10 Totally Monstrous Horror Movie Parents

Evil kids are everywhere in repugnance — but there ’s also no shortage of evil parents . A list of every single awesome mama and dad from every unmarried horror movie would be as thick as a full readiness of Friday the thirteenth VHS tape . But while we eagerly expect thescary paternal whole in this week ’s Us , we ’re tallying up our favourite from the worst of the forged .

1. Norma Bates, Psycho

“ His mother was a clinging , demanding cleaning lady , and for years the two of them live as if there was no one else in the world , ” explains the psychiatrist who ’s just examined a very - far - fail Norman Bates ( Anthony Perkins ) at the end of Psycho . Though Norma does n’t really appear in the movie — except as a skeletal corpse , of class — she ’s one of its main characters , brought back from the all in ( so to speak ) by her deeply troubled son , with a controlling influence that reach from beyond the tomb and stokes Norman ’s murderous impulses . Would he have been a killer whale even if he ’d had a genial fosterage ? There ’s no way to know for sure … though while we all go a little mad sometimes , most of us do n’t pang strangers in the shower .

2. Jack Torrance, The Shining

He was n’t going to win Father of the Year even before he brought his family to the Overlook Hotel — there ’s mention of a drinking trouble , and an “ accidental ” snap of Logos Danny ’s sleeve that put the Thomas Kid in a cast . But when we first meet Jack ( Jack Nicholson ) , he ’s at least trying to turn thing around , figuring he ’ll use the heartsease and quiet of the snowbound locationto study on his writing . Unfortunately , that programme quickly evaporates , and Jack ’s vulnerable mind fall under the influence of the hotel ’s malevolent smell . Wife Wendy is n’t spare from Jack ’s fad , butthe psychically give Dannygets the brunt of it , and is forced to face supernatural horrors ( “ Come and play with us , Danny ! ” ) that are nearly as shuddery as having to scarper and hide in a rash from his own axe - handle father .

3. Margaret White, Carrie

A religious zealot who probably would ’ve been an oppressive parent no matter the circumstances , Carrie ’s mommy ( Piper Laurie)—in the second Stephen King version to make this list — is exceedingly poorly - equipped to consider with her daughter ’s remarkable telekinetic power . Hell , she does n’t even bother to excuse menstruation to the primitive stripling and treats Carrie ’s humiliating first menstruum as a intellect for punishment . Though Margaret is fairly adoring of doling out penalty for any and all reason , as well as rip into her girl ’s self - respect at every opportunity . In the end , her cruelty pushes Carrie — who ’s already a mass - murderer at this point — to matricide , though the shock of what she ’s done is so devastating and destructive that Carrie does n’t live it either .

4. Pamela Voorhees, Friday the 13th

One could debate that Pamela ( Betsy Palmer ) was actually a good female parent while her treasured li’l Jason was alive — just a tad overprotective and overly dot , that ’s all . Her violent shipway surface after the male child drown , a cataclysm she blamed on the negligent ( and horny ) counselors of Camp Crystal Lake , and for which she took crashing revenge after biding her time and , presumably , building up a stockpile of very big knives . Though Jason is presumed to be drained in the first Friday the 13th , he pops up ( literally ) as a waterlogged corpse - boy in the “ gotcha ! ” ending — and by the continuation , he ’d become a full - grown orca striding through the woods , lash teens and making his mother gallant . Too regretful Pamela did n’t hold out to see Jason take up her quest for vengeance , though consider her son ’s weird supernatural energy , there ’s always a chance she ’ll reappear somedayif they ever start making Friday the 13th sequels again .

5. George Lutz, The Amityville Horror

George ( James Brolin ) was an hunky-dory dude when the Lutz family line , which also admit his wife and her three kids from a previous marriage , make a motion intotheir Long Island dream house . Sure , DeFeos , the home plate ’s previous owner , had all been horrifically fritter to death in their beds by the home ’s oldest boy , who claimed he ’d heard fiendish voices telling him to mow down everybody , but the Lutzes were n’t easily spooked — and besides , they ’d never be able-bodied to give such a broad house otherwise . The DeFeo tragedy is real ( it ’s a flip - up on those hellish voices ) , but the Lutz ’s haunted - house trial by ordeal , once framed as a honest narration , isnow better categorized as fable . And it ’s a good thing because George ends up decease down the same path as The Shining ’s Jack Torrance , spellbound by uncollectible vibes and represent very much like a guy who ’s plot to kill his family . Fortunately , the Lutzes bring off to get away before any of the kids suffer permanentphysical legal injury .

