Posted at 9:00 AM Oct 29, 2008
By Kevin Smith
As Halloween approaches, we're constantly reminded of ghouls, witches and zombies. But the worst creatures our imaginations can conjure aren't fictional. After all, evil is an inherent part of human nature. Think about that strange old man who lives down the hall from you. You keep telling yourself he's just a kooky lost soul in need of a friend, when in reality he probably just ate a cat last night… and you’re next. Nor are maniacal, murderous impulses reserved purely for the Hitlers and bin Ladens of the world.
True evil seems to emerge when human desire is mixed with power, insanity and wanton disregard of social mores. To be sure though, it has nothing to do with the dead walking the earth to suck our blood or haunt our houses. Vampires hate mirrors, Frankenstein’s monster just wants love and Wolfman’s got nards. The living are way, way scarier then anything that bumps in the night. And here are seven truly terrifying, often overlooked figures from history that make Michael Myers look like he's merely in need of some behavioral therapy. But if you try use any of these nutjobs as inspiration for a costume idea, don't say we didn't warn you about the offended stares and vitriolic epithets.
7. James Warren "Jim" Jones
A renaissance man when it came to perversion, power, charisma and insanity, Jim Jones was a cult leader in the '60s and '70s who was able to convince 909 of his
"Rainbow Family" to drink poisoned Kool-Aid as if it were in their best interests. Jones was an unbelievably creepy bastard during a remarkably scary time. Disco was king and flower power had wilted, so mass suicide seemed like a valid option. But instead of taking this truly frightening ability for mind-control on a worldwide tour, Jones put a bullet in his brain. Too bad he'd already passed out his cyanide concoction to nearly a thousand victims.
6. Josef Fritzl
From the beautiful land of the Alps and the Danube, birthplace of icons like Mozart, Freud and Schwarzenegger, comes the newest Austrian to take hold of the public’s imagination.
Josef Fritzl, the world’s worst dad. How does one obtain such a lofty title? A good way to start would be imprisoning your teenage daughter for almost 25 years and then fathering seven incestuous children… with your own child. This Vincent Price-on-PCP looking motherfucker is certainly more frightful than Count Dracula. At least the Count lets you out of his cellar at night.
5. Fred Phelps
This man hates you. He does not know you, but if he could, he would stop by your house and tell you that God hates you as well. The pastor of a small Baptist church in Kansas for the last 50 years, Rev. Phelps has been spreading the word of God, or at least if God was a disgusted, hate-filled deity. And who has angered the almighty one? Everyone! Gay people? Check. Immigrants? Si. Soldiers? Roger. Swedes? Loathes them and their silly reindeers. This man is clearly insane, but his words reach an audience. He once received 30 percent of the votes for U.S. Senator of Kansas. For fun, his followers like to picket funerals and carry along signs stating that “God hates fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers." But thankfully, Phelps is old, and presumably near the end of his lynching rope. I’m sure his funeral is going to be a blast.
4. Josef Mengele
You can't have a list of evil bastards and leave out the Nazis entirely. Dr. Mengele, also known by the heart-warming moniker the angel of death, was an SS physician who was responsible for countless barbaric experiments he carried out on prisoners at Auschwitz for little to no scientific reasons. Why? Most likely because he was a vicious egomaniacal sociopath who wasn’t hugged enough as a child. Thankfully, in the end, Mengele was captured and tried for war crimes… except he wasn’t. Doctor Dickhead actually was able to flee Europe with help from some fellow SS cretins and set up shop in South America. Mengele lived the remainders of his days in sunny Argentina and didn't die until 1979. The fact that he was alive when
Star Wars came out just adds another layer of evil to his story.
Comments
I think that it's worth noting that Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church has NO affiliation with any Baptist churches. Many Baptist churches, although conservative, do good (and non hate-filled) things like many other legitimate denominations.
Posted 10/29/2008 at 08:23:16 PMWhat? List is flawed with no Lafayette Ronald Hubbard listed.
He was a Sci-Fi writer, at one point in his life practiced black magic, claimed to have traveled to Venus, physically abused his wives, one of his sons went crazy and committed suicide... oh, and he made a little tax-free cult called Scientology.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 06:17:17 AMWould just like to mention that Oliver Cromwell was not dug up after his death because of what he did to the Irish rather for the fact that he helped lead parliament to victory in the English Civil war and then celebrated by banning music, christmas in fact anything fun. When Charles II was back on the thrown he took revenge on the guy who chopped his dads head off. Lesson learned: don't piss of the British Monachy
Posted 10/30/2008 at 09:51:14 AMYou'd think you would always be able to see "crazy" in the face. And while certain of the faces above scream nutty, some look pretty relaxed. I call it the Ted Bundy syndrome (who was a relaxed, good-looking killer.)
