The best and worst scary movie daddies of modern horror cinema run the full gamut of good vs. evil, and often enough, a dash of dumb. Hey, if your family ends up in a haunted house, chances are it’s Dad’s fault, especially when it comes to some of our favorite spooky season shows and films.
There’s pure evil, such as Five Nights at Freddy’s William Afton. There are family-first daddies, as exemplified by Gomez Addams on Wednesday. And there’s, of course, that daddy factor, which allows for some of our favorite horror himbos to get away with ignoring the signs of danger as long as they get the family out to safety; looking at you, Winston Duke, in Jordan Peele’s Us.
To celebrate fathers of fright, here are our favorite horror movie (and TV show) daddies from recent years, ranked from monstrous worst to heroic best.
11. William Afton, Five Nights at Freddy’s
Matthew Lillard as William Afton is one of the most despicable and demented dads of recent horror. He’s the father turned kids’ serial killer behind the haunted animatronics in Five Nights at Freddy’s who co-founded the family pizza chain, which he goes on to use the abandoned locations of to stage his horrific crimes.
Lillard really captures the energy of a terrible psycho who snaps and kills kids, sometimes enlisting the help of his daughter, who grows up to be a cop who helps take him down. Unfortunately for her, he stabs her in the process of their catching him. We’re excited to know Lillard will be joined by his horror husband, Skeet Ulrich, in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2; Ulrich is rumored to be Afton’s alleged silent partner, Henry Emily.
While FNAF fans know the deep lore of that potential pairing, we Scream fans were there when it was written in blood by the duo as the original Ghostface killers. As for why he’s at the bottom of this list, it’s pretty obvious—since he swears, “I always come back”—that he doesn’t feel bad for attempting to kill his daughter or for continuing to want to kill more children to trap in his animatronic monsters.
10. Roderick Usher, The Fall of the House of Usher
This man sold his and his entire family’s souls to the devil for a fortune and a good life as long as he lived. The catch? He saw his entire bloodline die before him in horrific ways. Bruce Greenwood really brought gravitas to Roderick Usher, a man who could have just been played as a terrible father, and turned Poe’s tragic figure into a really sad picture of humanity’s hubris in the face of amassing power.
Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher beautifully and horrifically encapsulates paying for the sins of your father. Usher ranks as one of the worst because he really sold everyone. Even his granddaughter, who was an innocent, didn’t have a chance of escaping.
9. Ellison Oswalt, Sinister
Ethan Hawke plays Ellison, a dad who decides to move into the house that’s the focus of the true crime murders he’s writing about, which really puts him up there as one of the worst horror fathers. In Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill’s all-time terrifying Sinister, Ellison and his family go through a living hell as they’re hunted down by an entity that gives us nightmares to this day (that lawnmower scene).
It’s not much of a spoiler to say it doesn’t end well for this family. So yes, he’s one of the worst—but at least he made a futile attempt to save everyone!
8. Michael Shaw, Terrifier 2
Terrifier 2 introduces Sienna Shaw as the main final girl in the Terrifier franchise—a genius move on creator Damien Leone’s part. The heroine literally becomes a badass angel warrior with a sword that can kill Art the Clown (at least until he regenerates).
However, her fate was mysteriously sealed by her father, Michael Shaw (played by Jason Patric). As we see in flashbacks, he was a tormented artist plagued by visions of Art the Clown and his daughter as the badass figure meant to take the pure evil entity down before he ended his life from the madness.
So on one hand, it’s good he left behind the tools for Sienna to rise up to the challenge, but it’s also bad that he destined her to this fate. I don’t entirely buy that he really killed himself on purpose, as Art is known to be a sneaky killer, but we’ll hopefully learn more when Terrifier 4 rolls around.
7. Hugh Crain, The Haunting of Hill House
Henry Thomas as Hugh Crain really captured the affable and loving dad who has a massive family tragedy befall him and his children. In Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, the Crain patriarch’s dream to transform the beautiful mansion he moves his wife and kids into turns into a nightmare when it transforms his wife into someone the family doesn’t recognize.
