Here we go, my first Pure Evil proposal, it's on Mr. Bunting from The Imaginary. After watching the movie, I believe he is a solid candidate, he's like a horror movie villain in a children's film. He is terrifying, but let's get started.
What's The Work?[]
The Imaginary is an anime movie that hit Netflix in July, it's about Amanda and Rudger, living their lives until suddenly, Amanda is hit by a car. Rudger worries he'll be forgotten by Amanda and if he does he'll disapear all while he's running from Mr. Bunting who wants to eat him due to the way he smells.
Who Is He? What Has He Done?[]
Mr. Bunting is the main antagonist of the movie, as I described him earlier he's basically a horror movie villain trapped in a children's movie. He is a man who likes to eat imaginaries.
Bunting has eaten several imaginary friends in the past, hundreds to be exact and has eaten entire populations of them. This is because he desires for the power of imagination and that he wants to keep living forever. He also doesn't wanna say goodbye to his imaginary friend, but this doesn't make him tragic because his motivation for this is to live forever, which is why he eats imaginaries. When he meets Rudger inside of Lizzie's book store, he smells him and realizes he's a quality imagainry due to his amora. He says it's better than any imaginary he's ever eaten. Later on when he meets both Amanda and Rudger again, he attacks them in a parking lot, holding Rudger in place and trying to eat him before Amanda attacks him in the parking lot. He has his imaginary chase the both of them down, which leads to Amanda getting hit by a car and ends up in the hospital due to critical condition. When he meets Rudger again, he blames the incident on Rudger because it's a matter of how he sees things, prespective basically. He said it was his fault he ran away in the first place, but this was because he was trying to eat him. This leads to him gaslighting Rudger into letting himself be eaten because Bunting asks him if he wants to live in a world where he can't be seen or heard.
Sometime later he uses his imaginary friend to knock him off the roof of a house so he can corner him and eat him, until Emily comes and saves the day. He even sadistically says that he prefers it when imaginaries have almost disintegrated because that's when they truly taste the best. A fight soon breaks out and Emily, ZinZan, and Rudger are all fighting the imaginary friend for Rudger's life. Near the end of the fight, he decides to kill Emily to try and prove a point to Rudger right in front of him, Emily is a child by the way, and even though she is imaginary, there is an entire society in the movie dedicated to imaginary friends, so she is sentient and sapient, as she had a kid herself before she died. Rudger and Amanda can also interact with one another nicely, and Lizzie later sees him and Fridge, her own imaginary friend who later comes into play, Rudger also met him.
In the hospital, he gloats about the fact Amanda can't see Rudger anymore, until she does actually see him, and Bunting tries killing the both of them while in their imagination. A snake is even wrapped around Amanda's body at one point during the climax. Lizzie comes in and is concerned for Amanda, seeing what's going on currently as scary, and tells off Bunting. Bunting tries denying him eating Rudger and saying he's just turning him into nothingness. He also threatens to kill Lizzie and Amanda if they interfere with him eating Rudger and gets irritated when fighting them. He almost succeeds at eating Rudger until Fridge saves the day and his own imaginary friend sacrifices herself. Bunting gets happy because he thinks he ate Rudger when he didn't and when he realizes he ate his own imaginary friend, he doesn't even show any remorse for it, and instead has a slow painful demise. He first turns into a cloud of smoke which turns into a photo where his old age catches up to him, and the photo disintegrates, but it's a rightfully deserved death.
Migitating Factors[]
There isn't any aside from maybe the fact he doesn't eat his imaginary friend, but throughout the movie, even though his motive is to keep it, he doesn't really show any signs of friendship toward her and instead just uses her to do his bidding. There's not a moment where he acknowledges his care for her or anything like that, and her sacrificing herself in the end, really shows in my opinion. He also doesn't show any remorse for what happened to Amanda either so that checks out. Also, all of the times he was nice was all a facade and completely dropped by the time he meets Rudger, as he's even creepy when he first appears toward Lizzie.
Verdict?[]
I say we give Mr. Bunting a yes for eating entire populations worth of imaginary friends, trying to eat Rudger, and killing Emily. He is terrifying for a kids movie and easily passes the standard having no one else to compete with in the story. Since he is the big bad of the film.