Posted 10/30/2008 at 09:53:31 AMWhat about Ed Gein from good old Wisconsin? Never really know how many he killed or how many bodies he had in his house. He was also the base for many Hollywood movie characters including Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Norman Bates from Psycho, and Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 09:58:00 AMLOL, yeah dude you hit the nail on the head for sure! Good picks!
Jiff
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:03:00 AMwww.online-anonymity.kr.tc
Author clearly is an English hater. I'm no Cromwell fan, I don't like over zealous religious freaks of any kind, but if it wasn't for him Democratic Republics may not exist as we know them.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:08:42 AMSo how much money have you donated to the IRA in your time?
Cromwell? err... What happened to all the other sscarier guys that make Cromwell's attempted 'colonization' of Ireland look like a wimp? Where's Hitler and Stalin, the guy who's a bigger mass murderer than Hitler? Where's that German cannibal who was in the news two years ago? Where are the nutty Roman emperors, especially Nero? What about Dracula himself: Vlad the Impaler (so named because his favorite form of punishment was killing people by impaling them through the butt.)?
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:12:48 AMSounds scary. But it's funny that you actually listed them down. lol
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:12:55 AMHatesRepublicans.com
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:19:06 AMFUK DA POLIZE
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:29:04 AMApparently Josef Fritzl also decided to keep his mother in the basement until her death. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5047152.ece
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:30:56 AMAlexander the Great, was a warrior, intellectual and philosopher. What he did was get rid of all the sub-human species that occupied the lands surrounding Greece.
And for that we thank him.
And you Sir, are a fucking idiot!
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:36:54 AMNo Stalin ? No Mao ? No Pol Pot ?
How about the king of Belgium who owned the Congo ?
A couple of popes also come to mind.
Everyone on your list is a rank amateur by comparison.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:44:16 AMNo list of faces of death is complete without Pol Pot, mad dictator of Kampuchea. During his time in power Pol Pot imposed a version of agrarian collectivization whereby city dwellers were relocated to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects with the goal of restarting civilization in "Year Zero". The combined effect of slave labour, malnutrition, poor medical care and executions had an estimated death toll of 750,000 to 1.7 million (approximately 26% of the population at that time).
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:45:48 AMHate to defend Fred Phelps but all he's done is just be a loud mouth asshole. To my knowledge he's never physically harmed anyone unlike the rest of the list.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 10:59:50 AMI'm sorry, but listing Alexander the Great on this list is completely bogus. Alexander's goal was to stop the Persians from attacking his home country - as they had done for several hundred years prior to his rule. To say that made him a mean SOB is silly. He was acting in self-defense. The subsequent conquering and taking of territory was to push the boundaries of his kingdom to prevent incursion from other attackers - a 'buffer zone' as it were.
On top of that, Alexander was one of the few conquerors who treated his subjects with respect and care. In fact, most of the conquered territories were far better off under Alexander's rule than they were under their prior rulers.
Comparatively, Stalin, Hitler, Pol-Pot, Mao, Saddam, and several hundred other "rulers" were/are more brutal and more devastating to their people.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:04:24 AMHow is L. Ron Hubbard not on this list?
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:08:23 AMThis is the worst list I have ever seen. You might as well put the old man from the Scooby Doo cartoons on it. And while you are at it add the cashier who short changed you at the grocery store. Its a random assortment of bad people. I don't know who put this list together but I hope they no longer have a job.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:21:35 AMIt was Flavor-Aid not Kool Aid! Kool Aid gets a bad rap.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:28:48 AMThis list smacks of something that just popped into your head on the spur of the moment. Very amateurish and biased. Back to journalism (and history) school with you... :D
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:31:36 AMAnd no one has mentioned Our friendly suburban clown, John Wayne Gacy. That guy scared the crap out of me. Plus I dont like clowns.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:42:21 AMMotherfucking Cromwell, that fecker deserves every bit of bashing that he gets for the rest of eternity for what he did to my ancestors.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:45:23 AMNo. 11:
Dick Cheney.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:47:17 AMNo Jeffrey Dahmer??? The man ate people and kept severed limbs in his freezer for fuck's sake! Not to mention no Pol Pot, no Mao Zedong, No Stalin, no Hitler, no Hussein, no Bin Laden, no Ted Bundy, no Ed Gein, no Charles Manson, no John Wayne Gacy Jr. and the list goes on and on.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:48:44 AMFuvk you Michael. Typical, someone stands up for the Irish and he's suddenly linked to the IRA.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:48:50 AMGeorge W Bush #1
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:52:45 AMWow, mister Smith. It appears to me (at least according to the entry about Alexander the Great) that everything you know about history, you've learned from movies and comic books.
