Top 10 Horror Movie Villains that Don't Speak

“Sinister” franchise (2012-15)
Demons are old hat in horror by this point. So for “Sinister”, scriptwriters Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill decided to up the ante with no less than a Babylonian deity. Bughuul might not have the mouth on him that, say, “The Exorcist’s” Pazazu does. But he doesn’t need to. By corrupting the children he surrounds himself with, he can force them to do his evil bidding. This mostly consists of murdering people, and getting it all on film. Guess he’s a real cinephile. The end results of his filmmaking efforts don’t have much of a storyline, but they certainly are horrifying!

“Krampus” (2015)
An instant classic for all the Grinches and Scrooges of the Christmas season, “Krampus” gave us something to seriously fear during the most festive season of the year. The folk legend of Krampus may have been around for centuries, but it has taken on various forms. The monstrous version in Michael Dougherty’s cult hit may be seldom heard or seen, but his presence is often felt, giving you a major chill down your spine. Despite its humorous moments, the movie is relentless and no characters are left unscathed, especially those who encounter Krampus himself.

“Jeepers Creepers” franchise (2001-17)
Who would have thought that someone with such a big appetite could keep their mouth shut? The Creeper is an ancient creature who enjoys impersonating scarecrows, and roaming the countryside to slaughter people and eat their body parts. Everyone needs a hobby. Fortunately, it only hunts for 23 days every 23rd spring. It does use its mouth to growl, and of course to chew up its prey, but doesn’t seem to have picked up any human languages on its travels. However, the Creeper’s silence just makes it all the more menacing. You can’t reason or plead with someone who won’t talk back.

“It Follows” (2014)
The entity that stalks its prey in “It Follows” has a distinct advantage for this list. Since we never see its “true” form, we don’t even know if it has a mouth, let alone if it can speak. Whatever this being is, it’s passed around like a murderous STI. You can only escape it by sleeping with someone else, which causes the entity to stalk them instead. However, if it kills them, it’ll go right back to hunting you. While it follows and attacks its victims by taking on familiar human forms, these forms just mindlessly trudge along, not saying a word.

“The Conjuring 2” (2016)
Another demon of the silent but deadly type, Valak was brought into the “The Conjuring” sequel as an afterthought, with the focus of the second film supposed to be on the famous Enfield haunting. However, the demon nun was such a terrifying presence, even just standing there as a painting, that she completely stole the show, and earned herself her own spin-off movie. Valak the Defiler seems to have been following the Warrens for quite some time, until they’re finally able to defeat the demon while on assignment helping the Hodgson family.

“Us” (2019)
What’s worse than a silent killer? Well, how about when the killers . . . are US? With the exception of Red, who leads the Wilson doppelgängers, the Tethered are eerily silent. Somehow, this just makes them that much creepier. They’re uncannily familiar and otherworldly at the same time, black boxes whose thoughts and feelings are impossible to comprehend. The fact that their would-be victims can’t easily communicate with them makes them that much more dangerous - you can’t talk to them, or threaten them back, you can only run!

“Alien” franchise (1979-)
They may be aliens, but we’ve been “fortunate” enough to see them through their entire evolution and gestation. And in that time, we haven’t heard anything remotely resembling a recognizable language, unless you include angry snarls. In this way, they differ from their rivals from the “Predator” franchise, who do seem to have their own language, and have communicated with humans. The Xenomorphs have been terrorizing audiences since they burst onto the scene in 1979, pun intended. Many sequels and spin-offs later, they’ve become legends of the quiet stalk-and-kill variety, giving many of our more human masked killers a run for their money. We can guarantee you will not hear them coming

“Friday the 13th” franchise (1980-)
Jason may have only given us a cameo in the first “Friday the 13th” film. However, even after a dozen films and four decades, the famous hockey-mask wearing psycho killer still has not spoken a word. While he may have been competing over the years with the wise-cracking Freddy and Chucky, Jason Voorhees knew how menacing and powerful he was. Stalking and killing the unsuspecting souls of Camp Crystal Lake over the years, and later expanding his territory, the slasher king didn’t have to go beyond a few guttural grunts and screams.

“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise (1974-)
While Jason was an undead creature, Leatherface doesn’t have a good excuse for not being able to talk. Maybe it was all the inbreeding and abuse at the hands of the craziest family there ever was. You don’t end up wearing human skin on your face, and eating your victims if you had a normal happy childhood. Seeing him fumble along and grunt like a pig, audiences can surmise that Leatherface is a little slow, and therefore perhaps never learned how to speak… although we think his message still comes across effortlessly.

Before we reveal our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

Sam
“Trick ‘r Treat” (2007)

The Blob
“The Blob” Franchise (1958-88)

The Dwellers
“The Descent” (2005)

Pumpkinhead
“Pumpkinhead” Franchise (1988-2007)

The Creatures
“A Quiet Place” (2018)

“Halloween” franchise (1978-)
Michael Myers was always the most iconic silent killer, his blank stare and brutal killing methods sending chills down collective spines. His silence just made him seem even more inhuman and relentless. Even as a child-killer, in that classic opening sequence, the scariest thing was young Michael’s lack of response to his shocked parents. Rob Zombie may have killed the mystery a little bit with his 2007 remake, letting young Michael speak. But adult Michael Myers will always be a voiceless shadowy figure in our nightmares, mask or no mask.