The second Dan Dare adventure, though shorter than Voyage to Venus, this serial still upped the stakes and saw Dan and his friends battle an entire planet that had been transformed into a spaceship by a hostile alien race.
Though not quite as epic or ground breaking as the Venus adventure this is still one of the better Dare adventures and a very exciting and influential story in its own right.
Plot
In the year 1999 Dan and Digby who are celebrated heroes are enjoying a holiday on Mars. Dan’s uncle Ivor Dare a renowned Archaeologist meanwhile discovers that the ancient society of Mars was destroyed by some unseen alien force that came from the sky called the Red Moon. Sadly he is unable to find out exactly what the Red Moon is at this point.
Later Dan and Digby are called away to deal with a mysterious red asteroid which Sir Hubert coincidentally describes as being like a red moon. Naturally Digby is scared, but Dan assures him that its just a stray asteroid that fell out of its path.
Dan leading a team consisting of Digby, Professor Jocelyn Peabody, and Hank and Pierre travel out to investigate the Red Moon which draws closer to earth.
Unfortunately as they try to land on the Red Moon a powerful noise knocks them out and damages their ship using powerful magnetic forces. Dan deduces that a Venusian ship could make its way to the Red Moon as they repel all outside magnetic forces due to fact that they use magnetic motors.
As Dan and the others make their way back to earth the Red Moon arrives near Mars and begins to cause electrical storms and power failure’s.
A mass evacuation is ordered of the planet’s human colonies, but unfortunately some of its inhabitants panic and attempt to riot. Peabody manages to single handedly put down the riot by turning off the artificial gravity.
After the riot is put down the colonists manage to escape. Dan uses the Venusian ship christened the Anastasia which is able to survive the powerful magnetic force. After everyone is off Mars, Dan discovers that his uncle Ivor is still on the planet trying to finally crack the mystery of why the Martians died out. He manages just as the moon is approaching to save Ivor. Unfortunately the space station taking people from Mars to Earth is nearly pulled in by the moon’s gravitational field and though Dan manages evacuate the colonists into escape pods, Peabody is left behind and is stranded on the Red Moon.
Dan, Ivor and Digby subsequently manage to arrive on the Red Moon itself. Ivor is convinced that the secrets to stopping the Red Moon lies within the box he discovered on Mars and tries to find a way to open it. Dan meanwhile explores the surface of this strange world which is inhabited by hideous insect like creatures. Dan also manages to find Peabody who survived the crash.
As the Red Moon draws closer to earth electrical equipment begins to break down, climate catastrophes erupt all over the earth, and no spaceship is able to leave the planet.
In desperation the global powers attempt to launch an atomic strike on the moon, using one of the few nuclear weapons kept after world peace was declared.
Unfortunately it isn’t able to make its way to the Moon as the magnetic fields cancel it out. Thus it seems nothing can stop the moon as it heads ever closer to the planet earth.
Dan, Peabody, Digby, and Ivor manage to make their way back to earth where having discovered what was in the box Ivor has managed to put the pieces of the puzzle of the Red Moon Mystery together.
Ivor believes that the insects on the Red Moon originated on a similar planet to earth where insects became the dominant life form. The creatures then evolved to the point where their bodies could survive in the vacum of space and explored their nearby moon.
The creatures then found a way to propel the moon through space and used it to escape their solar system after its sun went supernova.
The creatures then piloted their moon through the endless recesses of space searching for planets whose resources they could use. They fought many battles and lost most of them at first, but over time they became much stronger. The creatures hibernate through long treks between solar systems. Ivan Dare believes that they have destroyed possibly 100’s of millions of worlds, ancient Mars obviously among them.
As they created massive tunnels on their planet and burrowed deep into the earth, their burrowing created a metallic dust cloud around the planet which turned the planet into a giant dynamo and produced huge quantities of electricity and a huge magnetic field.
The creatures also create the deafening noise by rubbing their legs together like crickets. The sound travels through space as it is turned into light waves and transformed back into sound when it arrives on a nearby planet.
The sound at full force kills its victims by creating reverberations in the brain. After the magnetic and climate problems and the sound has killed most of the life forms on the planet below, an invasion force of insects then sweep across the planet enslaving, killing and devouring any survivors. They strip the planet for all its worth and then move on to the next world.
With Earth their next target, Professor Peabody is able to devise a solution to stopping the Red Moon. She works out that as light is the only thing that can travel through space the Queen Bee’s trace the light coming from whatever planet they come near and tell if there is chlorophyll coming from it.
Using Peabody’s solution the Treens whose ships aren’t affected build a giant light house which fools the creatures from the Red Moon and causes them to pursue it thinking it is a planet instead.
A Treen ship carrying, Sondar, Dan, Digby, Peabody and an Atlantine boy named Urb then are able to destroy the red moon using a Treen super bomb.
As the planet explodes however Sondars ship isn’t able to escape the blast in time and is seemingly destroyed. Back home everyone believes that Dan, Peabody, Sondar and Digby are dead and they are hailed as heroes. In reality however they managed to survive the destruction of their ship but are stranded on Mercury.
Review
The Red Moon Mystery is overall a cracking adventure that explores a lot of interesting ideas and concepts.
The idea of a planet moving through space is an interesting idea and allows the villains of this story to seem like a much greater threat than the Mekon. The creatures from the Red Moon are brilliant villains as not only do they seem genuinely unstoppable, but they are also as different to the Mekon and the Treens as you can imagine.
The Mekon and the Treens as evil as they were did not wish to destroy humanity. They wished to conquer earth and other races across the universe so that they could study them. They were cold and logical. These creatures however are completely destructive.
They devour virtually all life on the planets they visit and strip them completely clean of all resources. They also kill because they have too as well. In a way the reader is invited to have sympathy for them as unlike the Treens as these creatures do not have a twisted belief system that inspires them to kill. Instead they are as Ivor Dare himself puts it, the victims of a horrific accident themselves who live, hideous, miserable, violent lives.
Ultimately in what is a darker solution than the hopeful end of Voyage to Venus Dan is actually forced to commit genocide and wipe these creatures out. What’s interesting is the way that Dan doesn’t destroy them to save the earth as they have already successfully driven them away from the earth. Dan and the others feel that they need to destroy the Red Moon as they don’t have a right to let it loose into the universe where it will harm other worlds. They carry out one genocide to prevent possibly millions more.
