"Composition-wise, this cover is actually more interesting than the ones we're used to seeing. We actually have something that catches the reader's attention, with the menacing villain holding the symbols of the heroes by knives."
Box art or advertisement that features the villain's head "watching" the hero. Many posters and video boxes for Western animated films feature this trope, especially if they are from The '90s. Sometimes, the villain looks like they are trying to grab the main characters or the MacGuffin.
This trope is related to Floating Head Syndrome, though the latter is not typically viewed as fondly. For when a villain is overlooking a scene in-story, see I Have the High Ground.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Digimon Tamers: Inverted. Impmon, intended at the time to be the Big Bad (a direction later changed), is underneath the Tamers rather than above in his early promotional material.
- Tweeny Witches: Grande, the Big Bad, overlooks the Magical Girl Squad on the DVD cover for volume 7 of the Japanese release.
Asian Animation
- An official poster for Season 8 of Happy Heroes features a red-eyed Huo Haha (the season's Arc Villain) in the background, visible above the Supermen and Big M. (who, incidentally, is the show's overall villain).
Comic Books
- Zion: Some promotional images show the villain looking over his shoulder down at Desta in his Zion form.
Films — Animation
- All Dogs Go to Heaven 2: The poster has Red attempting to grab Gabriel's Horn.
- Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: The box art has the Joker's (green-tinted) head doing this.
- Dark Fury: On the cover, Chillingworth's head is watching over Riddick.
- Disney Animated Canon:
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- Aladdin: The Return of Jafar
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame: The theatrical poster. The VHS/LaserDisc cover has Frollo almost shunted off the top.
- Beauty and the Beast: The Beast overlooks everyone else on the original poster in cloud form, making it a case of Covers Always Lie since he's not the villain, or at least tried to project that appearance to anyone who's not familiar with the classic story.
- The Great Mouse Detective: One of the posters has one of these.
- The Little Mermaid (1989): The first poster and video cover have Ursula and King Triton as the overlookers. Ursula is the main villain, while Triton is more of an Anti-Hero who gets better.
- Hercules: Inverted. Big Bad Hades and his minions are below everyone else in the poster to correspond with his domain as Lord of the Underworld.
- The Rescuers Down Under: A variation on the back cover for the box, with McLeach being to being to scale with the other characters as he stands behind them with a hate-filled glare.
- FernGully: The Last Rainforest: On the video box art, Hexxus is seen in the background trying to grab the main characters. There is even a poster like this
◊.
- Happily Ever After: Subverted. On the cover, Snow White and the Dwarfelles are front and center, with the Shadow Man glaring malevolently at them from behind a tree. This is a case of Covers Always Lie, as the character in question is actually Snow White's harmless, mute Stalker with a Crush (actually the prince under an enchantment), and the film's actual villain is nowhere to be seen on the cover.
- Heidi's Song, by Hanna-Barbera: One of the posters has two of them.
- Heavy Metal 2000: Most of the covers featuring the villain Tyler show him above the Stripperiffic heroine Julie. In one, it's his face in the clouds; in another, it's just his eyes; and in another one, he's fully armored.
- Hey Arnold! The Movie: The film poster/video/DVD cover notably has an eerily similar layout to the item listed immediately above, which was also part of the Nickelodeon brand.
- Incredibles 2: On the poster, the Screenslaver overlooks the Parr Family.
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius: The poster.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: On the new poster, Sunset Shimmer's eyes appear in the mirror above human versions of the main cast.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf - Desert Trek: The Adventure of the Lost Totem: One of the official pieces of artwork features Lord Japper overlooking the goats, Wolffy, and Leopold and Counsoler (both Lord Japper's minions).
- Pokémon: The First Movie: One of the promotional items from Burger King was a card that showed Mewtwo looking down at our heroes, complete with an Evil Laugh. (Card is marked as number one◊)
- Promare: Kray overlooks everyone else in the key visual of the film, making it a case of Spoiler Cover since he's Evil All Along.
- Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas: Eris towers in the background of the poster, looming over the heroes.
- Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron: The American cover of the DVD case features the Colonel's ethereal head looking over his shoulder at the heroes with hatred in his eyes.
- Steven Universe: The Movie: The poster has the mysterious villain looming over Steven and the Crystal Gems while partially in shadow, looking down at them sinisterly.
- The Swan Princess: Rothbart.
- Tom and Jerry: The Movie: The film poster/VHS cover features Tom chasing Jerry (which only happens for a few minutes in-film) while the face of the villainous fat lady watches them with utter rage in cloud form.
- Transformers: The Movie: The film posters have Unicron, both his planet form and his robotic head, prominently in the background behind the main cast. Funnily enough, since Unicron is the size of a planet, for once this skewed perspective is actually proportionally correct.
