Top 10 Times Movie Villains Trolled the Hero
#10: Goodman’s Dodgeball Team
“Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story” (2004) This comedic sports-film features Ben Stiller as White Goodman, the narcissistic owner of a high end gym who’s constantly competing with his laid-backed rival gym owner, Pete LaFleur. When LaFleur and his friends enter a Dodgeball Tournament to raise money for the gym, Goodman somewhat illegally enters the tournament, introducing his team in the most cocky and obnoxious fashion. The team name, Purple Cobras, and each team members’ names seems ripped straight from a street gang. All of this is just to make sure LaFleur loses the competition, who only wants the money to keep his gym afloat while Goodman continues to supposedly make millions. This troll can’t just settle for winning. He has to make sure someone else loses.
#9: Pennywise Playing with Children
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“It” franchise (2017-) The town of Derry, Maine, is cursed by an otherworldly being of horror that can shapeshift into whatever It wants. So, of course, It’s favorite form is Pennywise, the Dancing Clown, who torments children with their worst fears before savagely devouring them or making them “Float” down in the sewers with him. Looking past all the terrifying forms It takes, it’s awfully petty for something this old to act and behave no better than a sick-minded serial killer. He threatens the Losers’ Club with their worst fears as they unravel his mystery, he continues to antagonize them as full grown adults, and he’s only stopped when the adult Losers finally take a stand and call him out for what he is: a clown.
#8: Smoking & Cackling
“Cape Fear” (1991) A 1991 classic by Martin Scorsese, Cape Fear follows the story of attorney Samuel Bowden and his family as they are stalked and terrorized by one of his former clients, the crazed and zealous Max Cady. Convinced he served 14 years because of Bowden’s failure to put his ideals aside to defend his client, Cady immediately begins to rain terror down on the lawyer and his family. But first, he decides to do some trolling. How? By going to the same movie theater that the Bowden family is in, sitting in front of them, and obnoxiously laughing and smoking a cigar. One could argue he’s enjoying his freedom from prison, but there’s little doubt that Cady purposefully planned every detail of his revenge.
#7: The Emperor’s Premature Gloating
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“Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi” (1983) Emperor Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, is one of the most infamous villains in cinema history. So, of course, he’s done some quality trolling over the years. But his greatest moment is probably his meeting with Luke Skywalker, where they debate on the outcome of the war. While Luke acts confident and accepting of his ultimate fate, Palpatine is unshaken and trades witty comebacks while revealing that the Rebel Alliance has been lured into a grand trap. He treats the whole ordeal like a minor footnote in his grand design, but when it all goes wrong, he acts like a sore losing troll and tries to kill Luke. Palpatine’s overconfidence was in fact his weakness - as Luke said - but no troll is lacking in ego.
#6: The Evening News Team
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“Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” (2004) Ron Burgundy and the Channel 4 News Team compete with the Evening News Team, led by Wes Mantooth. Acting like rival street gangs, they regularly get into petty insults and mudslinging. While most certainly a troll, Wes Mantooth starts out as second-best to Burgundy and his crew, but as the Anchorman enters his downward spiral, Mantooth is more than ready to take the opportunity to best the titular character. Wes insults him, competes with him, and they even get into a chaotic battle between all the neighboring news teams that leads to several deaths. But in the end, Mantooth admits that while he hates Ron Burgundy as a person, he respects him as a fellow Anchorman. Still a troll to the core, Mantooth is at least a professional one.
#5: Hans on the Radio
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“Die Hard” (1988) Gruber is a criminal mastermind that plays the police and FBI like fiddles as he and his crew work to rob the Nakatomi Plaza and make out like bandits. Things go awry because John McClane happens to be at the party. The two keep in contact over a Ham radio, and Gruber plays it calm and collected while slowly picking away at McClane’s bravado, taking shots at the gung-ho “American Cowboy” like every good European bad guy should. His trolling facade begins to erode over time, however, as Gruber tricks McClane into giving him a gun when they first meet and then resorts to holding his wife hostage. This only delayed his inevitable fall, but his radio-trolling almost got him to the top. Get it?
#4: “Hello? Hello? Anybody Home?”
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“Back to the Future” (1985) & “Back to the Future Part II” (1989) Probably the closest to a literal troll on this list, Biff Tannen is another 80s iconic villain that steals the show. Tannen is a thorn in the side of the McFly Family across the timeline, starting out as an overpowering jerk to George McFly in the past before becoming a narcissistic menace to Marty McFly in the future. Even though he goes so far as to destroy the timeline just to steal George’s wife, Lorraine, in the future, it’s his past self that is the true troll as he lives the stereotypical 1950s bad boy/persecutor lifestyle, pestering George and nearly assaulting Lorraine. But, like any troll, he backs down when both George and Marty stand their ground.
#3: “What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie?”
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“Scream” (1996) This is a prank call gone too far. Ghostface, in all their forms throughout the “Scream” film series, is known for trolling their victims over the phone in the most petty and sadistic ways possible. Like a crazed trivia master, Ghostface tests their knowledge on horror films and then viciously berates and insults them when they fail. The most infamous case of this happening is the very first kill, when the serial killer mercilessly taunts and threatens Casey Becker over the phone before butchering her boyfriend and then slitting her throat moments before her parents are forced to listen to her pain. Even past that, the person, or persons, under the mask always relish in the moments of revelation whenever Sidney Prescott, the central figure to Ghostface’s crimes, learns the truth. Especially Stu Macher.
#2: “I’m Just Ahead of the Curve”
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“The Dark Knight” (2008) Few trolls can compete with the Clown Prince of Crime. The Joker, in all his forms, has dedicated his entire existence to one thing: trolling Batman. Heath Ledger’s Joker is no different. After his campaign of carnage is seemingly stopped, he is viciously interrogated by Batman. Though Batman is the physical superior, it becomes clear that the Joker is a broken man, and therefore, cannot be broken. Waxing philosophy that tugs at the hard truths of society, Joker eventually reveals that both Harvey Dent and his love interest, Rachel, have been set up in explosive traps, and Batman will have to choose to save one. Insisting on saving Rachel, Batman is given the wrong directions by the Joker, and he instead saves Harvey, leaving Rachel to die. What. A total. Troll.
#1: All of Freddy’s Nightmares
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“A Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise (1984-) When you’re trolled in your dreams, you’re trolled for real. A specter of sadistic rage, Freddy Krueger’s pension for violence goes beyond the body and targets the minds of his victims as he enters their dreams and turns them into nightmares. You’ll eventually sleep, he’ll eventually find you, and he’ll play with your psyche like a mad puppeteer before cutting your strings. Then he offers a pun, or just calls them the b-word, before gutting his victim like a fish. If that isn’t trolling, then we don’t know what is. With a trolling career that spans 30 years, it’s impossible to narrow down Freddy’s greatest troll. But that’s what makes him number one: even in death, he’s the worst troll of your nightmares.