The ending of Voyage to Venus was almost like a Western, with the good guys literally riding in on horses and beating the evil monsters, this story raises an interesting moral question around our heroes of was what they did actually right? Yes they have save countless knows how many worlds, but at the end of the day they are still guilty of genocide and who is to say that the creatures from the Red Moon wouldn’t have changed their ways in due time and become a peaceful race? Ultimately even our heroes are not sure if they did the right thing and thus in contrast to the neat, happy ending of the preceding story, the Red Moon Mystery’s ending invites the reader to think about the great moral dilemma its main characters ultimately had to face.
In the end there were no easy options. Had they let the Red Moon go more people would have undoubtedly died, but what they do is still sheer murder, exterminating an entire race that is fleeing by shooting them in the back.
The idea of a giant satellite arriving in our solar system and causing havoc on the earth as it draws closer is a common story in modern science fiction. We’ve seen it dozens of times, Star Trek the Motion Picture, and Star Trek 4 The Voyage Home both revolve around this premise as does the 1998 blockbuster Armageddon and even the Futurama episodes A Big Piece of Garbage and Game of Tones.
At the time this story was released however it was a fairly original concept. The only precedents I can think of are the original Flash Gordon strips which involved the planet Mongo heading on a collision course with the earth. The George Pal film When World’s Collide was released 1 month after the start of this story in November 1951.
Undoubtedly Flash Gordon was an influence on this story, as Dan Dare was conceived as essentially a British version of Flash Gordon.
Still I feel that this story was able to make the idea somewhat more frightening than in Flash Gordon by tying the planet entering out solar system into the destruction of Mars.
The fact that we have already seen what the planet is capable of makes the threat feel greater. We are taken deep into the final days of Mars and discover that their last leader burned himself to death in order to avoid facing the insects. Again this personally for me made the threat of the planet seem greater than in Flash Gordon.
My only problem with this story is the rather huge coincidence that Ivor Dare manages to discover what killed the Martians just as the Red Moon enters our solar system. Literally minutes after talking about it with Uncle Ivor Dan is told the Red Moon is arriving in the solar system. It almost seems comical rather than scary.
It would have been better if the Red Moon had been introduced and then Dan went to see his Uncle who had discovered the warning left by the Martians years ago afterwards.
Still despite this minor plot flaw the Red Moon Mystery overall is a classic story and a worthy follow up to the original pioneering Venus adventure.
Dan Dare and the Cybermen
This story was a massive influence on the first Cyberman story in Doctor Who, The Tenth Planet.
The Tenth Planet revolves around the planet Mondas arriving in our solar system. Mondas was originally the Tenth Planet in our solar system centuries ago. It was also Earth’s twin planet. Ultimately however it drifted away from the sun and as its people the Mondasians began to die out, the survivors in order to survive the catastrophe transformed themselves into Cybermen by removing all of their organic components and replacing them with metal ones.
The Cybermen would then at a later point find a way to move their planet through space and begin subjugating other worlds, using up their resources and turning all of their inhabitants into Cybermen. Eventually the planet returns to our solar system where the Cybermen hope to cyber convert all of humanity. The Cybermen ultimately defeat themselves when they end up draining too much energy from the earth’s core which destroys Mondas.
Now it would obviously be wrong to accuse the Tenth Planet of being derivative of The Red Moon Mystery, but you can see how it did borrow from it.
Both revolve around a planet being turned into a spaceship and its inhabitants becoming hostile monsters after a cosmic accident knocks it out of the solar system and we have both worlds returning to our solar system after a long absence.
Kit Pedler who co-wrote the Tenth Planet and co-created the Cybermen was a massive fan of Dan Dare. He openly admitted to taking inspiration from it for his Doctor Who work.
He even supplied the forward for a 70’s reprint of the Dan Dare story the Man From Nowhere. Here he mentioned that the Treens were a major inspiration on the Cybermen.
The Treens are not the main villains of the Red Moon Mystery, but they are similar to the Cybermen in some ways. Both are tall, menacing aliens who have removed all of their emotions. Both operate from a position of pure logic and are utterly incapable of compassion. The Cybermen and the Treens main base of operations are also destroyed in their first stories too. In Voyage to Venus the Mekon and his Treens lose their city Mekonta and are forced to go on the run from spacefleet whilst in the Tenth Planet Mondas is destroyed and the Cybermen for the rest of their appearances in the 60’s are like the Mekon and the Treens a desperate band of creatures trying to rebuild their power base.
Kit Pedler had originally intended to create a Mekon like figure for the Cybermen. He had intended to reveal that their leader was a small, frail creature that flew around like the Mekon. Pedler hoped that this creature which he intended to call the Cyber Controller could become a personal nemesis of the Doctor much like the Mekon for Dare.
Sadly however for Pedler the budget could afford to make the creature small though they still gave it an enlarged brain which was borrowed from the Mekon’s look.
Ultimately the Cyber controller never caught on despite the popularity of his first appearance Tomb of the Cybermen. He only appeared in one more story over two decades later. Ironically Terry Nation the creator of the Daleks, whose work was also greatly inspired by Dan Dare did manage to later create a Mekon like enemy for the Doctor in the form of Davros. Davros was essentially to the Daleks what the Mekon was to the Treens. The Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Treens are all fantastic monsters of course, but the fact that they don’t have emotions (apart from anger and hatred in the Daleks case) means that sometimes it can be difficult to give them any kind of character and thus have any kind of meaningful interaction with the main hero.
Davros, the Mekon and the Controller were all meant to counteract this by being the leaders of each race of monsters who did have more of a personality and could serve as more of a classic nemesis to the hero. In Davros and the Mekon’s case it was successful (perhaps a little too successful as Davros and the Mekon in many ways overshadowed both the Treens and the Daleks) but sadly in the Cyber controller’s case, for whatever reason he just never caught on.
Whilst the Cybermen are iconic creations in their own right at their core they owe a lot to the Treens in terms of character and the Red Moon monsters in terms of origin.
In addition to inspiring the first Cyberman story, the Red Moon Mystery also inspired some Dalek stories too. The Dalek Invasion of Earth though drawing more heavily from Reign of the Robots also did draw some inspiration from this story as the Daleks ultimate plan is to remove the magnetic core from the planet earth and turn it into a giant spaceship. In the early Dalek comic books from the 60’s they also transformed Skaro their home planet into a spaceship too.
