Jerks Are Worse Than Villains / Live-Action Films

Jerks Are Worse Than Villains in Live-Action Films.

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A-J

• The 7th Voyage of Sinbad: On one hand, we have our Big Bad Sokurah who wants the magic lamp for his own nefarious schemes and shrunk Princess Parisa. Yet he is very hard to hate thanks to his Faux Affably Evil demeanor and Torin Thatcher’s hammy yet charismatic performance. We can’t even hate the monsters since they are cool. Parisa’s father, the Sultan of Chandra on the other hand is a straight up jerk. He seems far too eager to find a reason to be displeased with Baghdad despite his daughter’s happiness with Sinbad. But then he straight up threatens the Caliph of Baghdad with war after finding his daughter shrunk by Sokurah, fully blaming them for Parisa’s predicament instead of the mysterious sorcerer who he himself saw perform his dark arts the night before.
• About the Little Red Riding Hood: There are three old women and a shepherd boy, all of them bitter, bad-tempered and petty but nothing more. They are despised by viewers much more than the actual villain of the film, the near-psychotic She-Wolf who wants to avenge her son (The Big Bad Wolf of the original fairytale), arranges the kidnapping of Little Red Riding Hood, and is almost murderously abusive towards her surviving White Sheep son.
• Aliens: The xenomorphs, as horrifying and vicious as they are, are Non-Malicious Monsters who kill because it's in their biological nature to do so. Carter Burke, on the other hand, is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who betrays Ripley and the rest of The Squad on the orders of an amoral MegaCorp that wants a xenomorph sample to experiment on, after he'd gained Ripley's trust by being among the first people to reach out to her after her escape pod was picked up. When the xenomorphs die, it's cool. When he dies, it's cathartic, to the point that his actor Paul Reiser said that his own family cheered when his character was killed off, with his sister playfully punching him as they left the theater for playing such a loathsome scumbag.
• Baby Driver: The villains include Doc, Griff, Buddy, Darling, Eddie No-Nose, JD, and Bats, all part of a criminal organization. Bats is a mass-murdering psychopath who commits severe crimes. Baby is forced to be the wheelman for their crimes to pay off a debt. Despite their villainous nature, the characters are charismatic and entertaining to watch, with Doc, Buddy, and Darling being the nicest to Baby. The same cannot be said for Baby's abusive, alcoholic birth father, who gives Baby tinnitus and causes a car crash.
• Black Christmas (2006): The most disliked character is neither of the cannibalistic serial killers, but the Rich Bitch Heather. She has a dour attitude and wet blanket nature, which amounts to being offended at the sorority's tradition of buying a Christmas present for the aforementioned killer. She does get a Kick the Dog moment to Lauren — who has a troubled relationship with her family — but that does come after Lauren makes a dig at her. She also wants to leave Lauren in the house when she's nearly passed out in the middle of a blizzard, with a serial killer on the loose, and becomes The Load when they need to shovel snow off a car. Both the serial killers do get tragic backstories of being abuse victims as children, which is presumably why Heather is more disliked.
• Black Christmas (2019): Kris is the most despised character in the film, even up against the frat house of rapists and murderers. This is because she is a terrible friend to Riley; anyone calling her on her nasty behavior is portrayed as a Strawman. She also goes through no meaningful Character Development and becomes a complete Karma Houdini by surviving to the end. Not to mention that she is the most responsible for the continued abuse her sisters get from the frat. A contributing factor is that while the villains are all one-dimensional Hate Sinks, Kris is supposed to be sympathetic to the audience despite having few positive qualities.
• Blank Check: Preston's father, Fred, comes off as the most hated character in the movie, even more than the villains. He lets his two older sons dominate Preston's room for their own business (despite being incompetent at computers) and berates Preston for not doing the same despite being clearly too young to do so. He also grounds Preston for ruining his bike rather than being worried that he was almost hit by a car. Even when Fred speaks to "Mr. Machintosh" about how he dislikes that he's taking his son's time away from him, his out-of-nowhere concern for Preston feels lazy and insincere.