- Watership Down: The DVD cover has General Woundwort looking down at the refugee rabbits and Kehaar.
Films —— Live-Action
- 28 Days Later: The film has a poster with just the eyes of an Infected hanging in the sky over a silhouetted Jim.
- The Alzheimer's Case: The hitman Ledda is portrayed this way on the movie posters, with the cops in the foreground.
- Arachnophobia
- Batman Forever: Inverted. The villains are actually towards the bottom of the poster while Batman looms above them.
- Blade: The poster of the first film show the vampire antagonist Deacon Frost ominously watching over the Daywalker Blade in a blood-red background.
- Captain America: The First Avenger: Some posters have Red Skull's eyes looming over Cap.
- Child's Play: The original poster.
- The Dark Side of the Moon: The poster only shows the bad guy's Hellish Pupils overlooking the moon.
- The Devil's Advocate: An alternate theatrical poster shows the Devil looming over the protagonist and his wife.
- Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan: After the "I ♥ NY" -posters for were taken down due to complaints from New York Tourism Committee, they were replaced with a poster of Jason looming over the city.
- Fright Night (1985): The villain as an evil cloud.
- Fright Night (2011): The poster, although Jerry does kinda merge into the whole sky around the lower side.
- Fright Night Part 2: The film follows the prequel.
- Gone Girl: Zigzagged. Amy's eyes are seen at the top of the poster, but it looks like a simple case of Floating Head Syndrome. In fact, this is a subtle clue of who the true villain of the movie is.
- Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later: Michael Myers' Black Eyes of Evil looming over the frightened-looking protagonists.
- Halloween: Resurrection: Michael Myers' Black Eyes of Evil looming over the frightened-looking protagonists.
- The Haunting of Molly Hartley: The poster does this with Joseph, who is revealed in the last ten minutes to be part of a Satanic cult.
- Hero and the Terror: The poster shows Simon Moon's eyes menacingly hovering over a stern-looking Chuck Norris packing heat.
- Horrors of War: The poster does this with Adolf Hitler and his zombie hordes.
- Inglourious Basterds: This◊ movie poster.
- John Carpenter's Vampires: On the posters, the vampire lord Jan Valek is shown as a face in the clouds overlooking the heroes.
- Lion of the Desert: The Poster for the film, about the life of Libyan anti-colonial rebel Omar Mukhtar, depicts Benito Mussolini glowering over his troops and tanks as they clash with the rebels, with the central villain General Rodolfo Graziani in the foreground.
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie: The poster shows the eyes of Ivan Ooze looming over the heroes.
- New Jack City: The three heroic police officers are downright minuscule compared to the sinister-looking Nino Brown looming over them in a badass pose.
- No Country for Old Men: The film adaptation portrays Anton Chigurh this way. The effect is actually very creepy, especially since this is one story where justice and logic be darned, The Bad Guy Wins.
- The Passage: Some versions of the poster depict Captain von Berkow looming behind the main characters looking through binoculars.
- Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th: Parodied. The killer is shown above the other characters on the cover, but his expression is too goofy to be anything close to threatening.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: The poster shows the very large, very angry eye of General Chang glaring down at the Enterprise-A from the background.
- Star Trek: First Contact: The poster of does this in a pretty interesting manner. Data and Picard are wary of an approaching army of Borg drones underneath them, but the Borg Queen, the film's Big Bad, is hovering over them both.
- Star Trek: Insurrection: The poster of features the Enterprise-E flying towards the giant face of the movie's main villain (who actually has a rather minor role in the film, considering how prominently he's shown on the poster).
- Star Trek (2009): One poster◊ does this with Nero. Oddly, most of the posters and DVD covers for the 2009 film do this with Kirk; one could be forgiven for assuming that Christopher Pine plays the villain (although that film's Kirk is arguably an Anti-Hero).
- Star Wars:
- A New Hope: A giantnote translucent blue Darth Vader head in the background. He doesn't appear to actually be looking at the heroes, more sorta past them, but to be fair it's hard to tell with the mask.
- The Phantom Menace: Darth Maul.
- Attack of the Clones: Played with. Count Dooku is nowhere to be seen, but his henchman Jango Fett is on the lower right.
- Revenge of the Sith: A faint image of Darth Vader with the helmet on.
- The Force Awakens: Kylo Ren, though depending on the poster, he's either staring to the left away from the heroes or right at the center.
- Rogue One: A spectral image of Darth Vader behind the heroes, as though breathing down Jyn's neck.
- The Last Jedi: Inverted. The hooded head overlooking the others in many promotional materials is Luke Skywalker.
