Top 10 Surprising Villain Movie Face Reveals

Well, that was surprising! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 10 shocking villain unmaskings.

For this list, we’ll be looking at the most shocking and surprising villain unmaskings in movie history. As we will be unveiling some major plot points throughout this list, a spoiler warning is in effect!

“The Witches” (1990)
“The Witches” is a dark fantasy film that concerns evil witches who disguise themselves as humans in order to blend in with society. The Grand High Witch masquerades as a woman named Eva Ernst, but she reveals her true nature while attending the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. It starts with Eva peeling away her own forehead, revealing a brown scalp underneath. It’s disgusting. But it only gets worse from there, as her human face is slowly peeled away to reveal a hideous witch. The makeup work is stellar, and the scene left many a 90s child utterly traumatized.

“The Invisible Man” (2020)
This surprisingly refreshing adaptation of “The Invisible Man” stars Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia, a traumatized woman who believes that she is being stalked by her abusive (and now invisible) ex-boyfriend, Adrian. At the end of the movie, it’s revealed that The Invisible Man was actually Adrian’s brother Tom, who had supposedly kept Adrian imprisoned in his basement. It’s a good twist, but one that is contested by Cecilia. She believes that the brothers were in cahoots and that Adrian was simply using Tom as a fall guy. The truth is left ambiguous, but either way, seeing Tom under the invisible suit was a shocking plot twist that no one saw coming.

“Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011)
Red Skull is better known as Johann Schmidt, the commander of HYDRA and Hitler’s head of weaponry. His goal is to harness the mysterious power of the Tesseract and turn the tide of war in favor of the Axis powers. It’s said that Schmidt suffered permanent side effects after being injected with Dr. Erskine’s Super Soldier Serum. These debilitating side effects are finally unveiled when Schmidt literally peels away his own face to reveal the iconic Red Skull underneath. It’s a surprisingly horrifying and grotesque sequence, especially when Cap punches Schmidt’s face and dislodges his eyelid. It’s probably not something the kids wanted to see...

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988)
And speaking of scenes that traumatized children, let’s talk about that horrifying Judge Doom sequence in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” Throughout most of the movie, Judge Doom looks like Christopher Lloyd. Nothing out of the ordinary there. That is, until Doom is graphically squashed by a steamroller. The flattened Doom stands up, walks to some canisters, and inflates himself with gas until his eyeballs pop out, revealing the red eyes of the toon who killed Teddy. It’d be an interesting twist if not for the fact that it was utterly terrifying to watch as a child. At this point, we didn’t care about the story. We were too busy ejecting the VHS and throwing it out the window.

“Batman Returns” (1992)
Catwoman is actually Selina Kyle, a secretary who discovers that her employer, industrialist Max Shreck, is draining Gotham of its energy. In order to ensure her silence, Shreck pushes Kyle out a window. It obviously doesn’t work, and Kyle becomes Catwoman to seek revenge. It all comes to a head in Gotham’s sewers, when Selena reveals herself to her ex-boss. His reaction isn’t really one of confusion and shock, but fury. Regardless, Kyle finally gets her revenge by electrocuting Shreck to death with a stun gun and a kiss. How romantic.

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014)
In this acclaimed sequel to “Captain America: The First Avenger,” we learn that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated and compromised by HYDRA. To ensure Alexander Pierce’s prolonged undercover success, he sends The Winter Soldier to assassinate Nick Fury. Cap is later ambushed by the titular villain, and the two get into an exciting skirmish. During the fight, Cap dislodges the Soldier’s mask, revealing his childhood friend and World War II veteran Bucky Barnes. Barnes was assumed dead after “The First Avenger” but had actually been captured and brainwashed by HYDRA, who turned him into their superhuman assassin.

“Halloween” (1978)
Throughout John Carpenter’s seminal slasher flick, we are led to believe that Michael Myers is some sort of inhuman boogeyman. He can seemingly appear and disappear at will, he never tires or relents, and he seems virtually unstoppable. At the climax of the film, Laurie unmasks Michael in a scuffle, and it comes as quite a shock to see a normal, everyday man underneath the mask. He’s not hideous, he’s not deformed, and he’s not “evil looking” - he’s just a young guy. The movie seems to be arguing that unspeakable evil can come from anywhere and anyone, even a nondescript family in some random Illinois town. And that’s scarier than any superhuman boogeyman.

“Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens” (2015)
In the original trilogy, we had to wait three long movies before seeing Darth Vader’s face. We didn’t have to wait quite as long to see Kylo Ren’s. Kylo seems just as intimidating as his famous predecessor, but this all changes when he reveals himself to Rey. Whereas Darth Vader was sickly pale, old, and disfigured, Kylo Ren is young, attractive, and fit. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting from the trilogy’s primary antagonist, and it threw a lot of people for a loop. Rey included, judging by the look on her face! And with this face reveal, Kylo earned himself a lot of devoted fans...

“Scream” (1996)
“Scream” not only revitalized the dying slasher genre by acknowledging and playing on its tropes, but it one-upped its predecessors with one of the greatest twists in horror movie history. Unlike the legendary slasher movies of old, “Scream” pulled a fast one on its audience and revealed two killers in Billy and Stu. What makes the shock even greater is that Billy was the primary suspect throughout the entire movie, but it seemed so obvious that we dismissed the theory as a red herring. Nope, it was obvious for a reason, and “Scream” showed a lot of guts (no pun intended) in outright telling us who the killer was. Well, one of the killers, anyway.

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

Predator
“Predator” (1987)

Bug [aka Giant Cockroach-like Aliens]
“Men in Black” (1997)

Khan Noonien Singh
“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982)

“The Phantom of the Opera” (1925)
Lon Chaney’s depiction of the titular Phantom remains the most iconic and memorable of them all. His skull-like appearance is also the most accurate to the source novel, Gaston Leroux’s “Le Fantôme de l'Opéra.” The Phantom’s reveal is an iconic piece of horror movie history, and it allegedly made some moviegoers scream and faint back in 1925. It is even said that movie theaters were required to have smelling salts on standby just in case patrons fainted out of fear! We can see why. The scene is still horrifying to this day thanks to Cheney’s ghostly makeup and unnerving expression. The Phantom is a wonderful, tragic, and unimaginably scary character.