Button Face

Dr. Philip K. Decker, also known as Button Face, was the primary antagonist in the 1990 fantasy-horror movie Nightbreed.

Description
A tall man who appeared to be in his late forties, psychologist Dr. Decker always dressed in immaculate business wear. What nobody knew, however, was that Decker was also the serial killer Button Face. When he chose to adopt this personality, he simply put on a pair of gloves which appeared to be made of fine chain mail, and donned his signature mask, a horrific creation that had a slanted zipper for a mouth and black buttons in place of eyes. He also carried a long-bladed knife which had intricate markings engraved along the base.

As Button Face, Decker hated everything that did not conform to the human norm, but his psychosis ran so far as to exclude everything that was not like him, and as such he would murder entire families of people, for the simple crime of not acting, living, or looking exactly as he did.

History
As Button Face’s killings gained more and more public notice, and hence more police resources, Dr. Decker realised that he had to do something to distract attention from his work. To this end, he convinced one of his patients, a disturbed young man named Aaron Boone, that he was responsible, and gave him twenty four hours to turn himself in, along with a hefty dose of mind-altering narcotics.

Later that evening, Boone decided that he could not live with being a mass murderer and attempted to kill himself, but was unsuccessful. In the hospital, he met a man called Narcisse who shared a dream of Boone’s, that of a place where monsters were accepted, and Narcisse told Boone how to find the place, a cemetery called Midian.

Boone made his way there and was bitten by one of the Nightbreed who called Midian home, but was later ambushed outside by the police, who were convinced by Decker that Boone was carrying a gun. They subsequently shot and killed Boone.

After Boone’s body mysteriously disappeared from the county morgue, Decker guessed that perhaps monsters really did live in Midian, and embarked upon a personal crusade to eliminate them, seeing them as the absolute worst monstrosities in a world full of monsters. After notifying the Sons of the Free of the existence of this nest of horrors, and accompanying them on their attempt to exterminate them, Button Face finally confronted the new champion of the Tribes of the Moon, Aaron Boone, who had become the creature known as Cabal. Unfortunately for Button Face, the serial killer proved no match for his opponent, and after killing Narcisse (who had also become one of the ’Breed), was in turn slain by Cabal.

In the aftermath of the attack, the fallen priest Ashberry came across Button Face’s corpse, and used the blood of the Nightbreed’s god, Baphomet, to resurrect him, with the intention of wiping out the few survivors of the Tribes of the Moon. This action caused Button Face to become one of the Nightbreed, although his intentions would clearly be antagonistic towards the rest of his kind.

Trivia

 * Button Face was portrayed by legendary horror movie director David Cronenberg.
 * The fact that Button Face became one of the ’Breed would ironically make him one of the creatures that he sought most to exterminate.