- The Rise of Skywalker: The poster released at D23 2019 shows Rey and Kylo Ren duel, with the ominous, spectral visage of Emperor Palpatine looking on. Another poster shows Kylo Ren staring on.
- Warlock III: The End of Innocence: The poster shows the Warlock at the top staring intently at the viewer with a Kubrick Stare, as he holds the protagonists in his cupped hands.
- X-Men: Apocalypse: The eponymous Big Bad.
Literature
- Bride of the Rat God: Two covers show the Rat God looking menacingly over Christine, who holds her fur wrap around her in terror.
- Return of the Living Dead: The original paperback cover has a giant disembodied zombie head and hands looming behind a woman in a black void, seemingly about to grab her.
Live-Action TV
- Angel: Every DVD case has Angelus looking over Angel's shoulder.
- House: Inverted. Season One box set features the main cast looking down at you in a circle with a surgical light over all of their heads as if you were a patient.
- Storm of the Century: Some covers show Andre Linoge ominously hovering over the small town he is menacing throughout the miniseries.
Music
- "Chaos X - Hellfire (a Frollo Cover)", a Filk Song for The Frollo Show, features Wilford Brimley as an Evil Overlooker in a fairly crowded shot. He's flanked by Batiatus and Marco Antonio Regil (although by the time Wilford becomes the true Big Bad, Marco has teamed up with Frollo to stop him).
- Michael Jackson's Dangerous has his eyes overlook everything on the album cover.
Video Games
- The box art for Advance Wars 2 shows the Orange Star Commanders (main heroes) in the foreground, the Black Hole Commanders (bad guys) behind them looming over them, and a giant Big Bad behind and above them.
- Banjo-Kazooie's box art features Gruntilda overlooking Banjo and attempting to grab him.
- The Wii version of A Boy and His Blob has the main villain boss watching.
- The cover for the 3DS version of Dragon Quest VIII features this, with Dhoulmagus sinisterly overlooking the good guys (and a couple of Slimes), who are charging headlong into battle.
- Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy's title screen has the Oracle overlooking the main cast.◊
- Killzone has this trope for the box art of 1, 2, and Mercenary having a Helghast soldier on the front. The Helghast have become so iconic (and, ironically, popular) that the series has them taking up most of the marketing for the game.
- Some of the Kirby games have this, like Kirby's Epic Yarn.
- Specifically, Nightmare in Dream Land does this◊ with Meta Knight.
- Specifically, Nightmare in Dream Land does this
- The box art for King's Quest III features the villain Manannan doing a crystal ball version of this.
- The box art for King's Quest VII 1.0 (for DOS 5/Windows 3.1) features Malicia looking down over a tornado sucking in Rosella and Valanice. Version 2.0 (for Windows 95) has different box art.
- One poster◊ for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, also used for the cover in certain versions, has Ganondorf doing a variation on this, in that his back is turned toward the viewer but he is also looking over his shoulder. This carried over into the HD version's box art◊.
- In the box art of the 3DS rerelease of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the Moon becomes this.
- The box art◊ for Little Big Adventure 2 contains a cloud, shaped like Dark Monk, looking menacingly over Twinsun.
- The cover of Maniac Mansion has Dr. Fred's face sporting a Slasher Smile visible in the sky behind the mansion. Subverted in that Dr. Fred turns out to be just a brainwashed pawn of The Man Behind the Man.
- Mass Effect has Saren's eyes looming over Shepard.
- One of the unlockable backgrounds in Metal Slug Anthology has Morden looming over Marco, Tarma, Eri, and Fio.
- The Complete Works rereleases for Mega Man 5 and Mega Man 6 feature this.
- Mega Man 9 does this on its "cover◊" (it's download-only), in order to emulate the cheesy box art the games had in the NES era.
- The European box art for Mega Man as well.
- Also the European box art for Mega Man 3 does this.
- Mega Man 9 does this on its "cover
- Sigma, in the final shot◊ of the intro to Mega Man X4.
- The Western box art for Metroid: Zero Mission has a red, distinctive silhouette of Ridley overlooking Samus as she lands on Planet Zebes.
- The box art for the Overlord games often feature the Evil Overlord posing menacingly in the background while the Minions take the forefront.
- The covers for all of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series games show the main characters being watched by evil-looking Pokémon with glowing red eyes and are almost completely covered in shadow.
- The cover of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity has Hydreigon looming over the main characters. In a rather ingenious move by the creators, the significance of this ends up changing completely once you actually play the game and find out that he's not only the Big Good and one of major driving forces behind the plot, but also ends up becoming a part of the team. The fact that he's not portrayed in an overtly evil fashion like the Pokémon on the covers of the previous games (he just looks evil, but isn't acting evil) may have clued some players on it, though.