• Brothers (2009): Isabelle is despised by viewers for her nasty behavior towards her father when he returns from his tour of duty. Meanwhile, the Afghans, though not beloved, are not as hated, even though they brutally tortured Sam and Joe and forced the former at gunpoint to beat the latter to death with a pipe. Possibly because the Afghans at least get killed by the military, whereas Isabelle (aside from being called out by her mother and having to deal with her father's PTSD for the remainder of her life) doesn't suffer much punishment.
• Bumblebee: The most disliked character in the film is Sally, Charlie's neglectful mother, who constantly criticizes her daughter for being "mopey" (despite having lost her father not too long ago), not to mention jumping to conclusions and punishing Charlie for stuff way out of her control. This is in contrast to Shatter and Dropkick, who are quite enjoyable to watch thanks to their Evil Is Cool status, and Tina, who is a clear unsympathetic Hate Sink.
• Carrie (1976): While Carrie is technically a Villain Protagonist, she is a very sympathetic Anti-Villain, and doesn't even do anything villainous until near the end. Meanwhile, the main antagonists are completely loathsome. Her mother is a highly abusive religious nut who hits Carrie repeatedly, throws coffee in her face, punishes her for having a period, and outright tries to murder her at the end. The other antagonist, Chris, is a horrible Alpha Bitch who's really mean to Carrie for no reason, and, when she is banned from the prom for her cruelty, decides to pour blood on her and ruin the happiest moment of her life, which leads to her going insane and killing everyone.
• Central Intelligence: Even though Phil is the Big Bad, he is still far more entertaining than Jerk Jock Trevor, who bullied Bob Stone in high school by throwing him into the gym while he was still naked from taking a shower. Twenty years later, when Bob runs into him again, he continues to make fun of him and still feels quite proud of what he did to him in high school. Fortunately, he gets his comeuppance when Bob, who has had enough of his antics, knocks him out cold.
• The Craft: Jerk Jock Chris doesn't do much more than spread a mean rumor that Sarah slept with him after she turned him down, although it's implied he's done this to more girls at school. His attempted rape of Sarah later in the film is the result of a love spell she cast backfiring, but Fanon likes to imagine this as his true nature manifesting itself. Compare him to Nancy — who murders two people, possibly helped kill a third and was giddy about it, threatens her friends when they disagree with her, tricks Sarah into thinking her parents died in a plane crash, psychologically tortures her and tries to make her commit suicide — and the fandom loves her. Her case is helped by being a Tragic Villain who was subject to Slut-Shaming from Chris and lives in a trailer park with a stepfather who sexually harasses her once in the film. The two people Nancy kills are in fact Chris and the stepfather, the latter of whom gets killed after he hits her mother.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Man of Steel has the trucker who harrassed a woman at a bar and mocked Clark for defending her. Compare General Zod, a Well-Intentioned Extremist who only tried to destroy humanity to revive his race while the trucker had no excuse for his behavior. Many fans cheered when Superman threw his truck into a tree.
  • SHAZAM! (2019): Even though Dr. Sivana does a lot of horrible things and causes several deaths, his sympathetic backstory means the audience can still feel somewhat sorry for the guy while still rooting for him to be taken down. The Breyer brothers, meanwhile, beat up a handicapped kid, so the audience can enjoy their comeuppance with zero guilt. The most hated character however, turned out to be Marilyn Batson for selfishly abandoning Billy as a little kid. Unlike the Breyer brothers however, she gets no real comeuppance apart from being in an unstable relationship that's barely elaborated on.
• Dead Poets Society: Strictly speaking, Headmaster Nolan is the primary villain of the story, but Mr. Perry and Cameron are both considered more contemptible characters, with the former heartlessly dictating Neil's life to the point that Neil commits suicide instead of complying with his demands anymore, and the latter selling out Keating and the Dead Poets Society to save himself.
• D.E.B.S.: This is played with, regarding Bobby Matthews and Headmistress Petrie. Both of them are the film's Hate Sink characters, in contrast to Villain Protagonist Lucy Diamond, the quirky criminal mastermind, who is in love with the film's other protagonist, Amy. Where this gets played with, is that Lucy undergoes a Heel–Face Turn midway through the film, at which point Bobby and Petrie do become the antagonists. Of course Bobby, Petrie and the Academy's attempts to separate Amy from Lucy are an unsubtle analogy to Cure Your Gays; Bobby is also a pushy ex-boyfriend to Amy with a Dogged Nice Guy streak. These things may hit closer to home with an LGBT audience, especially with young women.