Notes and Trivia
The Mekon is mentioned briefly by Sir Hubert who says that he expected it to be a Super Mekon behind the Red Moon. The character does not appear however.
This story ran from the 5th of October 1951 until the 20th June 1952.
Whether you know him as Mr Ollivander in the Harry Potter films, the War Doctor from Doctor Who, the ill fated Kane from the Alien film series, or even as the Horned King from the Black Cauldron. There’s a good chance that John Hurt will have been involved in a franchise you loved growing up.
The actor has amassed a truly staggering body of work over a career spanning 6 decades. Despite this I’d say that overall his biggest success has been in genre films and television series, which makes him a perfect candidate for this weeks cult actors.
John Hurt I think is easily one of Britain’s most versatile actors. He has managed to avoid being type cast. Unlike other great actors such as Christopher Lee who mostly played villains. Hurt has played just about every character you can think of. He’s never at any point in his career been pigeon holed into any one type of role.
He’s been the vilest villains from Caligula, to the Horned King to Chancellor Sutler, to General Wounderwort.
Yet he has also been the persecuted unfortunate victim just as much from Joseph Merrick, to Kane, to Quentin Crisp, to Mr Olivander. He has also been the central heroic figure too such as Winston Smith in 1984, Aragorn in the animated adaptation of Lord of the Rings, The War Doctor in the Day of the Doctor, and Hazel in the animated classic Watership Down.
Finally he has also played the wise old mentor too such as Kilgarrah the Great Dragon, Trevor Bruttenholm in the Hellboy film series and Harold Oxley in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The only thing his characters often have in common is that they often die, or if not die have something horrible happen to them like get tortured, severely beaten, crippled etc.
Even Sean Bean is a total lightweight compared to John Hurt when it comes to dying.
He is definitely one of my favourite actors and I am going to enjoy exploring his career in this article.
Early Career
During the 60’s and the early 70’s Hurt was primarily a stage and television actor. He had various roles in tv series such as the Sweeney, Z-Cars and ITV Play of the Week.
He did enjoy some acclaim during this period of his career. During the 60’s the Beatles were massive fans of John Hurt, having seen him perform on stage. The actor for a short while became good friends with the band.
One of Hurt’s first major film roles was as the villain Richard Rich in A Man for All Seasons in 1966. The cast also included such big names as Orson Wells and Vanessa Redgrave. It would not be until 1975 that his career would take off when he appeared as Quentin Crisp in the ITV biopic of his life The Naked Civil Servant.
Quentin Crisp/ The Naked Civil Servant
Now regarded as a tv classic. This biographical film based on the book of the same name by the flamboyant, openly gay cross dresser Quentin Crisp was a truly ground breaking piece of television.
Homosexuality had been legalised in the UK a mere 7 years earlier, but even in spite of this breakthrough there was still widespread homophobia across the UK.
To even contemplate making a drama on mainstream television that focused on a gay man would have been a huge deal. The Naked Civil Servant however did more than that.
It helped to break down many stereotypes. Rather than be portrayed as a degenerate or a silly camp buffoon, as homosexual characters often were sadly in the entertainment industry in those days. Crisp is shown to be a very strong, charming, likable character who constantly has to battle ugly prejudice, but never lets the bullies and the thugs change who he is.
In the scene below even after he is savagely attacked by thugs, he still manages to crack a funny joke. “I seem to have annoyed you gentlemen in some way” he says whilst dripping in his own blood.
Not many programmes from that time on mainstream British television would have tackled a subject like homophobia. And to do so in such a way where we see how completely ordinary people are capable of the most extreme prejudice too was also very daring.
We don’t just simply see how the state punishes Crisp, or even the homophobic thugs on the street. The taxi driver who seems like just an ordinary person refuses to drive him to safety and happily hands him over to the thugs, who for all he knew could have beaten him to death.
The drama was in many ways decades ahead of its time and was really solely responsible for Hurt becoming a household name in the UK.
Hurt was absolutely sensational as Crisp. He really captures the flamboyance, the dry, self deprecating, naughty humour, and the charisma of Crisp superbly.
I think he really excels at showing us the inner torment and the strength of Crisp too. There are moments when we see Crisp clearly miserable and even somewhat frightened from all that he endures, but he always manages to overcome it and make the audience laugh again. With Crisp, Hurt gives us not only a very realistic portrayal of a man struggling to belong in a society that won’t accept him for his sexuality but also a very mature and sympathetic one too.
The real life Quentin Crisp was very pleased with this performance and even came to refer to John Hurt as “his representative on earth!”. Hurt would later return to the role of Crisp over 30 years later in 2009 in Quentin Crisp An English Man in New York which covered his later years.
This drama was actually very good. I was worried that it wouldn’t be a worthy successor to the original, but Hurt managed to slip into the character after 30 years like he’d never been away.
Overall the Naked Civil Servant is certainly deserving of its reputation as a tv classic and it not only helped to launch John Hurt into the spotlight, but it also gave him a reputation for playing complex, edgy characters.
Tom/The Ghoul
John Hurt starred in this relatively obscure horror film in 1975 alongside another favourite of mine Peter Cushing. Of the two of them Peter Cushing has the meatier role as the tormented widower, who keeps his demonic flesh eating son locked up in the attic.Still Hurts’s character is important to the story too. This was actually the first place I ever saw Hurt.
His character Tom is a pervert, a low life, a thief, a rapist, a sadist, a racist and a murderer. He’s actually the most evil character in the movie far more so than even the titular Ghoul.
In many ways this villainous part can be seen as a rehearsal for his role as Caligula the next year. He even has the same horrible little cackle Caligula has when he sends a man plummeting to his death off a cliff.
The funny thing about Tom is that even though he is utterly deplorable, he is also a complete moron. He practically exposes the existence of the ghoul to the authorities through his own stupidity. At one point Cushing’s character nearly hits him across the face in frustration.
The character is still menacing however. In his final moments he tries to rape the main female protagonist after having spent the last ten minutes terrorising her. Ironically the flesh eating Ghoul seems heroic when it shows up and stabs him to death.
