10 Doctor Who Villains For Ben Wheatley

Clockwork Droids

The Villain: One of our all-time favorite Who episodes ('The Girl In The Fireplace') features a particularly gruesome foe - wind-up weirdoes who harvest human organs for ship repairs.

What Wheatley Could Do With Them: Request a midnight broadcast date and include a six-minute sequence in which one of the androids attempts to fix a caravan-engine with a handful of guts.

The Daleks

The Villain: As if they need an introduction. But just in case, pepper-pot Nazis who bellow "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" like it's their catchphrase or something.

Essentially the lovechild of The Terminator and R2-D2.

What Wheatley Could Do With Them: Ben's first feature, Down Terrace , infuses a suburban environment with escalating dread.

We'd love to see a similar trajectory in Who , with a kid keeping a secret pet Dalek in the basement of his parents' Brighton-based house, while it slowly repairs itself back to full strength.

The interaction between an innocent kid and a Dalek doing its best to play nice would be extremely creepy.

The Sea Devils

The Villain: We don't care what anyone says, the Sea Devils are some of the most terrifying Who villains of the past 50 years. They're essentially a gang of more intimidating Admiral Ackbars, with guns. We know, we know, it doesn't sound scary. But it totally is.

What Wheatley Could Do With Them: A young family go on holiday exploring Devon's coastline - stopping off at Wookey Hole and Cheddar Gorge along the way - only to encounter an army of giant fish-faced monsters rising from the sea once they get there. It's basically Sightseers meets Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters . With Devonshire accents.

Vashta Nerada

The Villain: Scary shadows that strip the flesh from your bones.

What Wheatley Could Do With Them: Easily one of the scariest of the nu- Who villains in concept, Wheatley could push the Nerada even further, allowing us to see that flesh-dissolving process for the first time.

But we don't want to see CGI - that's too easy, we want to this to come via the magic of claymation.

Wheatley's working on a plasticine-based project after all (with the child-friendly title Megaevilmotherfuckers ). And if it's good enough for Evil Dead …

The Weeping Angels

The Villain: One of the most chilling modern Who villains, the Weeping Angels are vicious aliens who attack you only when you're not looking. Just don't blink and you'll be totally fine.

What Wheatley Could Do With Them: Despite the fact the characters can be controlled by blinking, no-one's thought to do a first-person perspective Weeping Angels story.

Wheatley's ABCs Of Death installment is one of the best first-person shorts we've seen in a very long time. Let's hook these guys up.

Imagine being put into the eyes of a victim as they blink a gang of stone-cold killers closer and closer to their location.

Then, at the last minute, they pull out a hammer and chisel and turn them into something friendlier.

Like garden gnomes. There's nothing creepy about garden gnomes.

The Master

The Villain: Doctor Who's most personal foe, The Master is an ex-Time Lord turned Time Bastard, initially conceived as Professor Moriaty to Who's Sherlock Holmes.

What Wheatley Could Do With Him: With John Simm's incarnation apparently killed off at the end of Russell T. Davies' run on Who , Doctor Who's archenemy is overdue a regeneration. Let's have him take the form of Michael Smiley.

The Mara

The Villain: A monster that requires pure fear to survive, The Mara may not be as iconic as some of the bigger baddies, but it has its place in modern Who - mentioned by the 10th Doctor in 'Time Crash' in 2007, and getting its own audio story in 2010. Did we mention it lives off pure fear?

What Wheatley Could Do With It: Wheatley's working on his own monster movie - Freak Shift - and this could be his trial run for that. Sending The Mara slithering through the streets of London in its giant snake form - or whatever Ben's brilliant imagination can come up with (Mara can manifest as pretty much whatever it wants) - would be a lot of fun.

Cybermen

The Villain: Soulless metal men hellbent on upgrading humanity into more soulless metal men. And very occasionally ladies.

What Wheatley Could Do With Them: Overuse has taken the edge off The Cybermen a bit in recent years - we want Wheatley to make them scary again.

It's probably a bit of a stretch, but we'd LOVE the BBC to sign off on making the opening episode black and white, with The Cybermen invading the 17th Century to wreak bloody havoc during the English Civil War.

The Cybermen were terrifying in black and white. Wheatley's A Field In England is arguably the most unsettling black and white film ever made (just pipping Tetsuo: Body Hammer to the post), so let's bring these two things together and watch Twitter slowly go silent through sheer shock.

Sharaz Jek

The Villain: Big bad behind the most death-filled episode of the fifth Doctor's tenure ('The Caves Of Androzani'), and still just as bloody terrifying to look at. Forget hiding behind the sofa; Jek made us want to fling it at the telly.

What Wheatley Could Do With Him: Wheatley is a master of adult themes, so this will be right up his dark alley.

Jek was the victim of corporate greed, injured when his partner decided to save a few bucks on safety. Jek decides to take revenge, gathering an army of robo-slaves in an underground cave. Wheatley could make this relevant to today's financial climate. Except, y'know, for kids!

The Beast

The Villain: Essentially Satan. A massive, massive Satan. Who can possess minds and basically look amazing. Also, massive. Like, really big.

What Wheatley Could Do With Him: Kill List was arguably the most satanic film ever to not actually feature a single reference to the big red.

Let's get a cult of suburban families plotting to bring The Beast back from the black hole he was sent screaming into; complete with weird symbols and human hammer sacrifices. Except, y'know, for kids!