• Descendants: All three main villains have their own fans — Maleficent for a hammy and enjoyable performance by Kristin Chenoweth and her dragon transformation during the climax, Uma for her cunning and sympathetic motives for wanting revenge on the heroes, and Audrey for her awesome Villain Song and, again, her relatively sympathetic motives. On the flip side, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who likes Chad Charming, a hypocritical, sexist ladies' man who's willing to do whatever it takes to come out on top and whose only purpose seems to be serving as Auradon's token jackass. What makes him even more dislikable is his sheer stupidity in it all.
• The Devil Wears Prada: Miranda Priestly is an abusive boss who regularly verbally belittles her employees, robs her friend of his dream job just to keep her own, and openly admits to trying to corrupt protagonist Andy into being ruthless like herself. However, due to her charisma, and being played by Meryl Streep, most fans will often go to great lengths to justify and explain away her deeds. Meanwhile, Andy's friends are rude to her at the dinner table by playing keep away with her phone and get mad at her for getting swept up in her job. However, fans are far less forgiving of this, even claiming that her boyfriend, Nate, is the real villain due to him getting angry with her for putting her job first.
• Die Hard: While Hans Gruber is the Big Bad of this film, his Affably Evil personality almost makes him nicer compared to the arrogant FBI Agents, Deputy Chief Dwayne T. Robinson, and the slimy yuppie Harry Ellis. But the biggest jerk in the film is Richard "Dick" Thornburg, the amoral TV reporter who ends up exposing Holly's identity to the terrorists by threatening their immigrant housekeeper with deportation for the sake of a story. He gets his comeuppance when Holly punches him in the face at the end of the movie.
• Drillbit Taylor: The main villains in the story are Filkins and Ronnie, two Barbaric Bullies who terrorize Wade, Ryan, and Emmitt daily, to the point where hire Drillbit Taylor as their bodyguard. And yet, they are impossible to hate due to their hilarious moments. Wade's Jerkass stepbrothers and stepfather also give him heart-to-heart talks. Meanwhile, Don and his gang of hobos serve as a bad influence on Drillbit, leading to his friendship with the main trio breaking apart. Don is arrested after a fight with Drillbit, although the others never face punishment.
• Falling Down: William "D-Fens" Foster leaves devastation in his wake, becomes a borderline terrorist, shoots one of Sgt. Prendergast's colleagues, and likely planned to murder his ex-wife and daughter. However, he is nowhere close to the most despicable person encountered. The film takes place in a World Gone Mad that is shown to have pushed Foster over the edge, and while his actions are certainly indefensible, he at least has a sympathetic reason for lashing out against society that many people can relate to. As for the people he crosses paths with, while several of them (the Asian Store-Owner, the fast-food employees, the construction workers) are presented as just Punch Clock Villains at worst, others are jerks to Foster for no reason and deserve what they have coming.
  • The gangbangers who tried to mug Foster and then try to murder him with a drive-by shooting, killing several innocent people in the process. Most people agree that the one who survived the subsequent car crash deserved to get shot in the leg by Foster.
  • The homeless Phony Veteran who Foster easily catches in his lies about having fought in Vietnam — no, sorry, The Gulf War, and is strongly implied to have made up his sob story just to fleece gullible, sentimental passersby.
  • The neo-Nazi who gushes about Foster's violence, thinking he's a fellow white supremacist, and later tries to have him arrested when Foster calls him out on his disgusting beliefs. He's the only person who Foster deliberately murders, and nobody feels sorry for him.
  • The jerkass old golfer who swung a golf ball at Foster because he was too impatient to wait for him to walk off the course.
  • As for Prendergast, while he himself is a Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist whose morality the film ultimately sides with, his colleagues on the force are a different matter, presented as bullies who degrade him even on what's supposed to be his last day.