The Ghoul is a surprisingly brutal film, more so than many other British horror movies of its type. It was clearly meant to be made in the style of the Hammer movies, but at times it feels a little bit grittier. The only main character who survives is driven completely and utterly insane from what she sees. The rest of the cast are either stabbed to death, eaten or even kill themselves!
Hurt’s character I think plays a key part in making this film somewhat darker. In a Hammer film he would probably just be a generic lackey of Cushing’s character, but in this film we are taken deep into his twisted personality.
Caligula/I Claudius
By far and away my favourite performance of Hurt’s. This was the role that made me a fan. Prior to this I liked John Hurt but it was only after seeing him as Caligula that I started to track everything he had ever done down.
The 1976 BBC adaptation of Robert Graves novel, I Claudius featured an all star cast. Brian Blessed as the mighty Augustus, Sian Philips as the scheming Livia, Christopher Biggins as the demented Nero and Derek Jacobi as Claudius himself.
Whilst all of the cast give stellar performances I think its really John Hurt that steals the show. The Caligula in this series was even more sensationalised than the version in Graves novel. Pretty much every version of Caligula on film and television has tended to exaggerate his depravity and crimes, but Hurt’s version is still probably the most wild.
Hurt’s Caligula murders his own father as a child. He kills him by slowly poisoning him which weakens his heart, then he steals a talisman that his father believes will protect him from Demonic spirits. His father now terrified of Demons is frightened to death by Caligula who places numerous horrific things in his bedroom to make him think evil spirits are coming after him. These include a baby’s corpse that Caligula murdered, and whose guts he tore out after having left it’s body to rot for days, the remains of several animals, and the head of a servant with a child’s severed hand stuck in its mouth.
Later as a man Caligula goes on to sleep with all three of his sisters, and its implied his great grandmother Livia. Later as Livia lies dying and gasping for air Caligula tortures her by taunting her that she will not be made into a goddess after she dies after he promised (which is the only way she can avoid going to hell after her sins in life). He also gropes her and forces himself on her as she is gasping for air and sobbing. What makes it even more disturbing is the cold and icey way Hurt plays it. In contrast to the later hysterical over the top psychotic performances, here he plays it in a calm almost detached way, as though his own Great Grandmother’s mental and physical suffering doesn’t even register.
I think this scene lets us know just how truly evil Caligula is. Up until this point Livia has been the main villain of the series. She is a scheming, manipulative murderer who is two steps ahead of everyone, even Augustus. Yet here she is helpless, crying, gasping for air and being sexually assaulted by Caligula.
The thing about Livia’s cruelty was it was never senseless. She only ever murdered for what she thought was the greater good. To prevent the empire from descending into war, where as Caligula has no reason to do what he does here, other than simply because he gets off on hurting an old dying woman.
Caligula later along with the Emperor Tiberius orders the murder of the treacherous Sejanus played by Patrick Stewart, as well as all of his friends and family. Hundreds of innocent people are butchered, including Sejanus’s two young children one of whom is raped first.
Much like with Livia we actually end up feeling sorry for Sejanus despite the fact that he too was a ruthless, power hungry sociopath that killed and tortured innocent people to get what he wants. In the end even he is horrified at what Caligula and Tiberius carry out!
Caligula later murders Tiberius and becomes the new emperor. I’ve always thought Tiberius’s death had a certain black comedy to it. Caligula thinks Tiberius is finally dead and announces to the world that he is the new emperor, only to be humiliated when a young slave announces that he is still alive. I love the way that Caligula has Tiberius murdered more to save face than anything else. Though its also no doubt because he can’t be bothered waiting any more having come so close. I also love the way the other senators there basically want Tiberius out of the way too. After all they send Caligula and his right hand man, the ruthless Macro played by John Rhys Davies to check and see if he is still alive. They must have known it wouldn’t have ended well for him.
Of course as we know despite everyone’s high hopes things do NOT get better under Caligula’s rule.
Not long after being crowned emperor Caligula goes completely and utterly insane. He wasn’t insane before hand. Despite sleeping with his sisters, molesting and torturing his Grandmother, murdering his father and his stepfather, Caligula was completely in control of his actions up until this point.
I preferred this interpretation as it made Caligula into a more frightening villain that he wasn’t simply mentally ill. He was always just a cruel person at his core. It also I feel allowed John Hurt a chance to really develop his character. The cold, detached Caligula who enjoys hurting Livia in his first episode is worlds away from the crazed, cackling lunatic Caligula in the later episodes of the series.
Caligula is driven insane by a constant noise in his head that he describes as a galloping. The scene where has a complete break down is one of the best bits of acting in Hurt’s entire career. He is captivating as he shows Caligula become more unstable by the second the louder the noise in his head gets. He even manages to elicit some sympathy for Caligula, in spite of everything he has done, as we see him look so helpless and in such distress, as the pain gets worse until he just collapses screaming on the floor.
Hurt’s Caligula is frightening, yet tragic at the same time as we see him just become a shell of his former self.
After he awakens Caligula comes to believe that he is a god. In fact that he is the king of the Gods, Zeus! He then marries his favourite Sister Drusilla and impregnates her.
From here on things just get completely wild. Hurt as Caligula is comparable as a performance to Mark Hamill as the Joker. In both cases the villain is just so insane you have no idea what’s going to happen next.
Naturally there are moments with Hurt’s Caligula that are horrifying such as when he murders a small child for coughing. He has his head sliced off and then carried around by Macro joking “I’ve cured his cough”.
At the same time there are other moments where his madness actually becomes a source of comedy such as when he makes his horse a senator.
Even more hysterical is the famous dance scene. Here Caligula randomly demands that Claudius and several other men arrive at the palace and see him. They are kept waiting for hours and are terrified at what Caligula intends for them, assuming he has called them up to kill them. Instead however well see for yourself.
Caligula’s madness though lending itself to some comical moments always leaves the viewer on edge, as you never know what way his mood is going to turn. He can be jokey one minute and then just snap and have his closest friend killed the next. Its great watching his numerous senators try and find ways of appeasing him, only to fail miserably as there is no way to appease a psychopath.
