Not all things that go bump in the night require their actors to wear heavy prosthetic make-up. Alex From both the novel and movie, "A Clockwork Orange" is one of the most vile and disgusting beings that has ever been imagined. What makes him even more repulsive though, is that he is meant to be a person we can all relate to.
Unlike the usual boogeymen who haunt our creative minds, Alex is a man who is unnervingly real. He is the boy we've all heard about, the one with no moral compass, the complete hedonist who follows anarchy to the very letter. Frighteningly, he not only enjoys his perverse indulgence of sex and violence but he sees a sort of artistry in it.
When reading the passages from the book or watching the visual techniques from the film, the viewer gets a clear understanding that Alex sees no wrong in what he is doing. Unlike the sympathetic villain who is out for revenge or trying to prove something to the world, Alex, when boiled down to the very dregs of his soul, is a calculating despicable youth who will stop at nothing to to see his chaos realized. Unlike many antagonists who sow fear and destruction because they wish to see the world plunged into disarray, Alex is the humanoid hurricane arch-type, a very force of nature that can't help but be compelled to do the things it does. There's something unsettling about this character quality. The idea that a man feels as though he has to be wicked; that in some unimaginable fashion the world needs a person like him.
Monsters come in all shapes and sizes but none is more terrifying when they wear the skin of a human. Alex is the very image of society gone wrong and reflects a terrifying possibility that lurks within us all.
Great write up on Alex . . . he is the scariest of them all because he could be, like you said, any one of us. Truly frightening.
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