• Five Nights at Freddy's (2023): William Afton is a Serial Killer who targets children, but Matthew Lillard is clearly having such a blast playing such a deliciously evil character that it's hard to totally hate him. The same cannot be said for Aunt Jane, who tries to get Mike fired from his new job by hiring goons to smash the place up, calls Abby "mentally ill" in an insulting manner, is haughty and mean towards everyone all of the time, and only wants custody of Abby to receive money from the state rather than out of any familial love.
• Ghostbusters (1984): The villain of the story is the nightmare demigod Gozer, but the most hated character by far, even amongst the Ghostbusters themselves, is Walter Peck, a smarmy, sneering Environmental Protection Agency Officer who wants to shut down their operation.
• The Good Son: Wallace is the most dislikable character in the film due to both his stupidity in failing to recognize his son's Obviously Evil behavior and his borderline abusive treatment of his nephew. On the other hand, Henry himself is beloved by viewers due to Macaulay Culkin's disturbingly authentic portrayal of a sociopathic killer. It also helps that Henry at least gets his comeuppance at the end of the film, whereas Wallace completely gets away with his actions of borderline child abuse.
• The Green Mile: Percy Wetmore, the mean-spirited Token Evil Teammate, is the most hated character in the film. He breaks prisoner Eduard Delacroix's fingers, steps on his pet mouse Mr. Jingles (which is quickly revived by John Coffey), and sabotages his execution to make it more painful by not wetting the sponge. Del, despite committing a crime to warrant being on death row, is more likable due to his childlike demeanor and remorseful actions. Wild Bill Wharton is a racist Serial Killer who killed three people (including a pregnant woman) in an armed robbery and raped and murdered two little girls, leading to John Coffey's execution in his place, but he also gets points for being entertaining and over-the-top.
• Gremlins: Mrs. Deagle is one of the most obnoxious old Rich Bitches ever put to the silver screen, while the eponymous creatures are gleefully, Laughably Evil. Hence, she ends up an Asshole Victim whose death (caused by the Gremlins themselves) is treated purely as Black Comedy.
• Halloween (2018): Michael Myers is considered in and out of universe as pure evil, with his moniker, "The Shape", referring to his lack of humanity. This incarnation of Michael murders seventeen people, including a young boy, upon escaping a prison transport for no reason other than he could. However, the person who gets the most the hate from the fanbase from this movie isn't Myers, but Cameron, Allyson's boyfriend. He lies to her about getting drunk and kissing his ex, only to spitefully break Allyson's phone when she calls his bluff. This puts her in danger when she's forced to walk home, unaware that Michael's rampaging through the town. The thing that really gets fans to hate Cameron though, is that he never suffers any kind of comeuppance for his loathsome behavior when similar douchebags in this genre always get axed off. He gets better in the sequel... and also suffers one hell of a Cruel and Unusual Death, leading to some Alas, Poor Scrappy reactions.
• Home Alone: The two Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv, are impossible to hate, even when they attempt to kill Kevin in the sequel, as their Butt-Monkey status and Marv's ditziness make them hilarious to watch. However, Kevin's family, especially Buzz and Frank, are just unlikable, as they constantly bully him and don't get much comeuppance.
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000): While the Grinch is still the antagonist of the story, he is considered to be much nicer than Mayor Augustus. He bullied the Grinch when they were kids, and even years later, he still sees the Grinch as an outcast. When the Grinch was invited to partake in the Cheermeister Celebration, he was genuinely having a good time. He could have turned over a new leaf right there and then if Augustus hadn't reminded him of the worst day of the Grinch's life and publicly proposed to Martha May just to pour salt in the wound.
• Jurassic Park: Overlapping with Humans Are the Real Monsters, Dennis Nedry is a greedy, sociopathic asshole who is fine with shutting down the power at the park thus putting everyone in it in great danger, and doesn't seem to care at all how many innocent people will get eaten as a result. Meanwhile, the carnivorous dinosaurs (if they can even be considered villains) are just animals looking for food (though still borderline sociopathic in the case of the raptors).

