Television is full of supernatural baddies. Monsters, zombies, and vampires send spills down viewers’ spines on a regular basis, and it can be a lot of fun to get scared this way.
But sometimes the scariest TV characters aren’t monsters at all, at least not in the traditional sense.
Sometimes they are ordinary people, people who are like us or like someone we know — except there’s something off about them.
They may have a lot of power, a psychic wound they want to heal through hurting others, or a twisted sense of loyalty to their families.
These kinds of scary people could actually exist, and that makes them even scarier. Check out the slideshow and share the characters you think are worse then supernatural monsters!
Don’t forget you can always watch your favorite shows online right here on TV Fanatic if you need an extra dose of spine-tingling entertainment.
Hank Voight (Chicago PD)
Voight is every anti-police protester’s worst nightmare: a cop who abuses his power routinely and almost always gets away with it. If you’re even suspected of a crime, you don’t want to get anywhere near his. His ability to come out on top no matter what he does makes him far scarier than most supernatural monsters.
Lane Hunter (The Resident)
There is nothing more monstrous and evil than preying on seriously ill people who are dependent on you for help, and that is exactly what Lane Hunter does. As an oncologist, she gains the truth of cancer patients, but her real interest is in getting as much money as she can from insurance companies — no matter what she has to do and no matter what ethical rules she has to break.
William Lewis (Law & Order: SVU)
William Lewis’ scariest quality was his ability to be normal when the situation called for it. This serial rapist and killer eluded capture for several days after kidnapping Benson, but at first no one but Rollins believed he was as evil as he was because of his nice-guy persona. His capacity for violence knew almost no bounds, and he ultimately set up his own suicide just to torment Benson for the rest of her life with the question of what she could have done differently.
Beth Dutton (Yellowstone)
Beth Dutton is both beautiful and unstable — and she knows it. It’s hard to tell if she really lacks a conscience or is just playing a part because she has to stay unpredictable to thrive as a woman in a world full of ultra-macho cowboys. Either way, her tendency to use sex to manipulate and completely destroy her father’s rivals and their families, and the open question of whether her mother’s death was an accident or something she caused on purpose make Beth as scary as any big-name monster.
Kate Roberts (Days of Our Lives)
Kate Roberts’ kids would probably agree she’s a monster, since she destroys their relationships with people she disapproves of — which is anyone they date. She isn’t above poisoning, blackmailing, or other serious crimes to get her way. Kate has little to no conscience and almost no one can get one over on her. Still, almost everything she does is out of a twisted sense of loyalty to her family and the thirst for revenge against anyone who hurts them. The combination of righteous anger and lack of boundaries makes her a horrifying, semi-realistic version of the evil stepmother or wicked witch found in fairy tales.
Annalise Keating (How to Get Away With Murder)
At first glance, Annalise Keating seems like one of those dragon-lady law professors who delights in scaring unprepared students, but a quick glimpse into her personal life reveals a more horrifying truth: she will do whatever it takes to protect herself and those she cares about. If someone goes too far, well, she has a whole slew of assistants who are willing to clean up her messes using any means necessary.
Penelope Blossom (Riverdale)
Okay, so Riverdale is full of scary creatures — some of them actual monsters. But there’s something about Penelope Blossom’s static, Stepford-wife like presentation, complete lack of morals, and violent rivalry with Cheryl and Nana Rose that makes her blood-curdlingly scary.
Oliver Hill (Reverie)
Reverie was cutting-edge technology used to play with people’s minds, so is it really any surprise that its creator was an evil genius with an unhealthy level of narcissism? Oliver Hill was unstable enough to risk his life, manipulate ex-lover Alexis’ deepest pain, and hurt or kill millions of Reverie users just to get revenge on his former co-workers for cutting him out of Reverie. What could be more monstrous than that?
Eli Pope (Scandal)
As far as Olivia Pope is concerned, her father is a monster in every sense of the word. Eli Pope appears to have limitless power, and there is nothing he wouldn’t do to control his daughter’s life including murdering her lover’s Fitz Grant’s child to get revenge on Fitz for refusing to give up on being with Olivia.
Joe (YOU)
Deluded stalkers are scary people, and Joe is no exception. He is violent and dangerous, yet can act kind and helpful so that the object of his obsession has no idea that he will go to any lengths to eliminate his rivals for her attention — including murder — or that the less interest she shows in him, the more determined he is to be with her.
Tommy Egan (Power)
Rage can turn ordinary people into monsters, and Tommy Egan is a prime example of that. After his pregnant wife disobeyed his orders to leave Ghost alone, he killed her in a fit of rage. After that he spiraled further and further into a life of violent crime out of loyalty to Ghost and guilt over killing his own baby.
Megan Fisher (Wayward Pines)
Megan Fisher’s job was to mold young minds, and she took it far too literally, using her hypnotic powers to turn children against parents and make them believe they were part of a special, new generation of human beings that were superior to others. Her creepy smile every time she was on screen sealed the deal and made her scarier than the actual monsters in Wayward Pines.
Sami Brady (Days of Our Lives)
Cross Sami Brady and you might live to tell about it, but you’d probably have a billion battle scars from the psychological warfare. Like her nemesis Kate, Sami doesn’t know the meaning of a line that shouldn’t be crossed. She will do absolutely anything to get what she wants — and sometimes to protect the people she loves. An angry Sami is not the kind of person you want to meet in a dark alley.
