Fiend Without A Face

"Fantomas."

"What did you say?"

"I said: Fantomas."

"And what does that mean?"

"Nothing...Everything!"

"But what is it?"

"No one...And yet, it is someone!"

"And what does this someone do?"

"Spreads TERROR!"

-Fantomas, 1911

Fantomas, the Lord of Terror, the Genius of Evil. Whatever his name, he (or she) is the ultimate archetype of villainy. No crime is too small, no act too depraved for Fantomas to contemplate, to undertake, to accomplish. He made it his mission to destroy the fabric of society for no other reason than that he could.

Put simply, Fantomas is the first super-villain. Born at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, on the eve of the bloodiest conflict the world has ever seen, Fantomas sprang fully formed into a world teetering on the edge of madness. To say that he did his best to push it over said edge is an understatement.

"He is totally ruthless, gives no mercy, and is loyal to none, not even his own children. He is a master of disguise, always appearing under an assumed identity, often that of a person whom he has murdered. Fantômas makes use of bizarre and improbable techniques in his crimes, such as plague-infested rats, giant snakes, and rooms that fill with sand."

Criminals like Professor Moriarty or Fu Manchu dominated the previous century, spinning Byzantine schemes and matching wits opponents of equal determination, if not skill. Fantomas' opponents could only scramble to keep up. His schemes were chaotic things, not the precision instruments of his antecedents, but rather a form of madness only recognizable after the fact.

His crimes were outrageous, daring and avant-garde...plague-infested rats released on an ocean liner, sulphuric acid hidden in the perfume dispensers of a famous Parisian department store, or the stripping of the gilded gold from the roof of the Invalides Dome each evening; a man hung by his feet inside a cathedral bell like a human clapper, raining blood, brains and bone down on the masses below, and forcing a judge to witness his own execution by placing him face-up in a guillotine.

Fantomas was everyone and no-one, everywhere and nowhere. A man, a woman, a devil...a phantom. He wielded an army of street-apaches, spies and saboteurs in a calculated effort to spread fear and terror across Europe and the world. There was no purpose to this, save that it was Fantomas' will that it be done. He was a satanic hurricane, a typhoon of terror, a nightmare without end.

In his wake came a host of imitators and disciples...Satanik, Diabolik, Kriminal, Demoniak, Sadik among others, though none would ever rival the first and most mysterious master of menace...FANTOMAS.

Mad Dog

Mad Dog is the most bad-ass of bad-asses in John Woo's unlimited-ammo cops-and-robbers masterpiece HARD BOILED. Given that HARD BOILED has more bad-ass per foot of celluloid than just about any other film ever made, that's really saying something. Even more impressive when you consider that the character of Mad Dog wasn't even in the script.

During shooting of the film, Woo decided that the primary villain Johnny Wong was not a threatening enough presence. Meanwhile,veteran actor/stuntman Philip Kwok's action scenes were impressing the hell out of everyone... and so the grizzled henchman Mad Dog was born. This genesis is, I think, the reason the character has such resonance--because he's so underwritten Kwok doesn't get to speak a lot of lines; the character exists almost entirely in the actor's physical presence. The quiet man in the melodrama; the one actor in the opera who does not sing.

Woo's camera treats Mad Dog as a hero as often as a villain: striding down the gangway tossing his bike helmet; stalking implacably through a hospital with a shotgun in a flower box; Mad Dog is a consummate gun-for-hire. In a film that is people by uncannily skilled gunmen, Mad Dog has all the best moves--again, probably due to Kwok's stuntwork rather than to any planning by the director or his writing team.

Mad Dog is a born baddie, but he does have a code he follows--more one of professionalism than of honour, I think. When his boss Johnny steps over the line, Mad Dog turns on him. For Mad Dog this is not a shot at redemption; it's just the work of a true professional, trying to clean up the mess of a job gone wrong. It costs Mad Dog his life... but by then he's already made his mark.

The most hard boiled character in HARD BOILED is the one who wasn't even in the script.

The American Psycho

The most obvious quality that makes Patrick Bateman unusual amongst villains is that he's both the protagonist and the narrator of his own story-- AMERICAN PSYCHO by Bret Easton Ellis. (This article will concentrate on the novel, because Mary Harron's movie adaptation falls extremely close to the original text, but there is a lot of information missing.)

Bateman's story is a complete negation of Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey"--this 'hero' does not go anywhere, he does not overcome any obstacles, he does not learn anything. The book ascribes him a motto, found signposted on the places he frequents: THIS IS NOT AN EXIT. There's no way out for Bateman, and likewise, there is no way to escape him.

Bateman, from a distance, is a chiseled uber-yuppie who kills people for fun and pleasure. He's rich, educated, he has a job which affords him power and prestige without requiring him to do a speck of work. But as you zoom closer, a lot more... or, depending on how you think of it, at it, less... becomes apparent. Smash cut to appalling carnage or hideous banality.

Bateman is principally defined by a lack of identity: he is a shell of brand names, advertisinng slogans and business-management cliches built around a fleeting and unstable sense of self; a spoiled, blood-soaked avatar of American consumer culture. Although the book is written in the first person, it's six pages before we first hear an "I". The sudden revelation of the narrator's presence in the scene is startling and confusing. He has been standing there in broad daylight, whispering his version of events in our ear all along.

Bateman has no conscience, no capacity for reflection; just a void that he tries to fill with bloodshed, pornography and recycled opinions. He himself tells us that "There's nothing there"; on the few the only occasions on which he describes his internal state he feels "intangible", "like a ghost."

Bateman suffers from psychotic episodes and hallucinations. His ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality shaky at best: he discusses Ed Gein and Leatherface without even attempting to distinguish of them is real and which fictive. He admits that he is used to thinking of reality as if it was a movie, and his description of events often invokes the language of cinematic editing.

Bateman describes his own deeds in the same cool and graphic tone that he discusses movies, pornography or even pop music, and, in fact, accords them equal importance. On the one single occasion where Bateman finds himself in danger, that present-tense narration narration slips into third person as he loses his id altogether--geography and time seem to bend and loop as his faculties depart. But Patrick is nothing if not resilient: after every episode he manages to claw his way back to the nominal level of sanity required for him to participate in normal society. The revelation of just how little is required is perhaps the book's most disturbing facet.

Bateman's crimes are usually wrought upon victims below his social class, with the exception of Paul Allen-- a business rival he believes to be a threat to him (a laughable thought, given the amount of attention Bateman puts into his actual job). He does occasionally spare those who regard him with affection--out of confusion more than anything.

There is only one person in the book that Bateman likes and admires: Tim Price, who Patrick describes as "The only interesting person I know." Tim, initially, is little different than Bateman and the rest of his shallow, yuppie friends: if anything he is even more arrogant and obnoxious than they are, but basically he is quite interchangeable with any of them. Bateman himself has difficulty telling some of his friends and colleagues apart, and is frequently misidentified for 'Marcus Halberstam'. But there is something different about Price: he disappears from the book for a lengthy period, and he returns from his sojourn (rumoured to be rehab) a changed man, daubed with the ashes of penitence (although Bateman may be the only one who can see this).

Price has become more aware of what is going on in the world and he's disturbed by it: he demonstrates a new awareness that people are not always what they seem and a sense of outrage at the lies and evil perpetrated by his (explicitly American) society. Price has returned to the fold, but he has grown as a person and it seems unlikely that he will stay. Bateman admires this, although he does not properly comprehend it. In the end, Bateman remains unable to see the door beneath the sign:

THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.