K-Z

• The Karate Kid (1984): Johnny and the Cobra Kais are a pack of vicious bullies, but their biker gang vibe and badass fighting skills make them too cool to hate for many viewers, and the movie shows that their actions are mainly due to the influence of their sociopathic sensei. Kreese is a despicable Sadist Teacher training his students to be brutes, but he's got a lot of fans for his coldly dramatic demeanour. The most hated character in the film is Freddy Fernandez, for the comparatively minor offence of being a Fair-Weather Friend who abandons Daniel after he gets beaten up by Johnny, only to start palling around with him again after he wins the All Valley.
• Kick-Ass 2: Chris D'Amico is a mass-murdering supervillain who is nonetheless too hilarious to hate. Brooke, on the other hand, has no such entertaining qualities, being an Alpha Bitch who publicly humiliates Mindy out of pure spite. It is beyond satisfying when she falls victim to the "Sick Stick".
• Kindergarten Cop: Cullen Crisp is a crime lord, who is willing to kidnap his own son and hold him hostage at gunpoint during the climax of the movie, yet he is not as loathsome as Mr. Sullivan, Zack's physically abusive father. When John Kimble sees that Zack was beaten again, he angrily confronts Mr. Sullivan, punches him in the gut when he tries to take a swing at Kimble and was clearly willing to proceed to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown... until he sees a bunch of parents with their own kids watching him, so he stops himself and tells him that he's going to press charges against him instead. Many thought that John punching out Zack's abusive father was the most cathartic moment of the film. Even the school principal, who was understandably skeptical of having Kimble as an undercover teacher with zero teaching experience, was glad that he "hit that son of a bitch", with it being clear that Kimble will not be facing any penalty or disciplinary charge for what he did.
• Kind Hearts and Coronets: Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini may be a ruthless serial killer, but his wit and charisma make it hard not to root for him. It's much easier to hate the other D'Ascoynes, a family of snobbish, bigoted and hypocritical aristocrats who make up most of Louis's victims.
• Knives Out: Ransom is easily the worst member of the Thrombey family, being a greedy, psychopathic murderer and manipulative schemer. The rest of the Thrombey family, on the other hand, mostly put on a facade of affable charm in an attempt to mask their bigoted and jerkass ways. The only two members that don’t try to hide their jerkassery are Jacob and Richard, the former being an alt-right troll who is quite awkward, soft spoken and comes across as a shrinking coward when dealing with a real life conversation and the latter being a bumbling, hypocritical, and xenophobic cheater. Ransom meanwhile, is not only openly proud of being a jerk but he is also extremely confident and charismatic, traits that Jacob and Richard both lack. As such, some viewers found themselves disliking the rest of the Thrombeys — or at least Jacob and Richard — far more than Ransom.
• Orphan: John, the clueless adult who trusts Esther more than his own wife and used to cheat on her ten years ago, is more hated than Esther herself, the Evil Orphan who wants to kill the whole family.
• Orphan: First Kill is the origin story for what Orphan revealed to be quite a disturbing sociopath. So how do you manage to make the Villain Protagonist more tolerable than those around her? The girl Esther/Leena is impersonating was killed by her brother, whose mother then helped cover it up. Furthermore, Tricia (said mother) and Gunnar (said brother) are easier to hate because of their racism against Leena for being Eastern European, classism, ableism in mocking her dwarfism, and self-centered natures. However, since Tricia and Gunnar are not just "jerks", but evil and murderous villains just as much as Esther, this is more a case of "villains being more hated than the Villain Protagonist".
• Osmosis Jones: Frank is deeply unpopular among viewers due to being quite unlikable and lethargic, with the most notable example being his emotionless reminder to Shane on how her mother died. He's actually more disliked than Thrax, who is seen as an incredibly cool villain despite his utter depravity, and Mayor Phlegmming, who, unlike Frank, was actually meant to be hated by audiences.
• Prey (2022) is another chapter in Predator, a Villain-Based Franchise about an alien Hunting the Most Dangerous Game. But when the protagonists end up crossing the path of the French Trackers, a bunch of racist cowards who are introduced having slaughtered an entire herd of endangered Buffalo for seemingly no reason and who beat and belittle Naru and Taabe and use them as bait for the Predator, audiences will cheer when the creature is about to slice those people to bits.