The Caligula in this scene as you can see is worlds away from the Caligula who tormented a dying Livia. Both are just as evil and twisted as one another, but one is very calm, manipulative, knows exactly what he is doing, knows how to play people’s emotions, how to hurt them in the worst way possible. The other is like a demented child throwing his toys out of the pram, stamping his foot, whimpering, crying and killing on a whim. Its a truly remarkable character development in just 4 episodes.
One of the funniest examples of one of Caligula’s lackey’s trying to appease him and it backfiring is when a particularly sychophantic senator attempts to kiss Caligula’s ass by saying when Caligula is ill, that he would gladly give his life to the gods to spare Caligula’s. When Caligula gets better however he makes him carry out his debt to the gods and forces him to kill himself!
John Hurt named that scene as his own personal favourite from I Claudius.
The most sensational and horrific moment however is when Caligula murders his own sister and eats their child!
Caligula believing he is Zeus, decides to consume his own child from his sisters stomach. Just as Zeus did with his daughter Athena whom he pulled from his wife Mettis’s stomach and swallowed. Athena later sprang from Zeus’s head as a warrior woman.
Caligula by this point is so insane he actually believes that his child will spring from his head! He chains Drusilla up and slices her gut open with a knife and devours the fetus.
We don’t actually see him slice Drusilla open. It cuts off just as he pulls the knife on her and we hear her screaming in pain. We then see Caligula emerge with blood and flesh dripping from his mouth and a look of horror on his face. I love the way Hurt plays this scene. He almost gives Caligula a look of clarity as he leaves the room. During that one moment Caligula went so far, even he realises what he has done. It was almost enough to snap him back to sanity even just for a few seconds.
Apparently a scene showing Caligula slicing Drusilla’s guts open was filmed but cut at the last minute.
One of the most fascinating things about Hurt’s Caligula are his interactions with his uncle Claudius. At certain points Caligula seems to enjoy tormenting Claudius most of all. He forces him to marry Messalina. At first Caligula claims its because he thinks it would be funny to force a “silly old crippled fool” like Claudius to marry a young beautiful woman, but it seemingly backfires as Claudius and Messalina actually do fall in love. Later after Caligula’s death however it is revealed that Messalina is a lying, vindictive bitch who plans to overthrow Claudius and cheats on him hundreds of times and makes a fool of him. I often wondered if Caligula was aware that Messalina was so twisted and set her and the kind hearted but somewhat naive Claudius up as a result?
Whatever the case Messalina is Caligula’s last horrible little trick on poor old Claudius.
In spite of his vile treatment of Claudius however, at other times Caligula seems to be paradoxically particularly fond of him. He often keeps him around for company more than anyone else, invites him to live in his palace, and at various points considers him another living god, Vulcan!
At one point Caligula is shown to reveal a more vulnerable side to Claudius where he confesses that he fears he will die hated by his own people. This fabulously demonstrates just how insane he is. He regularly murders them en mass for kicks, yet its only just occurring to him now that his people might not like him? He also asks Claudius if he thinks he is going mad which though a hilarious thing for Caligula of all people to ask.
However again this shows how in spite of his vile behaviour towards Claudius he has a certain degree of trust in him, as he is willing to share his doubts about being a god with him!
Claudius is often able to talk Caligula out of killing both himself and other people, often by playing on his vanity. Though Caligula is a lunatic, Claudius knows him better than anyone else and thus he is often the only person who is able to talk his way out of being killed. Even then though there are moments when even Claudius is only saved from being butchered by Caligula by sheer luck, such as when Caligula tosses him into a river and he barely survives drowning. At one point Caligula was going to murder Claudius for simply having more hair than he did, but spares him when Claudius says something nice about him being a god.
John Hurt and Derek Jacobi play off of each other brilliantly. Apparently the two had tremendous fun working together. So much so that Jacobi actually selected a Caligula/Claudius moment as his favourite from the series. Jacobi says that it was always very hard for the both of them not laugh when acting out some of Caligula’s more intense moments. Personally I’m amazed anyone was able to keep a straight face during the dance scene.
After a reign of terror in which hundreds more innocent people are butchered Caligula is finally killed by his own guards. His guards murder him simply for their own safety. No one is safe under Caligula’s rule. At the same time however many of Caligula’s assassins do still take pleasure in murdering him. One of them’s wife was driven to suicide by Caligula who forced her to regularly take part in his obscene parties where she was forced to sleep with many men against her will. Another was regularly humiliated by Caligula after he cried whilst being forced to torture someone on Caligula’s orders. It makes you wonder what horrors Caligula wanted him to inflict on the prisoner if even his own torturer cried!
After his death Caligula does appear in the final episode of the series as a hallucination of Claudius, or possibly a ghost alongside hallucination’s, or ghosts of other emperors such as Augustus and Tiberius. Caligula tells Claudius that he was genuinely shocked that he wasn’t a god when he died.
Uncle Claudius it turns out I wasn’t the messiah after all. You could have knocked me over with a feather when they told me.
I always loved the way that’s all he had to say for the hundreds of innocent people he killed under the mistaken belief that he was a god. Including his own sister/wife/mother of his unborn child that he ate!
I Claudius was a massive success all over the world. John Hurt has credited the series with launching his career in America.
To this day the image we have of Caligula stems from Hurt’s portrayal. In real life whilst many historians do believe that Caligula was a schizophrenic there is actually very little evidence that he slept with his sisters. He also most certainly did not murder Drusilla or eat his child.
In popular culture we always hear that Caligula eats his own son. In the Red Dwarf episode Meltdown, Lister tells this to the Cat as though its a historical fact but its not. It stems entirely from Hurt’s portrayal. Even in Robert Graves original novel Caligula is only speculated to have killed Drusilla by Claudius. The whole eating the fetus from the baby thing is entirely the creation of this miniseries.
Hurt’s performance as Caligula is like Bela Lugosi’s or Christopher Lee’s as Dracula. Its the one that there are elements of in all who come after.
Hurt’s Caligula has also gone on to influence other similar crazy villains in popular culture. Emperor Cartagia from Babylon 5 was directly inspired by Hurt’s version of Caligula according to the creator and writer of the series Joseph Michael Stracinzski.
The Master in the new Doctor Who meanwhile was based off of Hurt’s Caligula. Russell T Davies who reintroduced the Master, was a big fan of I Claudius, having cited it along with the original Doctor Who series as being the two series that made him interested in working in television in the first place.