Ever the doting husband, Hugh ignores and enables the warning signs that she’s not well. By the time the house claims her, it’s too late, but at least he gets himself and the kids out of there. But this is not a show with a happy ending and his dissociation from the trauma leads to the Hill House ghosts haunting his family for the rest of their lives. And that’s why he stands near the middle of this list; he does his best to please his family to a fault, which ends up endangering them more well into their adulthood.
6. Josh Lambert, Insidious
Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert in Leigh Whannell and James Wan’s Insidious films offers a prime example of how a dad’s generational trauma might not be passed down if he just went to therapy. Josh is plagued by ghosts and demons that his family gaslit him into forgetting about, and then they haunt his kids.
Thankfully the franchise’s spooky version of Brené Brown, Elise Rainer (played by the incredible Lin Shaye), mediates between the family and all the horrors in their midst. However, it takes many, many movies for Josh to finally face his demons with his son to end their cursed cycle.
5. Gabe Wilson, Us
Winston Duke didn’t mess around in Us. As soon as those freaky doppelgangers showed up in Jordan Peele’s sophomore mystery thriller, Gabe (Duke) was like, “We’re out of here.”
Unfortunately for him and his family, everyone around the country was being killed by their Tethered twins. Duke really has some great comedic and heroic moments in the film—such as the boat scene—and provided laughs in the film’s high-tension moments, balancing out the more intense performance(s) of Lupita Nyong’o, who slayed as a mother.
You rooted for the Wilsons to save their family and get to Mexico when they realized the Tethered were part of an abandoned government plot. For supporting his wife no matter what, Gabe ranks up there as one of the best recent horror dads.
4. Jim Hopper, Stranger Things
Hopper (David Harbour) may not have always been a Father of the Year candidate, but he’s been there for Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) no matter what toxic, awkward ’80s-dad gruff he had going on, and he nearly died multiple times to save Hawkins.
He’s endearing and wants to make something of himself for his found family, so for that he ranks high as one of the best dads on this list.
3. David Kim, Searching
John Cho’s performance as David Kim carries the social media-age thriller. When David’s daughter goes missing, he follows her digital footprint to find out what happened to her in probably this generation of parents’ worst nightmare.
He’d be higher up on this list, but he did sort of let his grief make him lose track of his kid after his wife died. Cho, however, delivers a tour-de-force in this film, stopping at nothing to find out what happened to her and confronting those who harmed his daughter. Also, he’s daddy so he gets extra credit for being easy on the eyes.
2. Ed Warren, The Conjuring Universe
Patrick Wilson is back on the list, this time as Ed Warren. In the Conjuring Universe, married demonologists Ed and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) bring a sense of romance to some of the genre’s most frightening films. Even if some of the movies after James Wan left the franchise weren’t as strong as the originals, we’d come back for the Warrens taking on the devil and his minions through their paranormal investigations.
Wilson as Ed is sexy in a supernatural way; whether he’s commanding Satan out of innocent victims or serenading kids with Elvis songs, we want him as our horror husband.
1. Gomez Addams, Wednesday
Gomez Addams is the horror blueprint of the best husband and father for the genre; it’s in his Charles Addams DNA. Doting, devious, and daring, Luis Guzmán carries the mantle of the Addams patriarch on Wednesday with absolute aplomb. He’s so pure. Even though his past is veiled in mystery, Wednesday discovers everything he ever did was to defend his friends and family, often becoming the fall guy in the process.
We love seeing him call Wednesday the cutest pet names (like his “little Tormenta”) and knowing that despite her tough exterior and meanness at his expense, it is just her hiding that she loves just as fiercely as he does. Season two revealed even more about what he’s sacrificed for those he loves. Gomez is the gold standard of the best spooky dads and this generation has a gem in Guzmán. Raul Julia, who played the character in the Addams Family movies, would be proud.