Which explains quite a lot.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:56:36 AMI'm not convinced...
Posted 10/30/2008 at 11:59:10 AMIf you want real evil, look up Vlad the Impaler. I won't even get into all of the things he did.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 12:01:16 PM@Paul, so you think its appropriate to label Oliver Cromwell more evil than, Mau, Polpot, Gengis Khan, Stalin? It show's an obvious Anti-English sentiment. Where is Custer on that list? He is easily comparable to Cromwell as a war leader who committed horrendous acts, but he is a Great American Hero.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 12:13:49 PMIt's just bigoted bullshit.
As the author of this piece, I just want to add some clarity and insight...probably achieving neither.
This was not a top ten worst human beings ever list. Just a handful of people that I believe had evil in them. I could have easily put in Hitler/Stalin/Mao/Bush but thought they were too obvious.
As for Cromwell, being anti-Ollie does not make me anti-British, it just makes me anti-psychopath. He was definitely not a hero though. I'm not a fan of the IRA either...again, I'm not a fan of murderous zealots.
There were a ton of quality choices to go with. Sorry if I missed some of your favorites. Stay tuned for the sequel, I guess. Favorite serial killers II: Electric Chair Boogaloo!
Posted 10/30/2008 at 12:58:51 PMPlease refrain from using prejudicial slurs on the board. I will delete your comment, and then no one will hear your otherwise valid point that there's rampant liberal bias on this site (well, except for in today's post about Obama's infomercial, but I digress).
Most other slurs are acceptable.
Good day.
-NCDSUV's humble editor
Posted 10/30/2008 at 01:36:45 PMThis list could of gone on forever, but still pretty good read.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 01:59:47 PMTechnically, Fritzl is a daughterfucker.
Also, Phelps may be an asshole but I don't quite see how he fits into this list.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 02:17:16 PMI'd like to nominate one for dishonourable mention:
Marcus Wesson of Fresno, California. Following his ejection from the local Seventh-Day Adventist church, he holed up in his house and literally bred himself a harem with his wife. And then he expanded that harem by screwing four of his daughters and getting his own grandchildren on them.
Then when he thought the authorities were on to his sick little escapade, he forced his oldest daughter to kill them all, including her own children, before forcing her to turn the gun on herself.
http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/wesson.htm
Posted 10/30/2008 at 03:01:44 PMWhat about crazy Willy Pickton... arguably the most successful (if thats the right word for it) serial murderer in the history of North America. Sure they were all prositutes, but does that make it any less brutal?
Posted 10/30/2008 at 03:10:33 PMWhat about crazy willy Pickton... arguably the most successful (if thats the right word it) serial murderer in the history of North America, although most Americans wouldn't acknowledge it; just because he's Canadian he couldn't have been better at killing than some good 'ol yanks. Sure they were all prostitutes, but does that make it any less brutal?
Posted 10/30/2008 at 03:17:20 PMYou know that bit about great responsibility coming with great power. It's the same for free speech.
It's almost Halloween...so you selected seven random psychopaths and blogged about it.
By the way, Joyce put Cromwell into prose--not verse. And The Last King of Scotland was a fiction film so it didn't document shit, recreated, dramatized maybe, but documented no. Which isn't to say these people aren't assholes, just that this list is arbitrary and represents how selective and inconsequential shit like this.
Thought of using that whole freedom of speech thing to compile something other than bullshit list where you try to be witty?
Posted 10/30/2008 at 04:46:10 PMYou know, people in other countries are getting killed for the right to say things people *haven't* said before.
Fucking douche.
@Kevin Smith,
"As for Cromwell, being anti-Ollie does not make me anti-British"
No but the tone of that section and choice of Cromwell heavily alludes to the possibility that you are. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't harbour British resentment.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 05:01:50 PMI see anti-French sentiment constantly over here and it makes me sick, extreme Nationalism is truly the worlds real evil.
Don't forget David Parker Ray who abducted, sexually abused and tortured 37 women.
http://uk-tv-guide.com/pick-of-the-day/13-11-2008/documentary-the-sex-chamber-welcome-to-satans-den/
Posted 10/31/2008 at 09:14:56 AMHey Sam,
When people can come on to a comment board like this and engage in a meaningful discussion about subjects like their political beliefs and state of concern for the world without resorting to hateful vitriol and anonymous insults, maybe we'll feel less of an obligation to produce content with a sense of humor so people remember how to laugh.
Lighten up folks, it's Halloween for devil's sake!
Posted 10/31/2008 at 02:39:14 PMhello it is test. WinRAR provides the full RAR and ZIP file support, can decompress CAB, GZIP, ACE and other archive formats.
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