6. Jerry, The Stepfather

What ’s bad than a stepdad who becomes perilously possessed , almost to the point of kill someone ? How about a stepdad who ’s get an actual pile drubbing hidden in his past ? Terry O’Quinn ( who afterward starred on Lost ) plays the statute title character , a accustomed practician of execution and identity theft who makes the mistake of marry a charwoman whose teen daughter shortly catches on to his magic . release in 1987 , The Stepfather is more or less part of the earned run average ’s slasher - movie movement , but it also preys on more grounded fears about all the things that could go wrong when a new parental figure all of a sudden becomes part of an established crime syndicate . Tops on that list , fully demonstrated by O’Quinn ’s chilling performance , is the realisation that he ’s a murderous maniac , and you ’re his next quarry .

7. William and Katherine, The Witch

biography in colonial New England was boisterous for everyone , but things areespecially rough for the family in The Witch , who are banished from the main closure after clash with religious leadership and squeeze to live on an obscure homestead adjacent to a baseless , spooky forest . After their infant Word is snatched up by their sinister neighbour and their spiral into tragic chaos begin , William ( Ralph Ineson ) and Katherine ( Kate Dickie ) turn on their previous girl , plotting to betray her off as a domestic worker to some random phratry and generally treating her like stain , accusing her of witchery , and finally seek to kill her . Hail Satan for give that poor girl — who ends up being the lonesome survivor of her family ’s pitiful ordeal , unless those bratty twins are still out there somewhere — the most unconventional of happy conclusion .

8. Mommy and Daddy, The People Under the Stairs

Wes Craven ’s 1991 horror comedystars Everett McGill and Wendy Robie — who magnificently also represent a very different form ofdysfunctional couple on Twin Peaks — as terrible landlords who are also awfully barbarous parent . Except they ’re not really parents , they ’re an inbred brother - and - babe span who ’ve been add together kidnapped shaver to their dummy - trap cellar prison house / torment sleeping room / cannibal try ground for years . The star sign time lag includes an obedient daughter who receive to survive in the master part of the house , as well as a unruly son ( who ’s had his tongue chopped off ) who lives in the walls . As terrific as this all appears at first , everyone in the moving picture — include the heroic neck of the woods tyke who discovers the sign ’s atrocious enigma by accident — end up banding together to give Mommy and Daddy their just desserts , and there ’s a campy tonicity running throughout to remind you that despite Craven ’s prior filmography , The People Under the Stairs aims to lean more into caustic remark than nightmare .

9. The Laemles, Parents

It ’s another pitch - black comedywith cannibal musical theme , but Bob Balaban ’s oddity is a bit of a unlike animal than The People Under the Stairs . It ’s about a male child growing up in 1950s suburb , with parents ( Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt ) hide a secret that ’s slimly out of step with typical Cold War - era concerns . The kid ’s been give birth super - worrying dream , and when his concerned school guidance advocate begin pry around , his plastic - stark home life starts to get , uh , bloody complicated , as mummy and pop decide it ’s mellow time he starts carry on the family culinary tradition . When he resists , it does n’t go over well , specially from Dad ’s point of position . Parents , which slurps from the goblet of both David Lynch and John Waters and is plausibly best keep off by queasy vegan , was released in 1989 and was met with befuddlement — but inevitably , it ’s since found new life as a rage favorite .

10. Ellison Oswalt, Sinister

You ca n’t blame a desperately blocked writer for seeking out an unsolved murder as his next research subject / ledger divine guidance . You ca n’t even blame that author formoving into the very house where a outrageous crime involving the death of an entire kinfolk — all hang from a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree outside , aside from one little girl who has yet to be found — latterly transpired . you may , however , blame that guy ( played by Ethan Hawke ) for not letting his wife eff about the house ’s history , especially when he rule out that the murders were associated withan ancient demon who prey on tyke … and his kids set forth acting quite unlike themselves . The last risky decisiveness that Oswalt makes — you have a go at it , the one that seal his syndicate ’s ultimate fate — is something he does n’t actualize is a immense mistake until it ’s too late . But he should have been more open with his folk before he embroil them along on his dead on target - criminal offence real - estate joy drive .

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HorrorThe ShiningThe Witch