In the new Doctor Who, the Master is revealed to have been driven mad by a constant drumming in his head exactly like Hurt’s version of Caligula. He also later becomes the emperor of earth and is shown to rule like Hurt’s Caligula. Simm even based aspects of his performance on Hurt’s too.
Think of the Simm Master as being an intergalactic version of Hurt’s Caligula.
Derek Jacobi himself was cast as the fist incarnation of the Master in New Who as an homage to I Claudius. Of course the great irony is that many years later John Hurt would be cast as the Doctor. Thus Doctor Who reversed their roles in I Claudius. Here Derek Jacobi plays the unpredictable, vicious psychopath, driven mad by drums in his head, whilst Hurt plays the misunderstood heroic character. Though Hurt’s Doctor and Jacobi’s Master never met they were both the versions of those characters who fought in the time war.
Caligula and Claudius have certainly changed over the years.
Caligula is definitely one of Hurt’s most iconic roles and for me it remains his greatest performance. I tend to think of him as Caligula more than any of the other characters he has played over the years. Whenever anyone mentions John Hurt, its the evil baby eating psychopath I picture rather than the tormented, disfigured intellectual.
Kane/Alien
Possibly Hurt’s most famous role. Ironically Kane is a minor character who gets killed off relatively early into the film, but its how he gets killed off that has secured him a place in cinema history.
Kane is attacked by an alien parasite which lays an egg down his throat. Later whilst he is eating his breakfast the egg hatches and the alien bursts violently out of his chest.
Apparently during the making of this scene the director Ridley Scott didn’t let anyone else know that there would be an alien prop bursting its way out of Hurt’s chest. Thus all of the actors reactions to the alien are genuine!
Its not hard to see why this scene entered into popular culture. I have always said that the first Alien was the best entry in the series simply because of how strong its story is. If you were an actor you’d b happy with any role in Alien. They are all memorable due to their death scenes. Its not like that in the sequels, where a lot of characters are just red shirts who get sliced to bits.
In this movie every death is drawn out which makes them linger in the viewers minds for longer afterwards. Whether that’s the alien bursting out of John Hurt’s chest, the Alien slowly lowering itself behind Harry Dean Stanton, or the Alien sneaking up on Tom Skerritt in the vents. All of these sequences have entered into popular culture.
Aside from his iconic death scene. I think that Kane may have also perhaps helped to prevent John Hurt from being typecast, as Kane is a much more quiet, reserved character.
Prior to Kane Hurt had been known mostly for playing crazy villains like Caligula and Tom, or flamboyant characters like Quentin Crisp. Kane I think showed people that he could play more normal, straight roles just as well.
The makers of Alien have said however that they don’t think Alien had any real impact on Hurt’s career at all.
Still it remains one of his most iconic parts and to this day Hurt says he has people come up to him and ask him to act it out.
Hurt would go on to parody his death in the Mel Brooks comedy Spaceballs.
Its nice to see that he fully embraced the cult following the movie, and his character in particular, gained over the years.
Winston Smith/1984
From a tyrannical ruler as Caligula, to the victim of an oppressive regime as Winston Smith. This movie released in 1984 itself, is arguably the definitive adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel.
At times its a little bit slow. I’m not sure that 1984 translates that well onto film. Parts of it are just the protagonist sitting on his own with his thoughts. That’s fine in a novel, but on the screen it just leads to long scenes of John Hurt sitting in his room writing.
Still Hurt manages to carry the film none the less with his obvious screen presence. The role of Winston Smith really needs an actor with gravitas like Hurt or Peter Cushing who played him in the 1950’s tv adaptation.
Hurt gives a very thoughtful, sombre and reserved performance that is truly worlds away from the hysterical cackling of Caligula. He is the perfect Winston as he makes him seem not only quiet and intelligent, but also somewhat vulnerable and sensitive too particularly in his relationship with Julia. This helps to make it all the more terrifying when he is captured at the end. That’s the key I think to getting someone right for Smith is that you need someone who can seem very thoughtful and intelligent, yet at the same time somewhat timid and sensitive, so that it is believable when he fails to resist Big Brother’s cruelty at the end of the story.
By far and away the greatest moments in the movie are the torture scenes where we see Winston’s humanity slowly get crushed out of him piece by piece. Credit must also go to Richard Burton who plays Smith’s torturer O’Brien. Burton is absolutely excellent. He gives the character a cold and steely demeanour, which contrasts superbly with Hurt’s emotional, tortured hero.
Whilst there have been many great actors who have played Winston Smith over the years, Peter Cushing, David Niven and Patrick Troughton. Hurt ultimately has to be the definitive Winston for me. I don’t really think anyone else captured the various different layers of the character quite as well as Hurt. From Smith’s loneliness before he finds Julia in a corrupt society, that only he can see for what it truly is. To his more vulnerable side when he is with her, to the sheer terror that grips him when he is finally broken in room 101, Hurt excels completely and gives a very moving and powerful performance all around.
John Merrick/ The Elephant Man
Hurts most famous role, I wasn’t sure on whether to include this as its obviously not a genre role and its not a really a cult film either. Still I don’t think you can really mention John Hurts career without commenting on this classic film, so I’m making an exception here.
The Elephant Man released in 1980 tells the story of Joseph Merrick (renamed John Merrick for the film) A kind hearted, intelligent, sophisticated man who was born with an unfortunate deformity.
The film charts Merricks life from when he first started living at the London Hospital right until his untimely death. The movie despite its reputation does have its uplifting moments, as we see John finally make friends after a life time of cruelty, and his joy at finally being accepted somewhere. Of course there are still plenty of moments that will break your heart.
Worst of all is when he is attacked by a group of people in who are led to the hospital by Jim the porter. They torment and demean him, at one point even forcing him and a woman there to kiss against their will. By far and away the most vile character in the film however is Mr Bytes played by Freddie Jones, the Circus Ringmaster who originally owns Merrick and later captures him again.
He regularly beats him and locks him up in a cage like an animal and its tragic watching him capture John again after he finally escaped from his cruelty earlier on.
The film obviously has some of the best make up for John Merrick, in fact that Oscars were forced to create a new category, Academy award for best make up and hairstyle the following year.
