Underrated Thrillers In Which The Main Character Is The Bad Guy

Initially, Sy Parrish seems like a somewhat sad, slightly awkward nice man, and Robin Williams's innate warmth suggests a gentle soul. Sy is lonely, however, fixating and eventually full-on stalking a family whose photos he develops at SavMart.

As his obsession with the Yorkin family deepens, Sy's behavior grows transgressive and dangerous enough to lose the audience's sympathy. After he discovers an extramarital affair within the family, Sy shifts from protagonist to antagonist, confronting the father and taking his obsession far beyond where any audience is willing to follow.

Casting can go a long way with “heroes” who aren't on the up-and-up. Kevin Costner has long starred as straitlaced heroes, so it takes some time to get a proper read on Earl Brooks. He's a successful businessman and family man who doubles as a serial killer. It's an addiction for him, so much so that he attends AA meetings to deal with his compulsion.

In addition to being the notorious “Thumbprint Killer” himself, Brooks reluctantly adopts an apprentice (Dane Cook, in a role that dates the whole movie) and discovers his college-aged daughter is also dabbling in ending lives.

Macaulay Culkin’s Henry Evans may look like Home Alone hero Kevin McAllister, and he knows how to play cute for his family, but the title is ironic: Henry is a very, very bad son. He's manipulative, playing all the adults around him like fiddles. He's also obsessed with death, and doesn't hesitate to cause an enormously destructive highway pileup. He makes an attempt on his sister's life as well.

By the halfway point, Henry's disturbing behavior and straight-up psychopathy make it clear he's not the movie's hero. That distinction falls to Elijah Wood as Mark, Henry's cousin. The film's marketing clearly positioned Henry as the lead, however.

In the flashback sections of Frailty, Dad Meiks believes he has been chosen by God to kill demons disguised as humans. His sons believe him, and watch as he kills people he's convinced are actually demonic. Since Dad's played by Bill Paxton, the audience might be inclined to believe him as well.

It's not so simple, however, and the paternal protagonist is an unstable, axe-wielding menace who turns on at least one of his sons.

And in the sections of the film set in 2001, Matthew McConaughey plays a grown-up version of one of the sons who also isn't quite as heroic as he initially seems.

An effective impressionist with few scruples and a knack for lying, Matt Damon's Tom Ripley commits identity theft, fraud, and murder to maintain a luxurious lifestyle. He gains access to a beautiful, upper crust world in Rome and tags along with spoiled, pretty people played by Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Because Ripley's sliding into a world available only to the rich and cultured, the audience is on his side, or at least willingly along for the ride. Even after Ripley ends a supposed friend's life, he's still the movie's “hero,” and when a victim's girlfriend begins closing in on Ripley, it's difficult not to hope Ripley will lie his way out of this one as well.

When a 32-year-old photographer takes a 14-year-old home, the dynamic of victimizer and victim looks clear. Tuns out that Elliot Page's Hayley Stark is a vigilante, and Patrick Wilson's Jeff Kohlver is both predator and prey.

Hayley isn't a villain: Jeff is definitely the problem here, and the audience shares Hayley's strong sense of justice. Her methods involve no shortage of brutality, though, and during stretches when Jeff's denials sound plausible, Hayley's enthusiasm feels morally ambiguous.