With Father’s Day on June 20, we thought it was high time we offered compiled our Top Ten Films for Father’s Day. And as we offered a round-up of flicks celebrating the maddest, saddest and baddest mothers on film for Mother’s Day last month, we felt it was only fair that we do the same for the fathers. So, here they are, the Top Ten Films featuring Big, Bad—Really Bad!—Daddies!
The Stepfather (1987)
Psychotic Terry O’Quinn marries lonely single mommies and considers their kids his own—until he butchers them and moves on to the next lonely single mommy!
Available on DVD and Blu-ray from Shout! Factory
Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
“No. I am your father.”
Available on DVD from 20th Century Fox
At Close Range (1986)
Rural crime boss Christopher Walken lures estranged son Sean Penn back into a familial life of crime before ordering an unsuccessful hit on him to save his own ass.
Available on DVD from MGM/Fox
The Shining (1980)
Stephen King + Stanley Kubrick = Jack Nicholson with an ax.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray from Warner
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Polanski’s modern horror masterpiece finds struggling actor John Cassavetes selling his soul to the Devil for stardom. The price? Siring a Satanic heir with wife Mia Farrow.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray from Paramount
Frailty (2002)
Actor/director Bill Paxton is a widowed Texan who raises his two sons with the belief that he has been chosen by God to destroy human “demons,” the names of whom have been provided to him by an angel.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray from Lionsgate
Bad Lieutenant
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Abel Ferrara’s New York law enforcer is bad, bad, bad in every conceivable way, but snorting coke off his kids’ communion snapshots is particularly ugly.
Available on DVD from Lionsgate
Eyes Without a Face (1962)
In French filmmaker Georges Franju’s elegant horror classic, mad scientist Pierre Brasseur lures a bunch of young lovelies to their doom as he attempts to surgically remove their faces to graft onto the head of his disfigured daughter.
Available on DVD from Criterion
Four Friends (1981)
Arthur Penn’s underrated drama set on the backdrop of the turbulent ’60s includes a truly crazy story line about an incestuous father (James Leo Herlihy) toasting his just-married daughter at a lavish wedding—and then jealously shooting her dead before even clinking his glass. Screenplay courtesy of Steve “Breaking Away” Tesich.
Available on DVD from MGM/Fox
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Charles Laughton’s sole directorial effort finds evil stepfather/preacher/serial killer Robert Mitchum keen to slay his new son and daughter with his bare hands, which have the words “Love” and “Hate” tattooed on the knuckles. Nice!
Available on DVD from Fox
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