4 Great Female Villains of Classic Horror

Let’s start off strong with one of the most unsung films from the original Universal horror canon.

Picking up exactly where the original Dracula left off—literally in the crypt with the count’s body—Dracula’s Daughter opens with Van Helsing being arrested for murder. But that’s not where the real fun comes in.

It’s not until a mysterious woman shows up to claim Dracula’s body that things really get weird.

There are definitely some uneven moments in the film—the jokey intro is a bit perplexing at times—but once you get to the crux of the story, it’s a stunning achievement with a standout performance by Gloria Holden as the eponymous offspring of literature’s most famous bloodsucker.

Not only is she fashionable and fierce, she’s also a major queer icon in an era when LGBTQ+ characters weren’t commonly depicted. An absolute must for your streaming queue, and a perfect addition to your horror movie list for Pride Month.

All right, it’s true: every time I can find an excuse to put Suddenly, Last Summer on a list, I enthusiastically take that opportunity in hopes that I will convert even one more person out there into a fan of this bizarre little gem of classic cinema.

Both Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift are superb in their roles as a patient and a doctor caught up in the whirlwind of family secrets, but if you’re looking for great villains, then you won’t get any better than Katharine Hepburn as Violet Venable, a devoted mother who will stop at nothing to protect her dead son Sebastian’s reputation, even after his enigmatic death.

It’s a mild spoiler to admit that Hepburn is the villain of the film. Still, considering she practically opens the film with a monologue about her fervent desire to have Elizabeth Taylor’s character lobotomized, I think you’ll catch on pretty quickly.

But if lobotomies aren’t enough to call this one horror, then let’s up the ante by adding gaslighting, cannibalism, and one of the most supremely Southern gothic settings in all of 1950s horror. Despite being produced during the odious Hays

Code, Suddenly, Last Summer pushes depravity to the max, and the history of cinema is incredibly better for it.

Another one of the original Universal Horror films, She-Wolf of London is a truly underrated gem.

Perfectly atmospheric and gorgeously gothic, turn-of-the-century London has never looked so lovely and foreboding. Add in the constant call of hounds, and the lead character Phyllis, who becomes convinced she’s turning into a werewolf because of an ancient family curse, and you’ve got one magnificent little horror film.

Clocking in at just over one hour long, She-Wolf of London has a rapid-fire pace, and while I won’t tell you exactly who’s responsible for the wolf-like murders, the film sets it up early that the culprit is very likely a woman.

And while writing this article, I happily discovered that star June Lockhart is still with us at the fabulous age of ninety-nine.

Her hundredth birthday will be coming up in June, so be sure to put She-Wolf of London on your watchlist as part of her centennial celebration.

One of the few gothic horror films to win Best Picture at the Oscars, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 classic Rebecca is a fantastic adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s equally iconic novel.

And in this particular film, you get two unforgettable villains for the price of one: both the eponymous Rebecca de Winter as well as her terrifyingly devoted housekeeper Mrs. Danvers.

The setup is prototypical gothic: a young, unnamed woman falls madly in love with a rich and mysterious man, only to learn that the specter of his dead first wife hangs over everything in his life.

Soon, she’s dealing not only with the ghostly reach of Rebecca, but also with the sinister

people who loved her. We never see Rebecca on-screen—not in a flashback or even a portrait— so it’s up to Mrs. Danvers, played by a gloriously terrifying Judith Anderson, to do all the dirty work.

And she is more than up to the task, gaslighting our naïve narrator and stoking both the literal and figurative flames of the film.

If you haven’t seen Rebecca recently, it’s most definitely time for a rewatch. This is one film with a pair of very powerful and diabolical women for the ages.