20 Scariest Female Horror Villains

Piper Laurie as Margaret White (Image via United Artists)

10. Margaret White (Carrie)

Carrie White has an exceptionally difficult life and it’s almost all due to her mother. No, that’s not teenage over exaggeration, either. While others may pick out Carrie herself as the central villain of Carrie, the true horror lies within her mother, Margaret.

In case you’ve somehow missed it, Carrie tells the story of a high school outcast with unusual powers. As portrayed by Sissy Spacek in the 1976 film adaptation of the Stephen King novel, Carrie is delicate, naive, and incredibly shy. The other students at her high school bully her mercilessly. She’s strange after all, living in that house all alone with her crazy mother.

She doesn’t even know some basic facts about her own biology. When Carrie gets her first period (in the girls’ locker room, of course), she panics, thinking that she is dying. Instead of calming her or getting the poor girl a pad, the other girls throw tampons at her and chant “plug it up!”

This is all horrifying enough on its own, but then Carrie has to go home and tell her mother, Margaret. Her unyieldingly religious mom tells her that menstruation is the result of sinful thoughts. Like any loving parent, she locks Carrie in a closet and forces her to pray for forgiveness.

When Carrie gains telekinetic powers and begins to wreak havoc, it’s still easy to feel bad for her. She’s an outcast, after all, a sad and lonely young girl who did not ask to be bullied or abused. This doesn’t exactly excuse the murder of her fellow students, but you can see where she’s coming from.

No, the true villain of the story is Margaret, the fanatical mother who was more concerned about adhering to strict religious rules than loving her daughter. Her end is no less gruesome than anyone else’s in the film, but it’s richly deserved.