Writing Great Villains: Why They Shouldn't Be Sympathetic
Writing great villains is about striking a balance between charming and evil, so we love them but also love to see them lose.

Arrebato (1980) is the great cult movie of today's Spanish cinema and Iván Zulueta, its director, an accursed filmmaker. Arrebato was the film that forecast the end of the movida, a dark and harrowing reel whose history and intra-history are intimately linked. Arrebato acts as a premonition of the director’s own life. Just like his actors, Zulueta will end up being brought down by drugs and the cinema and, like them, will also disappear.
Writing great villains is about striking a balance between charming and evil, so we love them but also love to see them lose.
I write for a diversity-focused film review blog, so I’ll be honest: I really wanted to like Pretty Lethal. Starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Avantika, and Millicent Simmonds, Amazon Prime’s new thriller seemed like it would be a girl power movie about dancers with a horror action twist. Sort of a Suspiria for teens. But with shallow and unlikeable characters, a confusing plot, an overreliance on violence, and cringey dialogue, any fun the movie started out with was quickly lost. What was left was a faint echo of greater horror movies about dancers made before.
An apocalyptic tale captivates the nation as it teaches us to love even in the hardest situations.
Desi Arnaz was an innovator in television and Lucille Ball was a sketch comedy clairvoyant of sorts; 'Being the Ricardos' focuses on their genius as a couple, but shies away from the interracial aspect of their marriage.
When it comes the horror genre, I am VERY hard to please or impress, much less scare. Coming from a current mindset of appreciation for chilling, unsettling, tension-inducing efforts such as "Hereditary", "The Conjuring" (ONLY the first one to date, mind you), "Lights Out", "The Babadook", "Midsommar", "Talk To Me", "Oddity", "Bring Her Back", and the like
In 'Maestro,' we're left with an impression but not with an understanding of the main character.