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- Strictly Come Dancing Horror Villains: Who Lifts the Glitterball?
Ten horror villains take on Strictly, and only one lifts the glitterball.
Strictly Come Dancing Horror Villains: Who Lifts the Glitterball? | Features | Ginger Nuts of Horror | [Date] |
Strictly Come Dancing horror villains are the line-up the BBC will never book, which is a shame, because Halloween week deserves better than pros in zombie make-up. Strictly is back on BBC One for its 24th series, and at Ginger Nuts of Horror we have been wondering how the genre’s biggest names would cope in the ballroom. So we have cast ten of them, scored them out of 40 and sent them through the dance-off one by one. Expect a slasher who refuses to run, a demon with a party trick and a doll with a very good agent. Here is how the series would go, from first out to glitterball.
Horror villains are defined by how they move. The slow walk, the spider walk, the chainsaw in the sunrise. Strip out the blood and what is left is choreography, which is why the genre’s monsters would do far better on Strictly than any of us would like to admit.
Before we go any further, the rules. Four judges score each dance out of ten, so 40 is perfect. The bottom two dance again, and the judges send one home. Lifts are frowned on in the ballroom. Nobody told the villains any of this, and most of them would not have listened.
The Early Exits
10. Michael Myers. Best score: 8 out of 40. John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) credits him as The Shape, and the shape is the problem. Myers has one speed and one expression. The judges praise his posture and nothing else. In the dance-off he simply stands at the edge of the floor and waits for his rival to finish. It is the most frightening thing ever seen on a Saturday night, and it still is not enough.
9. The Mummy. Best score: 12 out of 40. Universal’s mummies have been shuffling across the screen since 1932, and the shuffle comes with them to rehearsals. The frame is stiff, the footwork is a drag in every sense, and the costume department has never been so relieved. His Viennese waltz is notable mainly for how much of him is left on the floor at the end. Bandages everywhere. The pros are still finding bits in the spring.
8. Leatherface. Best score: 19 out of 40. Here is the shock of the early weeks. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) ends with Leatherface swinging his chainsaw in the dawn light, spinning on the spot in pure rage. Watch it again with the sound down and it is a paso doble. Gunnar Hansen gave the role a wild, broken grace, and the judges spot it at once. Points are docked for the prop. Points are docked again when the prop takes out the band.
The Middle of the Leaderboard
7. Ghostface. Best score: 22 out of 40. Couple’s Choice was made for Ghostface. Scream (1996) taught us that there is often more than one person under the robe, and the judges cannot tell who is dancing. One week the footwork is crisp. The next, it is all over the place. Nobody can prove a thing. The phone keeps ringing in the middle of the routine, too, which the judges call a lack of focus and the audience calls a lack of manners.
6. Freddy Krueger. Best score: 26 out of 40. Freddy is pure showbiz. He books the Argentine tango, all hooks and flicks and close holds, and he has the confidence for it. The glove is the issue. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) gave him four blades on one hand, and his partner’s dress does not survive the first lift. His musicals week number takes place inside a dream, which makes for gorgeous staging and a lot of very tired viewers on the Sunday. He goes out in a dance-off he swears he won in his sleep.
5. Pinhead. Best score: 29 out of 40. Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) gave us a villain with perfect stillness, and in the ballroom stillness is gold. Pinhead’s frame is flawless. His head never wobbles. Not one pin moves out of place. Doug Bradley played him like a man who has never once been in a hurry, and the waltz rewards that. What holds him back is warmth. The judges keep asking him to smile. He keeps offering them an eternity of exquisite suffering instead, which is not what they meant.
Blackpool and Beyond
4. Regan, or whatever is inside her. Best score: 33 out of 40. Halloween week belongs to The Exorcist. The famous spider walk was cut from William Friedkin’s 1973 film and put back for the 2000 re-release, The Version You’ve Never Seen, and it is the strongest piece of contemporary dance horror has ever produced. The studio goes silent. Then it goes wild. The demon would win the week outright if not for the head turn at the end. The judges allow a bit of personality, but they draw the line at a full rotation. Ginger Nuts of Horror has written about the long shadow of The Exorcist, and here it falls right across the dance floor.
3. Count Dracula. Best score: 35 out of 40. Some celebrities come into Strictly with a hidden dance past. Dracula came in with a cape. Bela Lugosi played him in 1931 like a man born to the ballroom, and the Count glides through every waltz and foxtrot in the series. Then the semi-final arrives, and with it the problem nobody saw coming. The rehearsal room is lined with mirrors, and Dracula has never seen himself in one. Since Bram Stoker’s novel of 1897 he has had no reflection to check his lines against. He has been dancing blind for ten weeks. It catches up with him in the end.
The Final
2. Pennywise. Best score: 38 out of 40. Nobody works a crowd like a clown. In It (2017), Bill Skarsgård gave Pennywise a jerky little dance that took over the internet, and he brings it to every routine. The Charleston is a triumph. The showdance is better. His only fault is the lifts. Pennywise does not need a partner to lift him. He floats. The judges cannot decide whether that breaks the rules, and while they argue about it the trophy slips away. Not that he minds. As our piece on Pennywise at 40 makes clear, he has a habit of coming back.
1. M3GAN. Best score: 40 out of 40. Of course the robot wins. M3GAN’s hallway dance went viral before the film had even opened in cinemas, and every Strictly fan saw the same thing: clean lines, sharp arms, a head that snaps on the beat. She scores perfect tens from week one. She never forgets a step, never misses a mark and never needs to sit down. Our M3GAN review called the film a cautionary tale, and her pro partner would agree. By the final he looks less like a dancer and more like a hostage. She lifts the glitterball with one hand. The other is busy deleting the voting figures.
Why Horror Villains and the Ballroom Belong Together
Look at the list again. Almost every one of these villains is famous for a way of moving. The Shape walks when he could run. The demon in The Exorcist crawls backwards down the stairs. Leatherface spins in the sunrise. M3GAN snaps her head on the beat. Take away the blood and the jump scares and what is left is choreography, and some of it is very good choreography indeed.
That is not a joke, or not only a joke. Horror has always been about bodies doing things bodies should not do. Strictly is about bodies doing things most bodies cannot do. The two shows sit closer than either would like to admit.
There is an obvious objection. Strictly is family telly, sequins and Saturday tea, and horror is the thing you watch once the kids have gone to bed. But Halloween week already puts skeletons on the stage, and families love it. The villains would only be finishing the job.
Somewhere in the BBC there is a booking form with a box for “previous dance experience”. Michael Myers would leave it blank. M3GAN would fill it in for him.
Strictly Come Dancing horror villains would make the best Halloween week the show has ever had, and also the shortest, since nobody would make it to Blackpool with all their limbs.
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About Ginger Nuts of Horror
Ginger Nuts of Horror is an independent horror review and culture site based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Edited by British Fantasy Award nominee Jim McLeod, it publishes horror book reviews, film reviews, author interviews, features and cover reveals. Ginger Nuts of Horror won Best Inclusive Film & Book Review Platform at the SME News UK Enterprise Awards 2026.
