The Scariest Resident Evil Villains Ranked

In most zombie media, the meat of the story lies in what people will do to survive, not the zombies' origins. Morality only goes so far when you're staring down a shambling wall of rotting flesh and teeth. To mangle a famous quote from author Jim Butcher, "You don't have to run faster than the zombie horde to get away. You just have to run faster than the guy next to you." Of course, "Resident Evil" isn't like most zombie media.

In "RE," the origin of the zombie outbreak is front and center: An evil organization using mutagenic viruses to fuel their dreams for a eugenics-powered future. When a company is so morally bankrupt it is literally in the business of death, you're likely to find a lot of villains in its employ, many of whom will gladly eat each other alive — and that's before they're transformed into the mindless undead.

Since "Resident Evil" is over 25 years old, the franchise has trudged through a veritable cloning lab worth of villains. Not all of them have had the same impact on the story (or players) as others, so that's why it's worth taking a look at some of the scariest.

Warning: This article includes spoilers for several "Resident Evil" games.

Since the Umbrella Corporation is about as one-dimensionally evil as a "Captain Planet" villain, it would be natural to assume virtually everyone else in the franchise would be cast in a heroic light. However, "Resident Evil" is supposed to be a "verisimilitude of a realistic world," according to series designer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi — and the real world isn't a cut and dry battle between good and evil. Sometimes, bad people worm their way into positions of power and sit right under the law's nose, or even control where that nose points.

Since Raccoon City police chief Brian Irons takes bribes from Umbrella, you would think he'd be an example of how that company can corrupt upstanding people. However, the games explain he was never good to begin with. "Resident Evil" games that feature Irons show he is obsessed with taxidermy, but hunting and stuffing animals isn't enough to satisfy him. No, lore-dumping notes imply he has actually taxidermied human women before, and several pre-zombie outbreak serial murders might have been his doing.

Irons never mutates into a horrific monster; the closest he gets to that honor is serving as an unwilling G embryo host. But he sort of makes up for that shortcoming by bringing a more realistic and intelligent kind of horror to a series that reserves most of its scares for zombies and mindless test tube abominations.

While zombies and the constant fear of low ammo make up a decent chunk of "Resident Evil" scares, the series also relies on a potent amount of body horror. Nothing makes your stomach squirm quite like watching a body bubble into increasingly abstract shapes. But what if someone were physically intimidating even before they transformed into a monster straight out of a David Cronenberg film?

Osmund Saddler is the leader of the Los Illuminados cult in "Resident Evil 4," but the man who helped Saddler get his foot in the door was Bitores Mendez. Once a humble Catholic priest, Mendez traded his faith and humanity for power in the form of the parasitic Las Plagas, which turned him into the bulletproof lovechild of the Hulk and Grigori Rasputin. Unlike most of the series' giant villains, Mendez retains all of his intelligence and linguistic skills, which is scary in and of itself.

His base form is imposing enough, but when lit on fire, Bitores mutates into the stuff of nightmares. His nails lengthen into claws, his shoulder blades birth two extra scythe-like limbs, and his spine elongates into something resembling a centipede. Not only does this transformation make the towering Mendez even taller, but during the ensuing fight, his legs are blown off — however, his torso refuses to give up, even as his lower body stumbles around harmlessly.

Mendez' motivations and personality might not be complex, but his sheer size and disturbing mutation do more than enough heavy lifting.

According to the Dreamworks movie "Megamind," the biggest difference between a regular villain and a super villain is "presentation." "Resident Evil" doesn't always dial up the presentation factor of its villains, but when it does, the result is more intimidating and scarier than characters who just rely on their size.

One of the most memorable characters from "Resident Evil 4" is Ramon Salazar, the diminutive lord of a nearby castle. Like Bitores Mendez, Salazar is a loyal follower of Osmund Saddler. Unlike the stoic Mendez, however, Salazar often livens up his scenes by cackling with glee, especially whenever he turns his home's booby traps — including a giant statue of himself — against Leon Kennedy. 

Salazar's actions are all the more terrifying since he does them in the name of atonement. He was swayed by Saddler's claims that his family committed horrible "sins" in the past (i.e., sealed the mines that contained Las Plagas spores), and Salazar now happily commits evil acts to compensate for his family's past heroism. It's horrifying the lengths some villains will go to when they believe they are in the right.

Of course, like any good "Resident Evil" boss, Salazar has one final trick — er, transformation — up his sleeve. Unlike other bosses that are just one giant, mutated monster, Salazar's final form is a disgusting, bubbling chimera consisting of himself, a Verdugo bodyguard, and the Queen Plaga.

Almost every villain in the "Resident Evil" franchise participates in either the moneymaking or apocalyptic aspects of Umbrella's ultimate goals, but not Mother Miranda. She wants something far more relatable, which makes her actions all the more heinous.

