Soon we’ll get to see what Harry Potter star Rhys Ifans will look like in his reptilian get-up as Spidey’s archenemy in Marc Webb’s upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man . Ifans will star as The Lizard — or in his human form, Curtis Connors. A brilliant scientist who loses an arm, Connors tries to regrow his lost limb, but the experiment goes awry. He finds himself transformed into a reptilian humanoid, which we got a glimpse of this week — first in the form of a soon-to-be released Pez dispenser, and some new concept art. If the sketches bear any real resemblance to the eccentric Notting Hill actor’s costume, then yep: he’s a giant, creepy lizard.
We felt inspired to look back at a few of cinema’s ugliest screen villains. Movie heroes’ hideous enemies have ranged from really repulsive men to vile creatures. Note the amount of horror or sci-fi on our list. Too often films attempt to make the villain attractive. Click through to see which baddies were beaten with the ugly stick, renew your appreciation for old-fashioned, unpleasant-looking villains, and then add your picks below.
Pazuzu in The Exorcist
Actress Linda Blair was just a young girl when she played a possessed child, Regan, whose body becomes inhabited by a demon from hell in The Exorcist. You’d never know Blair was a cute kid with chubby cheeks underneath all of Dick Smith’s masterfully applied makeup, which gave the child star a face that not even a mother could love. Blair’s visceral visage grows increasingly gruesome throughout the film as the demon Pazuzu gets cozy in its new dwelling. Spewing pea soup, a terrible case of potty mouth, and a head like a swivel stick didn’t help matters either.
Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street
The disfigured menace who terrorizes teens in their dreams, Freddy Krueger, has the worst pizza face in film history. Before he was murdering the neighborhood’s kiddie population while they slept, Fred Krueger was a child molesting janitor who got his comeuppance when angry parents took justice into their own hands. They burned the creep, who then returned to stalk sleepyheads everywhere for his own sadistic pleasure.
Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars
There’s nothing attractive about a giant slug, period. Even the enslaved princess on the end of his leash can’t distract us from the those flipper-like arms, creepy gaze, and jiggling, greasy flesh. The gluttonous and greedy gangster abuses his power at every turn, which makes him just as ugly on the inside.
Bob in Twin Peaks
First appearing in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks TV series and popping up again in the film version of the show, Fire Walk with Me, the wicked Bob was an accidental character that almost didn’t make the cut. Frank Silva was the show’s set dresser and was mistakenly filmed during a scene for the pilot. Lynch loved his appearance so much that he wrote him into the show as the surreal, evil entity that haunts the Palmer family. Bob’s chilling appearance proves that you don’t always need a ton of makeup to channel your inner ugly. Sometimes all it takes is a dirty denim jacket, feral hairdo, twisted facial features, and the ability to crush the innocence and dreams of those around you.
Kakihara in Ichi the Killer
A sadomasochistic Yakuza who rips a bloody path through the underworld when his boss goes missing, Kakihara doesn’t mind mutilating his own body for funsies. (He even cuts off the tip of his tongue, at one point.) His scarred, pierced face is definitely one for the books.
Roark Junior/Yellow Bastard in Sin City
Sin City’s Yellow Bastard (Nick Stahl) was punished with the double whammy: he’s repulsive to look at and smells like a sewer. A pedophile playboy, the depraved Yellow Bastard never recovered from a shooting incident and the many surgeries that left him a disfigured, mustard-colored mess. He became doomed to look like a deranged Simpsons’ character for life.
The Twins in The Matrix Reloaded
The ghostly twin henchmen from The Matrix Reloaded look like aging albino ravers trapped in the early ’90s. Too much sateen is a really bad thing.
The Penguin in Batman Returns
Batman Returns‘ Oswald Cobblepot AKA The Penguin is easy to ignore next to Michelle Pfeiffer in a catsuit, but he won’t soon let you forget him thanks to those deadly choppers. Tim Burton’s grotesque version of the Batman villain can’t hide his vile appearance beneath his cartoonish top hat or swank umbrella. Did we mention this sewer-dwelling mayoral candidate has serious mommy and daddy issues after being abandoned as a child? The stress of it all could be the cause of his pallid complexion.
The Alien Queen in Aliens
H.R. Giger’s designs that inspired the look of the xenomorphs in the sci-fi Alien franchise made them … kind of sexy, but the Alien Queen in the second installment of the series proved that big mamma was one ugly — yet awe-inspiring — bitch. (Hey, Ripley said it first.) Her drooly jaws and skeletal/biomechanical body make you want to run home and hug your mother.
Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter
Poor Ralph Fiennes had to play a harelip serial killer in Red Dragon, and then he became the Dark Lord of the Harry Potter series. With a snake-like nose and chalk-white pallor, Lord Voldemort grew into his ghastly looks after messing around with too much magic. His hideous appearance doesn’t dissuade Harry Potter from his quest to destroy the powerful Horcruxes that fractured the evil one’s soul. Better him than us.