20 Scariest Female Horror Villains

Takako Fuji as Kayako (Image via Toei Video Company)

7. Kayako (Ju-on/The Grudge)

Horror villains often represent a kind of mythic, primal character in the human psyche. There are evil parents, alien forces, and angry gods. Perhaps one of the most common, though no less frightening, villains are the vengeful spirits. Someone dies in a state of rage or injustice, which then causes something of them to remain. Whether they haunt a person or a physical space, their anger continues to wreak havoc long after their death.

One of the more recent and popular manifestations of this trope is the character of Kayako Saeki. She is the main villain in the Ju-on franchise, the Japanese film series that was unsuccessfully rebooted in the U.S. as The Grudge.

Kayako started life as a strange, shy woman. Despite her anti-social tendencies, she marries Takeo Saeki and has a son with him, Toshio. Takeo becomes convinced that she is cheating on him and begins to wonder if Toshio is even his own son. He kills Kayako. Because of her painful, traumatic death, she becomes an Onryō, a “wrathful spirit” that can cause disaster and kill living humans.

Unsurprisingly, Toshio and Takeo both meet their own terrible ends. Together, the hellish family haunts their old home and anyone unfortunate enough to live there. Kayako is well-known for her chilling death rattle and Exorcist-style walk down the home’s stairs.