• Project X (2012): Costa is utterly despised by most viewers for his repugnant nature, being bigoted, amoral, and responsible for numerous problems. Compare that to T-Rick, an Ax-Crazy drug dealer who goes as far as purposely setting the entire neighborhood on fire out of pure spite. It also helps that the latter ends up getting arrested, whereas the former ends up avoiding punishment (except for three pending paternity lawsuits).
• Re-Animated: Craig, Jimmy's horrendous excuse of a "best friend", is far more despised than Sonny, a Psychopathic Manchild who wants to kill Jimmy to further his own goals. The fact that the latter is Laughably Evil also helps his case.
• Rope: Rupert is a philosophy professor who taught all his students that there were a class of natural elites who had the right to murder the commoners, then insisted his words had been "twisted" when his student Brandon acted on his suggestions. He often gets more hate from viewers for his hypocrisy than Brandon does for actually committing the murder.
• Given the moral ambiguity of various characters, it's no surprise that the Saw franchise is no stranger to this trope.
  • Saw 3D: Bobby is an obnoxious writer who pretended to be a past victim of a Jigsaw trap in order to earn fame and money. While Hoffman (the Jigsaw killer who abducts Bobby for the aforementioned reasoning) is at his absolute worst in this film, he eventually got a direct comeuppance via an And I Must Scream fate. Bobby, on the other hand, only received punishment through proxy due to failing to rescue all of his loved ones and staff from the gruesome traps he should have been put into himself.
  • Jigsaw: Most, if not all, of the victims in the Barn game are pretty despicable themselves, including the former first apprentice of Jigsaw. However, the most dislikable of the bunch is Anna, who feigns innocence in spite of killing her baby and pinning the blame on her husband, who ended up committing suicide out of guilt. Ultimately, her selfishness doomed her and another trapped victim, who was left to rot beside her corpse.
  • Saw X: Anyone who's watched the film is likely to say Cecilia is the most detestable person in the franchise, or at least one of the most detestable, especially given her contrast with John throughout the movie. While John is, well, Jigsaw, he has many humanizing moments in the film; Cecilia, on the other hand, easily shows that she's a lot more immoral than him. For starters, aside from being the ringleader of a medical fraud group that robs from the dying and desperate, she kills one of her own underlings (Gabriella) despite her succeeding in her trap, tries to use the intestines of another dead one (Valentina) to get an advantage for her personal survival, and forces Carlos, a child, into the Bloodboarding Trap to John's horror.
• The Silence of the Lambs: Hannibal Lecter is a serial killer and a cannibal, while the worst Dr. Chilton has done is to be a smug, manipulative jerk who first obstructs and then takes credit for an investigation to boost his own reputation and ego. Most viewers were pleased to hear Lecter say that he's "having an old friend for dinner" when he sees Chilton walk by at the Caribbean resort.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): While Robotnik is a rude, mad scientist who looks down and insults everyone he meets, at least his over the top acting is fun and has an amusing charm to it. Rachel, on the other hand, is an overbearing Sassy Black Woman, who hates Tom for no explained reason and she wants her sister Maddie to divorce the poor guy even before he became a fugitive. It doesn't help that Rachel and Maddie are black and Tom is white, suggesting that the former may possibly be racist. She is so obnoxious that she had to be tied up to a chair and left behind in the Wachowskis' home, so that Tom and Maddie can help Sonic. She gets better in the second film, where she, while still disliking Tom, is less abrasive to him and even gained sympathy from fans when she is catfished into a wedding so the government can get closer to Sonic.
• Star Wars:
  • Attack of the Clones: Anakin Skywalker, despite being a protagonist, is much more disliked than any of the film's actual villains, who are largely kept off-screen or have bland personalities. He gets hate for being petulant and immature, whining about the Jedi Council holding him back, and giving Padmé creepy sex-looks that make her feel uncomfortable. The fans don't even hate Anakin for slaughtering a village of Tusken men, women and children—they hate how he whines about it afterwards. Despite Anakin becoming full on evil in Revenge of the Sith (his deeds include helping the Big Bad evil dictator rise to power, slaughtering human children, and nearly choking his pregnant wife to death), fans hated him less than they did in Attack of the Clones simply because he's less whiny.
