That’s why villains always drink milk

If you had to find a connection between Alex in A Clockwork Orange, Rose Armitage in Get Out, and Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men, you’d probably just say they were all villains.

But movie lovers and dairy farmers may have noticed something else: They all drink milk at some point in their films.

Even though I come from Ireland, where you can order milk to your home from large fast food outlets, I still have to admit that there is something creepy about an adult slowly sipping a glass of milk.

But why does it feel so scary? And how come studios continue to use this trope?

Like a horror movie where you hear a jewelry box jingling or see a little girl with pigtails before something terrible happens, a movie villain drinking healthy, childlike milk could, in contrast, make his actions seem even worse.

Speaking to IMDb, actor Anthony Starr (who plays milk-drinking villain Homelander in The Boys) said his character’s fascination with lactose “started with a rivalry with a breastfeeding baby.”

“It was that jealous Odeipal thing,” he explained.

In “A Clockwork Orange,” Alex and his crew drink drugged milk that flows from a naked mannequin’s chest before embarking on a crime spree.

Instead of feeding on their mother’s milk, they are poisoned by the “milk plus” of a not-quite-human woman.

If you ask us, this will be pretty scary for most people.

Apart from isolated cases, the milk-drinking villain has now become an image.

Given the many examples of milk mustache-wearing villains on the big and small screen, some filmmakers may have simply started using the image as shorthand for evil.

After filming his first “The Boys” milk scene, Anthony Starr said he emailed showrunner Eric Kipke and told him, “We need to make more milk.”

Apparently Kipke replied: “Way ahead of you. From now on I will write milk in everything.”