What’s better than a villain built up over the course of a story with masterful imagery and motifs to heighten the tension? Sticking the landing for one. Sometimes the build up sets our expectations too high. Sometimes it takes too long. But when you get it right, you get it right.

1. Captain Hook (Hook). The build up is masterful. First we establish that Peter Pan has grown up and lost a lot of his childhood whimsy, his children feel distant from him and his wife has grown exasperated with his excuses. Hook doesn’t enter the picture until the hints of Peters origins come to light. Then like a monster, he sweeps in and tears the children from their beds. Peter arrives back to a ransacked house, scratches on the walls, “The children were screaming!” And an invite from Hook personally. When Peter arrives in Neverland, we see the iconic hook being sharpened and paraded through the pirates town like a religious icon. It’s brought into a dark room, the pirates are chanting, John Williams is going off with his score and the hook is put in place with flash in the pan. And boy does Dustin Hoffman have the time of his life playing this role. I still remember the Boo box.

2. Bruce the Shark (Jaws). We never see it, except for maybe hints and shadows. Every time we see a fin, it’s massive. All we see is the POV and the massacre left behind. We see hints of a tactical mind targeting the lonely and vulnerable. We see examples of its strength when it tears a dock apart. Quint, the experienced shark hunter, practically reveres it. Our protagonists are constantly on edge, outwitted and spooked by the shark sneaking around and bullying them. Until finally it rears its head and the characters realise the ordeal they’re in for. They’re going to need a bigger boat. Done for practical film making reasons with an animatronic that constantly broke down, shrinking timetable and budget shooting up. It’s almost no wonder Spielberg was traumatised by the making of this movie. If practical effects almost led to me being blacklisted by Hollywood, I’d probably shift to CGI as a cost and time saver too. But the effect is what created one of the best suspenseful build ups of all time.

3. The Mandarin (Iron Man 3). An example of when build up fails to meet the hype. This villain was built up by trailers big time. Portrayed by Ben Kingsley, Gandhi himself, one of the best British actors ever. The film practically makes it look like Tony is at the end of his rope and constantly having to adapt to a superior enemy that is spreading fear throughout America. Only for it to pull the rug from under us. Turns out, it’s all a ploy and part of a larger scheme by another villain to divert attention. But this was one of the biggest villains in Iron Man’s arsenal. Barely any of his villains were portrayed or written well over the past two movies but we didn’t mind since RDJ was just so good. So this was the time to introduce audiences to Iron Man’s Joker, his Lex Luthor, his Moriarty. Instead we got a ballsy choice to troll the audience and Tony alike. But imagine if the first Superman movie, instead of getting Gene Hackman, we instead got Jesse Eisenberg. You can’t just hamstring one of the major antagonists of the Iron Man comics. Granted we got a consolation villain with Shang Chi giving us a better performance but at the time, this was so disappointing after all that build up.

(Mixed trope) Villain Build Up