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Some directors excel when it comes to sweet love stories. Other can nail intricately beautiful and stylized worlds. However, David Fincher has a very special directorial talent. He can turn just about any story into a perfectly shot nightmare.
This is especially true of Fincher’s latest series, Netflix’s Mindhunter. Starring Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany, the series follows two FBI agents as they track the worst of the worst criminals in the 1970s, interviewing murderers in the hopes of better identifying future serial killers. It’s a chilling series that focuses more on academic theories and unnerving conversations rather than straight up gore. It’s also a deeply disturbing delight. In honor of this new and creepy series as well as Fincher’s knack for making characters as disturbing as humanly possible, I’ve rounded up the scariest of the scary from Fincher’s fictional worlds. These characters aren’t chilling for the same reasons. Sometimes the creepiness comes from bad CGI, other times it comes from mass killings. Regardless, all of these characters have the ability to give you nightmares in their own twisted ways.
The Narrator in ‘Fight Club’
Who’s the creep?: Edward Norton
What makes him creepy?: At first glance, you may think that Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden is the actual creep of this film, but you’d be wrong. What’s scarier than watching a man lose his mind in as close to real time as cinematically possible? Almost nothing. Before we were all disturbed by Rami Malek in Mr. Robot, The Narrator’s psychological collapse was the thing of unnerving entertainment legend.
Nicolas’ friends in ‘The Game’
Who’s the creep?: Basically everyone in The Game who isn’t Michael Douglas
What makes them creepy?: I get that you want to help your friends when they’re down, but Nicholas Van Orton’s (Douglas) friends take that to a whole new level. Throwing a birthday party reminiscent of your friend’s father’s suicide is weird enough. Elaborately breaking your friend over the course of days by burying him alive, draining all his money, and staging his brother’s murder is just madness. Next time someone goes through a midlife crisis, just get them a convertible.
The old baby in 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'
Who’s the creep?: Brad Pitt as a CGI baby
What makes him creepy?: I mean, look at him. I know that the point of one of Fincher’s only feel-good movies was that we shouldn’t judge odd things or people by their appearance, but young-old Brad Pitt is terrifying on a weird, mid-2000s CGI level.
The Zodiac Killer in 'Zodiac'
Who’s the creep?: We’re not entirely sure
What makes him creepy?: Part of the reason why this serial killer thriller is so disturbing is that we leave never knowing exactly who the Zodiac Killer is. In the movie’s final moments when we see Jimmi Simpson confidently point to Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch) as the man who shot him, the movie explores something far more ominous than a deranged killer. It establishes a world where everyone knows who committed these crimes, but the killer can still get away. If that’s not haunting, I don’t know what is.
Martin Vanger in ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’
Who’s the creep?: Stellan Skarsgård
What makes him creepy?: Martin was able to brutally rape, torture, and kill several women right underneath his family and community’s nose. It’s always the smiling rich ones. However, what makes Martin even more horrific is what he did to his own sister. At this point it’s difficult to say which Skarsgård brother is more terrifying — Stellan or his dancing clown brother Bill Skarsgård.
Ed Kemper in ‘Mindhunter’
Who’s the creep?: Cameron Britton
What makes him creepy?: Ed’s perverse likability has a lot to do with his life behind bars. Because we never actually see all of the women he’s assaulted and murdered, it’s easier to listen to him and enjoy him as a character. That’s where the true horror of the Co-Ed Killer lies. There’s a very human, very relatable side to this man who decapitated his own mother and had sex with her head. Remembering that, it’s nausea-inducing to see Holden (Jonathan Groff) so eager to laugh at his jokes.
Amy Dunne in ‘Gone Girl’
Who’s the creep?: Rosamund Pike
What makes her creepy?: Where do you even begin with the elaborate ball of lies and manipulation that is Amy Dunne? Amy certainly had every reason to get mad at her husband for cheating on her (especially when that husband is played by Ben Affleck). However, she turns her unhappiness up to sociopathic levels when she fakes her own death and plants the whole thing on her hubby. There’s crazy and then there’s “so mentally unstable she will destroy you, dance on your grave, and turn your skin into a purse.” Amy is definitely the latter.
John Doe in ‘Seven’
Who’s the creep?: Kevin Spacey
What makes him creepy?: Beating Frank Underwood off a list of creepy characters seems impossible, but Spacey and Fincher have managed to do it. Before Spacey was manipulating the American legal system and pushing flings into trains, he was systematically murdering people to align with the seven deadly sins. Spacey plays the terrifying murderer in Fincher’s goriest film to date, and you’ll have a hard time forgetting the blood-soaked John Doe turning himself in and finishing his final murders in a chilling blaze of warped poetic justice.
Doug Stamper in ‘House of Cards’
Who’s the creep?: Michael Kelly
What makes him creepy?: There are a lot of creepy politicians in this Netflix drama, but none are as ruthless, devoted, and chillingly collected as Doug. For five seasons now, Doug has committed murders, covered up crimes, and backstabbed everyone in sight all to protect Frank and Claire Underwood (Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright). His loyalty is unyielding, and since it’s in the hands of someone as sinister as the Underwoods, that’s chilling.
Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Network’
Who’s the creep?: Jesse Eisenberg
What makes him creepy?: When The Social Network first premiered, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg came off as more of a cold jerk than a manipulative, all-controlling mastermind. However, in light of the revelations about Facebook’s influence on 2016 election and Facebook’s near-constant growth and dominance of the social media landscape, the movie has taken on a more sinister air. Also, Eisenberg is king of creepy scowls and blank stares. Pairing him with Fincher is immediately a panic-inducing formula.
