Severen, Near Dark
Before she was the Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow was behind unique action thrillers such as the Keanu Reeves surfer–bank robber flick Point Break, the Ralph Fiennes end-of-the-century film Strange Days and 1987's vampire-western Near Dark. Starring Adrian Pasdar (later of Heroes fame) as a young rancher who gets roped in with a group of nomadic vampires, Near Dark shines in a series of brutal set pieces, the most memorable involving Bill Paxton's casually psychotic Severen (that's him with the half-burned face on the film's poster). After the group heads into a honky-tonk bar, Severen goes on a gleefully murderous spree — slashing the bartender's throat with his boot spurs. The most frightening thing about the character is the thought that, no matter how scary a vampire is, one that's willfully immoral (as opposed to amoral in that "I must kill you to survive" sense) is oh so much worse.