You should never trust a man who drinks milk.

I'm here to tell you the most important truth in cinema: if you see a grown man on screen casually drinking a tall glass of white milk, you can stop guessing. 

He is 100% the villain. 

He is emotionally broken. And he is about to ruin someone's life with spectacular ruthlessness. Mark my words, a grown man sipping a glass of milk is the ultimate cinematic red flag. 

My immediate alarm bells started ringing when I saw Victor Frankenstein in Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein, our deeply unhinged creator, take a swig of the stuff. And low and behold, he goes on to do some absolutely deplorable things. From creating the creature and then abusing him to taking absolutely zero responsibility for his role as a father, he's the absolute worst. 

Watch: The trailer for Frankenstein. Article continues after video.

So why is it so unsettling to see a man casually drinking a glass of milk? Aside from the fact that it's just creepy and completely psychotic (sorry, milk truthers) there's actually a very specific reason why it's so unnerving. 

The joke, of course, is the sheer, unsettling contrast of the imagery. Milk is the liquid of childhood, the universal symbol of maternal safety and innocence. When a fully-formed agent of chaos or pure evil chooses that as their beverage, the audience experiences a dizzying moment of cognitive dissonance. It's the visual key that unlocks their twisted psychology: this man never grew up. 

His capacity for horror is directly tied to an unresolved, infantile need, and his adult crimes are just an elaborate, global-scale tantrum. He's seeking the ultimate, primitive comfort while performing the most complex and ugly acts of human depravity. He's a big baby, to put it simply. 

Not convinced? The evidence is overwhelming. Take the gold standard, Homelander from The Boys. He is the walking, talking personification of this trope.

Image: Prime Video

His god complex is just a mask for being a massive, spoiled baby, and his creepy, frequent milk consumption — sometimes in super disturbing contexts — is a reminder that this "perfect" superhero is actually a horrifying, entitled toddler with heat vision. 

He demands the purest symbol of motherhood because he is a monster craving the simple comfort he was denied. What does the milk mean? It tells us that all his power and grandeur are just compensations for a childhood lack.

Then there's the master of elegant evil, Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. When he arrives at the French farmhouse, he doesn't ask for wine or coffee; he requests milk, and he sips it slowly, deliberately, while performing one of the most masterful and terrifying interrogations in film history. 

Image: Universal Pictures

And let's not forget the original cinematic hooligans, Alex and his droogs in A Clockwork Orange, pre-gaming their "ultraviolence" with drug-laced milk. Here, the milk is literally corrupted and weaponised, turning a source of nourishment into a catalyst for chaos. 

Now, let's pivot to the chilling, bowl-cut menace that is Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men. Even this unstoppable force of nature, who decides fate based on a coin toss, has his unsettling milk moment. In one scene, he's drinking from a bottle of milk while staring at his own reflection. 

For a guy who sees himself as an impartial agent of pure chaos — literally letting a coin decide if you live or die — that moment where he's patching up his own wounds and casually chugging milk while staring at his reflection is so telling.

It's like a tiny, pathetic peek behind the curtain, suggesting that this terrifying monster is just a big kid refusing to take responsibility for his own homicidal choices.

Image: Miramax

So, next time you're on the couch and the movie takes an unsettling turn toward a glass of white, know this: you are not watching a healthy man. 

You are watching a walking disaster who desperately needs therapy, and who is about to wreak absolute havoc on screen. 

Something to think about.

Feature Image: Netflix.