Still it’s Hurt that really makes the film. He brings a real innocence and sensitivity to the role. Part of what makes the film so hard to watch is how vulnerable Merrick seems. With Quentin Crisp in spite of the persecution, he always remained confident and fun. Hell he still cracked jokes even when he was dripping in blood.
With John however he can’t stand anyone even looking at his face. He is ashamed of who he truly is and that makes him all the more tragic. Quentin in spite of everything the bullies did to him never let them truly get him down, but sadly John does, which makes the moment where he finally does scream that he is not an animal all the more powerful.
Its impossible not to be moved by Hurt’s performance. Whilst Caligula is my favourite performance of Hurt’s. I can see why the Elephant Man will probably always be his most famous role.
Aragorn/ The Lord of the Rings
Hurt provided the voice for this heroic character in the original animated adaptation of J .R.R Tolken’s classic.
Sadly this version hasn’t aged well. It was certainly a noble attempt and it did inspire Peter Jackson definitive version, but still don’t expect an overlooked classic when you watch it.
Hurt is one of the film’s saving grace’s. His strong voice suits the character and helps to contrast with the somewhat more wacky Hobbit voices in the film.
Overall a good performance from Hurt but its not one of his more interesting characters.
Hazel/ Watership Down
Hurt’s performance as the main hero in this animated classic is probably his most famous animated role.
The character of Hazel much like Winston is more of an intellectual hero. Though he is ultimately shown to be a lot stronger and more charismatic than Winston.
This film released in 1978 also continued Hurt’s reputation for starring in somewhat edgy, darker projects.
Despite being a children’s cartoon the movie featured some explicit violent content which provoked some complaints from parents. When it was repeated recently this Easter during, it drew many complaints from angry parents.
Still in spite of the controversy it remains one of the best loved British animated movies.
Hurt would go on to play the main villain General Woundwort in television adaptation of Watership Down.
The Horned King/ The Black Cauldron
The Horned King is arguably Disney’s darkest and most frightening villain. He is an evil zombie/Demon creature that seeks to gain access to the black cauldron, so that he can use it to create an army of zombies with which he can destroy all life on the planet.
Hurt plays the character in a cold, detached way except when he is hurting people. I found this to be very effective as it felt as though the Horned King was so twisted and evil that he could only feel joy when he was causing pain and misery.
Freddie Jones also appears in this movie in the heroic role of Dallben. Jones appeared in the Elephant Man as Mr Bytes, Merrick’s cruel, sadistic owner. Here the roles are obviously reversed. You don’t even think of either of them as their characters from the Elephant Man, which is testament to what great actors both men are.
Trevor Buttenham/ Hellboy
Trevor Buttenham is the adopted father of Hellboy. He is a typical, Rupert Giles/Peter Cushing style expert on the occult who meets a tragic end when he is killed by the main villain of the piece, after being made to see how his son would seemingly one day become a monster.
Hurt isn’t given that much screen time but he makes the most of the relatively small role he is given like all truly great actors. He brings a real sense of authority and maturity to the role which contrasts superbly with Ron Pearlman’s gun ho, somewhat immature characterisation of Hellboy.
Pealrman and Hurt have great chemistry with one another which makes their relationship seem more real. When Buttenham is killed off it could have easily felt like just a red shirt being killed off in order to make things harder for the hero. Hurt however manages to flesh the character out to the point where the viewer is sad at his demise.
Chancellor Sutler/ V for Vendetta
The complete opposite to his role in 1984, I’ve noticed that John Hurt tends to play either the victim’s of an unfair society, Quentin Crisp, John Merrick, Winston Smith even Kilgarrah, or mad Tyrants like Caligula, The Horned King and Sutler. Depending on the role he’s either at the top or the bottom of a fascist society.
Suttler is the head of the fascist party Norsefire which rules over the United Kingdom. Norsefire has absolute control. All opposition to it is crushed ruthlessly with all political opponents along with homosexuals, immigants and Muslims being rounded up into concentration camps.
Throughout the film Sutler appears mostly on tv screens ranting about the superiority of Norsefire. At the end of the film however when he is finally killed, we see what a miserable pathetic little coward he is. Its a great example of how the man often doesn’t live up to the image that is presented of him.
Suttler is probably the villain role that Hurt is most recognised for among modern audiences. Sadly I don’t think its quite as good a part as Caligula or the Horned King as he has less screen time but still its good that Hurt in the later years of his career, as evidenced with this role hasn’t just been typecast as the wise old mentor.
Mr Ollivander/ Harry Potter Film Series
Hurt played this role in the first and the last two Harry Potter films. Though it was only a minor character this remains one of his most well known roles due to the massive popularity of Harry Potter.
With Ollivander, I feel Hurt was able to develop the character in quite an interesting way. In his first appearance he is a somewhat affable yet quite amoral character. You can tell he loves his work to the point where doesn’t care about his office getting trashed, but at the same time he doesn’t really care who gets each wand. It doesn’t seem to bother him that Voldemort became this unstoppable figure of evil. He still describes almost proudly and fondly how he went on to do “great things”.
In the final entry of the series however, after he suffers greatly at Voldemort’s hands we see a much more weary, broken character who has finally woken up to the evil that in some ways he had a part in creating.
You can see how different the character is in his first and last appearances. In spite of his somewhat limited screen time, I think the role really gave Hurt a lot to do unlike his part in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Kilgharrah/ Merlin
One of my favourite characters. Kilgharrah is a mighty Dragon who serves as a guide to Merlin throughout the series, though he also wavers between being a hero and a villain at various points.
John Hurt not only supplied the voice for this character but also the motion capture for its face.
Kilgharrah is seemingly the last of his kind. Uther Pendragon the ruler of Camelot despises magic and not only outlaws its use, but slaughters countless people found guilty of using it. He even wipes out whole magical species. The Dragons are among his victims. He tricks the dragon lords the only race who can harm the dragons into helping him wipe them out and capture the last Dragon, the Great Dragon, Kilgharrah. He then chains Kilgharrah up beneath Camelot, where no one can see him. There the Dragon remains for 20 years completely alone. John Hurt even as a Dragon is the victim of a fascist regime!
Kilgharrah contacts Merlin telepathically and lures him down to his cave. There he tells him that it is his destiny along with Arthur, ironically Uther’s son, to restore magic back to the land and unite the 5 kingdoms bringing peace to Albion.
