Top 10 Cursed Movie Characters

Arguably the classiest of the slasher movie monsters, Candyman’s curse revolves around the notion of belief and the power it can have to create fear. The son of a wealthy former slave who became a sought-after artist, Candyman fell in love with one of his patron’s daughters and impregnated her, which led to his brutal murder by a vengeful mob. Resurrected as an urban legend, Candyman is cursed to shed the blood of the innocent in order to perpetuate belief in his legend in order to sustain himself. A villain as tragic as he is nightmarish, Candyman speaks to the tragic nature of curses and the unfortunate souls who fall victim to them.

#9: Dennis Alan “The Serpent and the Rainbow” (1988)

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While we mostly think of zombies as just hordes of living corpses nowadays, this film was a call back to where the zombie legend began with its roots in voodoo. Dennis Alan is an ethnobotanist searching for the drug used in the creation of zombies in Haiti and unfortunately for him, he finds a lot more than he bargained for. After being doused with the mysterious powder and being buried alive with a tarantula, Dennis is turned into a zombie of the voodoo tradition, which has less to do with brain-eating and more about becoming a mindless, obedient slave. This is definitely one curse that claustrophobics should seek to avoid.

In arguably the greatest performance of his career, Lon Chaney, Jr. etched his name amongst the horror movie greats as Larry Talbot in this chilling classic. After heroically trying to save a woman from a bloodthirsty wolf, Larry is bitten by the beast and soon finds that his scar has formed in the shape of a pentagram, the mark of the werewolf. One of the most tragic movie monsters of all time, Larry’s transformation into the Wolf Man, ensuing murder spree, and death at the hands of his father are made all the more heart-wrenching because he is an innocent who has a curse thrust upon him for performing a selfless act.

#7: Jaime “Jay” Height “It Follows” (2014)

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Drawing parallels between curses and sexually transmitted diseases, the protagonist of “It Follows” is essentially plagued by both after making love with her boyfriend Hugh. After he douses Jay with chloroform, Hugh reveals that he has passed on a mysterious curse that entails being followed by a ghoulish entity who will attempt to kill her and that’s only visible to her. As the slow-moving specter stalks Jay and her friends, it becomes apparent that the only way to break the curse is for Jay to sleep with someone else and thereby pass the curse onto them. Although Jay’s curse is of a supernatural nature, the sexual element of it adds a dose of realism that makes it even scarier.

#6: The Whole Family “The VVitch” (2015)

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Curses are fairly versatile forms of magic that can plague a person, an object, or even a house, but rarely do you see one that infects an entire family. In this paranoia-ridden film, a family excommunicated from a Puritan plantation has numerous strange experiences that suggest a witch has cursed one of them. As the parents and children’s suspicions of each other mount along with the film’s tension, paranormal occurrences like vanishing, possession, and a talking goat heighten the incremental rise of terror that consumes the family. What is even more unique about the curse in “The Witch” is that it affects each member of the family differently and brings about their destruction in a variety of bone-chilling ways.

While the curse placed on Thackery Binx may seem tame compared to some of the other curses on this list, it’s hard to deny that spending centuries in the form of an immortal black cat probably isn’t that much fun. After unsuccessfully trying to rescue his sister Emily from a trio of witches, Thackery is captured by Winnie, Mary, and Sarah and is then cursed to spend the rest of his days in the form of an unkillable cat. Undertaking the role of guardian to the witches’ cottage, Thackery remains in it for three hundred years to prevent a virgin from lighting the Black Flame Candle, which has the power to bring the witches back to life.

#4: Michael Myers “Halloween” franchise (1978-)

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The modern-day boogeyman of horror cinema, Michael Myers pretty much began the cursed slasher villain trope and is a classic example of “less is more” when it comes to curses. Although later sequels in the “Halloween” franchise would dip into explanations of Celtic witchcraft, the original film and numerous other entries have preferred to keep the nature of Michael’s curse a vague mystery. Frequently described as simply being “evil,” Michael’s curse presumably began on the Halloween night when he murdered his sister and thereafter became a silent, unstoppable force of nature. What makes Michael such an effective monster is that we don’t know how or why he became cursed and perhaps it’s not knowing these things that makes him so terrifying.

#3: Billy Halleck “Thinner” (1996)

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One of the less sympathetic characters on this list, lawyer Billy Halleck isn’t exactly an innocent victim of the curse that befalls him. After some distracted driving causes him to run over and kill an elderly Gypsy woman, Billy is cursed by her ancient father to become progressively thinner at a rapid and potentially fatal rate. Desperate to lift the curse before he shrivels up into non-existence, Billy enlists the aid of his gangster client Richie “The Hammer” Ginelli to track down the man who cursed him. What makes Billy’s story unique is that even though he is guilty of manslaughter he still manages to procure sympathy as he is reduced to skin and bones.

Making a choice between sacrificing your own interests to help someone else isn’t always easy. Christine Brown finds out choosing the former can have hellish repercussions. After she repossesses Sylvia Ganush’s home to impress her boss, the old Gypsy woman places a terrible curse on her, which entails being tormented by a vicious demon for three days before being dragged down into the depths of Hell. What sets Christine’s curse apart from others, however, is that it’s encapsulated in a physical object, in this case a button, which can be used to transfer the curse from one person to another. This furthers the film’s theme of whether or not to condemn someone else in order to save one’s self. Before we unveil our top pick, here are some honorable mentions: Caroline Ellis “The Skeleton Key” (2005) David Kessler “An American Werewolf in London” (1981)

While a cursed VHS tape may not sound very scary at first, “Ringu” took the idea to a terrifying plateau that no DVD has managed to surpass since. While investigating the supposedly cursed videotape, reporter Reiko Asakawa finds the tape in a cabin and watches its macabre contents before being warned on the phone that she has seven days to live. As Reiko and her ex-husband search for the truth behind the tape’s curse and the mysterious family who created it, it becomes clear that its black magic is very real - and if the appropriate steps necessary to break it aren’t taken, those cursed by the tape are literally in for the fright of their lives. Do you agree with our list? Who’s your favorite cursed movie character? For more entertaining Top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.