- Professor Layton:
- While the original box art avoided this, Resident Evil – Code: Veronica X's American box art features Wesker in the background (The European cover instead featured a close-up of Claire's face).
- The box art for Sacrifice features Charnel ominously looking down on the Player Character, Eldred, holding a Manalith in his long clawlike fingers. Easily the evilest of the game's five gods, he's notably not the Big Bad of the game.
- The American box art of Shining Force II (which has little to do with the actual game) has this.
- A picture for Shin Megami Tensei II has the Archangel Gabriel holding Aleph in a case of Pietà Plagiarism, with the Archangel Michael, Archangel Raphael, and Archangel Uriel, the Big Bad Triumvirate of the first two-thirds of the game, as the overlookers.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Mega Drive version does this on the cover, with Robotnik slamming a "2" into the ground.
- Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny arguably does this... The "arguably" coming from whether you see God of War's Kratos as an Anti-Hero or a Villain Protagonist.
- Mr. X in the Japanese cover art◊ for Streets of Rage 2.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Cackletta for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, then the Shroobs in the sequel.
- A promotional poster◊ for Super Mario Galaxy shows Mario and one of the Lumas flying through space while being watched by Bowser, Bowser Jr., as well as every single boss encountered in the game (specifically Dino Piranha (but not his fiery form), King Kaliente, Bugaboom, Megaleg, Kamella, Tarantox, Topmaniac, Major Burrows, Kingfin, Bouldergeist, and Baron Brr).
- This is also true with one promotional artwork for Super Mario Bros. 3.
- SHODAN does this on the box for System Shock 2. Now, The Reveal is no longer surprising.
- Done on the cover of the Transformers Animated video game, with Megatron looking on from the background.
- The cover of the first Valkyria Chronicles has Selvaria Bles doing this.
- World Heroes 2◊ for the Famicom (not to be confused with the official game) has Mario overlooking the rest of the cast. (Apart from Mai Shiranui and Lawrence Blood, who aren't on the cover.) Yes, apparently Mario's the Villain Protagonist in a game which has Bowser and M. Bison as playable characters.
- The X-Men Legends games have Magneto and Apocalypse, respectively.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney:
- The cover◊ of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney features both the Judge and Edgeworth as possible examples (though the Judge is hardly what you'd call evil, and even Edgeworth isn't much of a villain after Case 2).
- The games as a whole feature this with the artwork unlocked after beating each case. This can, in fact spoil, who the guilty party is for people who haven't played the games before.note
- Usually, the main promotional artwork piece for each entry (the ones that show all the game's major recurring characters) will usually have the game's main prosecutor in this role. The one◊ from Justice For All, for example, has both Franziska von Karma and Miles Edgeworth showing up as this, but only the former is actually facing towards the foreground because Edgeworth is a definite good guy here.
- The main piece of promotional artwork◊ for Trials and Tribulations shows Godot in this role.
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney plays with this. Klavier is the nicest prosecutor the series has had so far and thus is not featured in this role in the game's promotional piece◊. His brother Kristoph, on the other hand...
- Dual Destinies continues the trend◊ by portraying Simon Blackquill in this way. Though like Edgeworth before him, he turns out to be much less villainous than he seems.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice has Prosecutor Nahyuta Sadhmadhi keeping the tradition◊ alive. And like Edgeworth and Blackquill, he is revealed to not be villainous at the end.
- The cover
Web Videos
- Atop the Fourth Wall: Parodied in the review of the Batman Returns graphic novel adaptation, which has in its preview image something that looks less like Christopher Walken's character from the movie (the Corrupt Corporate Executive Max Shreck) than "just" Christopher Walken looking out across Gotham City.
- Noob: La Quête Légendaire: The image that plays the role of the official poster has the antagonist's eyes and forehead over a smaller scale line-up of the protagonists.
- Dr. Crafty: The poster for his Season 3 Finale arc, I Need a Hero Academia, has the show's Big Bad Doctor Mindstein right down the middle, looming over the Crafty characters and the students of UA High School Class 1-A.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- The original cartoon:
- The poster for Book 1 depicts the Gaang down the front, with Zuko, the Starter Villain, looming over them evilly. This is also shown prominently in "The Ember Island Players" when the in-universe poster showing the Show Within a Show is pretty much exactly the same as the poster for Season one.
- The poster for Book 3 has Ozai, the Big Bad, looming behind Aang in the Avatar State.
- The Legend of Korra: The SDCC poster features Amon, the Big Bad for season 1, looming over Korra, Mako, and Bolin.
- The original cartoon:
- Madballs: The VHS cover of "Escape from Orb" shows the main villain Wolf Breath as a giant face menacingly watching over the Madballs.