In "Resident Evil Village," the messianic figure of Mother Miranda only dreams of reviving her daughter who died during the Spanish flu pandemic of the early 1900s. Normally, a "Resident Evil" character would revive someone via cloning, but Miranda took a different approach. She planned to upload her daughter's consciousness into a Mold-infested host. Yes, the very same Mold players encounter in "Resident Evil 7." To achieve this goal, Miranda gladly sacrificed an entire village.

For over 100 years, Miranda used the titular village of "Resident Evil 8" as her own genetic playground. She infected whole generations of families with the Mold (or to be more specific, the parasitic Cadou) and tricked them into worshipping her for it. However, she only saw them as discardable pawns. Miranda also took the same approach to her more promising infectees, despite their undying loyalty (with the exception of the villainous Karl Heisenberg), and she positioned the well-intentioned Ethan Winters as her gullible executioner.

Miranda might transform several times during the game's final battle, but her physical form pales in comparison to her twisted motivations and dark soul. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and because of her actions, Miranda is going straight to the ninth circle.

A key component of zombiedom is the lack of high brain function. Most zombie diseases, including the t-Virus, dissolve a victim's gray matter, only leaving their most primal and predatory instincts intact. The parts of the brain that made up their memories and personality are turned to mush. That's why those who succumb to Eveline and her Mold experience a far more terrifying fate, since they are conscious to witness their actions but are helpless to stop themselves.

In "Resident Evil 7," Eveline spewed the Mold that ate the innocent victims who became the Molded. This Mold also turned the Baker family into superpowered, immortal hillbillies. However, Eveline's power took a devastating toll on her body. Without a special drug, her body aged 100 years in the span of three.

The true horror of Eveline comes from the Mold she carries, which, according to (a possible hallucination of) Jack Baker is actually a torturous form of mind control. Essentially, anyone under Eveline's sway can't resist the urge to do what she tells them. Granted, characters like Mia demonstrate that mind control victims can fight back, but it's so difficult that she prefers an axe to the neck. However, thanks to the Mold's regenerative properties, death doesn't let Eveline's victims escape her grasp for long, which makes her power one of the most terrifying in "Resident Evil."

Most viruses in the "Resident Evil" universe result in the kinds of fates that make you want to say, "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." This is especially true when the disease and its infection are used for narrative poetic irony, as is the case with William Birkin.

Even before he started mutating, William Birkin was truly a monster. One of the Umbrella Corporation's chief researchers, Birkin created the G-Virus, but he also had his hands in many of the company's virulent pies. For instance, Birkin transformed the t-Virus into a zombie-making nightmare by injecting Lisa Trevor with Ebola, and he also produced many of Umbrella's Bio Organic Weapons, including the Hunter ɑ.

Before Birkin succumbed to numerous bullet wounds, he "saved" his own life by infecting himself with the G-Virus. This robbed him of his terrifying intellect and instead turned him into a horrifying monster that mutated every five minutes. Not only is the resulting "G-Birkin" one of the most grotesque monsters in "Resident Evil" history, its level of intelligence is questionable. While Birkin's wife insists G-Birkin is mindless, a number of its forms demonstrate some levels of higher thinking, using tools and crying out for his daughter, Sherry.

Was Birkin conscious as the G-Virus dissolved his brain and turned his face into a pectoral muscle, or were the G-Birkin's seemingly human-like actions the dying echoes of his once-great mind? This debate alone solidifies Birkin's place as one of the absolute scariest villains in "Resident Evil ” history.

Most games ease players into the action, but not "Resident Evil 4." That title tosses gamers into the deep end, and the Chainsaw Man, better known as Doctor Salvador, is the shark prowling at the bottom.

During the first chapter of "Resident Evil 4," players mostly have to contend with regular Ganados. They're slow, they moan, and their heads explode if you hit them just right. This is all standard zombie (or zombie-adjacent) stuff, but then Ganados start to attack in droves, and you hear ... a chainsaw. That is the sound of Doctor Salvador, the game's first mini-boss, and he is infinitely more dangerous than rank and file Ganados because of one small (but important) detail: He can decapitate Leon Kennedy. It doesn't matter how much health Leon has; Doctor Salvador cuts it all away with a single attack.

Not only do players have to stare down Doctor Salvador and his burlap sack mask within the first chunk of "RE4," but he is one of the few non-boss enemies in the game and franchise with an instant death attack. Plus, since he's a mini-boss, Doctor Salvador is more durable than other enemies, so it's easier for him to close the gap and introduce his chainsaw to Leon's neck.

Doctor Salvador is a beginner's trap who haunts gamers for the rest of their campaign, straining their ears for the telltale sound of a chainsaw. That paranoia is well founded, because gamers will eventually meet his spiritual successors, the Chainsaw Sisters.