newsreaders, with co-star Laurence Fishburne comparing him to Walter Cronkite.

AZAZEL

ELIAS KOTEAS, FALLEN (1998)

At first he seems to be a murderer on death row, named Edgar Reese – but once justice is served in the gas chamber, Azazel’s true nature is revealed; he’s a fallen angel in spirit form, several thousand years old and cursed to wander the Earth without form. Terrifyingly, he’s capable of moving from person to person via touch, controlling their bodies and gaining their knowledge. The satanic demon’s ability means he could be anyone as he resumes his killing spree while turning Detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington) from the hunter into the hunted, goading the cop into shooting people he possesses, then jumping into a new host. Handily (spoilers), he can also possess animals when necessary, making dispatching him nigh-on impossible. Don’t trust a soul.

MISTER SHHH

STEVE BUSCEMI, THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU’RE DEAD (1995)

One of 90s Miramax’s post-Pulp Fiction attempts to capture the same cool, this is largely overlooked but worth revisiting for Buscemi’s turn as a hitman brought in to serve a ‘buckwheat’ death on Jimmy ‘The Saint’ (Andy Garcia) and his crew, involving a bullet where the sun doesn’t shine. Impassive and emotionless while besting opponents in street fights and shoot-outs, Buscemi plays against audience expectations of his usual seedy wise-crackers with a near-silent character who ‘won’t say three words unless you beg him’. And he’s described in hushed tones as ‘the most lethal contract killer west of the Mississippi’, with over 200 kills to his name. Proof that danger comes in all shapes and sizes.