  • The Last Jedi: The leaders of the First Order want to conquer the galaxy, but Admiral Holdo gets quite a bit more ire for a number of reasons. A lot of it boils down to Poor Communication Kills; Poe is convinced that her decisions are too slow and indecisive against the First Order pursuit, which is why he goes along with his own strategy. It's not until later that it's clear that he hadn't thought his plan through and Holdo has some reasoning behind her slower approach. No matter how you slice it though, a lot of trouble could have been averted if the two were more trusting and open to each other's explanations.
• Superman II: Even though the rude trucker was intentionally written to be an unlikable bully and the purpose of the diner fight was to show how Clark no longer has his powers, the fact that he beats up Clark makes him more loathsome than the three Kryptonians who want to take over the world and kill anyone who stands in their way.
• The Stepford Wives (2004): Joanna and Bobbie undergo Adaptational Jerkasses and new character Roger embarrasses his partner in public. As a result, viewers tend to see them as Asshole Victims, far more than the husbands of Stepford — who are brainwashing their wives into being passive domestics.
• Taste the Blood of Dracula: William Hargood is one of the Hammer Horror Dracula franchise's most hated characters, even more so than Count Dracula himself, due to the horrible way he treats his wife and daughter. While Dracula is quite monstrous and won't hesitate to murder anyone even For the Evulz, he still has his fans, but Hargood's abusive Control Freak nature has earned him exactly zero fans among the Hammer Horror fandom.
• Thor: Love and Thunder: Sure, Gorr became an homicidal maniac bent on killing all gods, a class which includes the title character. But his very first victim was a Jerkass God who clearly didn't care for his followers and very much had it coming. And when Thor tries recruiting other deities against Gorr, he discovers they tend toward being unpleasant, cowards and hedonists — best case being Zeus, who embodies all those characteristics to the point it's very satisfying to see Thor opening a hole in his chest.
• The Truman Show: The biggest villain is Christof, since he's the creator of The Truman Show and the main manipulator of Truman's life, but he's also a cool, interesting and enigmatic character, and has some Anti-Villain traits. On the other hand, Truman's "parents" and his wife "Meryl" just come off as unlikable and uncaring people who only use Truman for their careers. Sans deleted scenes, Louis/Marlon isn't much better, taunting Truman as he makes his final escape. "Meryl" gets this treatment the most, due to her blatant Bitch in Sheep's Clothing obnoxiousness and having many scenes with Truman.
• Unfriended has the vengeful spirit of Alpha Bitch Laura Barns as the main villain, who puts the six main characters through horrible torment and bloody deaths. However, most of the hatred goes to the main characters, who were the people who bullied Laura to the point of suicide. The worst ones are Adam, who roofied and raped a girl and slept with his friend's girlfriend, and the main character Blaire, who was the one who recorded the humiliating video in the first place. It's often said that the behavior of the teens was more horrifying then the supernatural deaths.
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Despite being Willy Wonka's many arch enemy who bribes the golden ticket finders with money and a better life in exchange for stealing an Everlasting Gobstopper from Wonka, Slugworth is not the most hated character in the film nor the four bratty kids who are supposed to be hated for being spoiled the most hated. None are more hated by people than Grandpa Joe who's seen as as a lazy leech that said he'd help Charlie support the family if he could get out of bed, but the only time we actually see him trying is so he can go to the chocolate factory, where he sings I've Got a Golden Ticket about his grandson's find. Him taking the fizzy lifting drinks and willingness to sell out to Slugworth after Wonka's rant are also sometimes held against him (although the last one he was angry at Wonka for crushing Charlie, but understood why Charlie couldn't do it). RedLetterMedia points out that even at the end, when Charlie is being given the greatest opportunity a little boy could want that will secure him a bright and happy future, Grandpa Joe's only question is how it will benefit him..
• The Wizard of Oz: Despite having less screentime, plot significance, and vile ambitions, Almira Gulch is far more hated than the Wicked Witch of the West, who's just way too fun, hammy, and deliciously evil to truly hate. Besides, there's no such thing as over-the-top evil witches in real life. But grouchy, strict, contemptible neighbors and corrupt tycoons? We've all met them at least once in our lives.

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