The most gratuitous "I am evil" scenes...

[S'mon]

Are you aware of any historical cases where Adolf hitler killed an underling himself, in cold blood, on any issue, much less a gratuitous one?

Yeah, Hitler doesn't fit the criminal psychopath mold, but plenty of dictators do - Idi Amin, Joe Stalin, Saddam Hussein & his sons, all seem to have enjoyed personally killing people, as do many crime bosses like Al Capone. Most don't do it completely randomly though, at least not to henchmen - henchmen are typically killed for saying things like "Maybe we should have elections now..."

 

[Staffan]

Lord Farquaad of Duloc torturing the Gingerbread Man by dipping him into milk.

 

[Kesh]

do you expect me to talk?

no..Mr. Bond...I expect you to die.

I love that scene. The look on Sean Connery's face after that line is absolutely wonderful. Kind of, "Wait, that's not how it's supposed to go!"

 

[ergeheilalt]

Lord Farquaad of Duloc torturing the Gingerbread Man by dipping him into milk.

Oh my, I think you've hit on something. You are a very asstute person, my friend.

Erge

 

[reapersaurus]

Fight Night - The vampire dragging his finger along the banister, the wood curling were his fingernail cuts into it.

Is that the movie where Evil Ed says "The First Rule of Vampirism
is :
You Do Not Talk About Vampirism."

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Didn't the cartoon Wizards have some really weird symbolic slaughter of a animal meant to represent a jew at the intro of the villain? I remember almost nothing about that film, but even the vestigal memory of that scene leaves me with the feeling that it must have had a REALLY EVIL bad guy....

Kahuna burger

 

[Dirigible]

Why would you have heart plugs installed in your henchmen?

I counter: Why would you not, sir? Why would you not?

 

[Rhialto]

Are you aware of any historical cases where Adolf hitler killed an underling himself, in cold blood, on any issue, much less a gratuitous one? Aside from his wife and himself, I don't know of any killing Hitler did with his own hands after leaving the army. If you say it 'never stopped them' I hope you can demonstrate that each one actually did it more than once.

Well, there was that niece of his who died under suspicious circumstances...

But nothing was proven there. Anyway, you're missing my point--most of the time the 'killing underlings' shtick is done to show how the villian keeps authority/secrets in his evil organization, and is done to underlings who show signs of disobeying, or 'know too much'. It's a bit of cliche, but the truth is evil people tend to work that way.

And the fact that Hitler ordered it done by someone else doesn't change the fact that he did it...

 

[Pants]

From Gaiman's Neverwhere, the scene where Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar eat a puppy after burning down a nunnery. And I thought that was jsut the induciton test to the Villain's Guild in The Tick...

But they were pretty much 'over-the-top' in every conceivable way.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, there was that niece of his who died under suspicious circumstances...

But nothing was proven there. Anyway, you're missing my point--most of the time the 'killing underlings' shtick is done to show how the villian keeps authority/secrets in his evil organization, and is done to underlings who show signs of disobeying, or 'know too much'. It's a bit of cliche, but the truth is evil people tend to work that way.

And the fact that Hitler ordered it done by someone else doesn't change the fact that he did it...

Still, it is not entirely random. The scenes in movies are definitely over the top here (or at least use the wrong "targets")
Failure seldomly leads to death, usually people like this get, after they used up all their connections and second chances get thrown out or get a lower rank / weaker position where they can`t do any "harm". (Unless maybe they prove a real security/secrecy risk)
People that get killed are those who can really harm the dictator (and its dictatorship)...

Mustrum Ridcully