This forms the basic premise of the series. Something magical shows up to kill Arthur and Merlin has to save them in order to ensure that he fulfils his great destiny.
More often than not when facing some magical threat, Merlin will have to go down to the cave and ask Kilgharrah what to do. Though Kilgharrah’s screen time in each episode is often quite small I feel the writers and John Hurt were able to develop the Dragon’s character quite well. In fact I think that Kilgharrah along with Gwen are ironically the two most well developed characters in the entire series.
What makes Kilgharrah s interesting is that we are never entirely sure of his motives. At times he seems like Merlin’s friend who genuinely cares about him, such as when he is sorry at being unable to help his friend Gaius. At other moments however, it appears that he only cares about his own freedom, as when Merlin and Arthur rule and magic is restored then he will be released.
Sometimes he can also appear quite callous and ruthless and it could be argued steers Merlin in the wrong direction for his own ends, such as when he tells him to murder Morganna, Merlin’s friend at that point.
You can see how sinister a character Kilgharrah appears in this scene. He tells Merlin to murder Morgana almost with glee. Is Morgana truly the threat he is claiming she is, or is it the fact that she is Uther, his sworn enemies daughter (something which only Kilgharrah knows at this point) that is really why he wants her dead.
In the season 2 finale Merlin is forced to free Kilgharah and we discover that Kilgharah only ever cared about himself all along. Once free, he tries to burn all of Camelot to the ground.
Kilgharrah naturally wants to make Uther pay, but rather than just simply eat him or burn him he decides to crush his entire kingdom. In order to prolong Uther’s torture he does this slowly visiting Camelot every night for days on end burning whole buildings to the ground and killing scores of knights and civilians. The Dragon even attempts to kill both Arthur and Gwen too.
This is my favourite scene in the show. I love everything about it, the way the Dragon seems so powerful and relentless in its revenge, and also how Merlin is both horrified and disappointed.
After everything they went through the Dragon is actually doing this. At the same time however its interesting the way that the Dragon even after Merlin strikes it ineffectively does nothing against him. It could easily burn/eat/flatten him there and then but instead it just flies away, showing that it must still have some affection for him after all.
It is later discovered that Merlin’s father Balinor is the last of the Dragon lords; the only people who could harm a Dragon. After Balinor dies Merlin inherits his power and uses it stop Kilgharrah. Though he is given the choice to kill the Dragon he ultimately spares the beast. I always found this moment rather uplifting. It was nice in contrast to Morgana seeing Merlin actually have faith in his old friend.
In spite of everything he had done he could be a better person and it ultimately paid off as later in the first episode of series 3 the Dragon saves Merlin as a thank you when the evil Morgause has him chained up and is about to feed him to giant beetle’s. The Dragon goes on to help Merlin many more times, including in the season 3 and 4 finale’s where he plays a key role in saving the day.
I think that’s quite a good message for the children who watched Merlin that doing a nice thing like sparing Kilgharrah will benefit you in the long run. If Merlin had killed Kilgharrah then he himself would have died.
Again apart from Gwen no character changes as much as Kilgharrah in the series. He starts out as a mysterious, distant figure then becomes seemingly a greedy self server and later the ultimate villain of the series, before finally redeeming himself and becoming arguably Merlin’s greatest friend and ally.
Sadly in spite of this Kilgharrah is wasted from series 3 on. After he is free I think the writers didn’t really know what to do with him, other than have him swoop in now and then and kill some bad guys when there was no other way for Merlin to escape.
Its a shame as I think there was still a lot of potential in the character. In series 4 a Dragon egg is discovered which leads to the birth of another Dragon named Aithusa. The hatching of Aithusa is another classic moment in the series and opened up so many interesting possibilities.
Sadly this is never followed up on in any real way. When we next see Aithusa she is in the care of Morgana with no explanation. She also only makes a few fleeting appearances afterwards. Kilgharrah never mentions Aithusa again in the series.
I would have loved it if Aithusa had become a major character alongside Kilgharrah. Maybe they could have got somebody like Ingrid Oliver to voice her. I would have loved that, but sadly they just basically left this plot dangling in the air.
Still whilst Kilgharrah may have been wasted after season 3. Overall I’d still say it was one of John Hurts best roles and certainly his best work as a voice actor.
The War Doctor/ Doctor Who
One of Hurt’s biggest genre roles, the War Doctor is in fact the true 9th Doctor. He is the Doctor who fought in the time war, a war between the Daleks and the Time lords. During the war the 8th Doctor consumed a potion that would change him into a warrior, and thus make him more capable to fight the Daleks.
The War Doctors presence was revealed in the story the Name of the Doctor. At the end of this story the 11th Doctor falls into his own time stream and sees visions of his older selves running around. We see all of the old Doctors that we know and love, but then in the middle is this mysterious figure that we don’t know about who has done something terrible.
Definitely one of the most unnerving moments in Doctor Who’s long history, this was an excellent introduction to the war doctor, though I remember how frustrating it was to wait about 6 months to find out what happened next.
In the next episode, the 50th anniversary itself. We discovered that the war doctor burned Gallifrey and wiped out his own people in order to stop the greatest army of Daleks ever assembled from destroying all of creation.
We had known that the Doctor had burned his people to destroy the Daleks since the start of the revival. But we had always assumed that it had been the 8th Doctor who had done it. The War Doctor was retconned in between the 8th and 9th Doctors as a version of the character who had been blocked out of the memories of the other Doctors who came after. They simply couldn’t face what they had done whilst they were him, as we can see in the video above.
In a stunning twist however it is revealed that the War Doctor saved Gallifrey with the aid of all the other incarnations of the Doctor. He managed to teleport it to safety just as the Daleks were about to open fire on it, which resulted in them destroying each other instead. Sadly the war Doctor does not remember this as it is out of sync with his timeline, and so therefore only the then current Doctor, the 11th, is aware that they saved Gallifrey.
Now the War Doctor’s presence did generate a lot of controversy from fans who wanted the 8th Doctor Paul McGann to appear in the special. I understand this complaint and I think that the minisode The Night of the Doctor which saw the 8th Doctor regenerate into the War Doctor (and even featured a cameo by John Hurt who was digitally altered to look young declare “DOCTOR NO MORE!” as he became a warrior) should have been spliced into the start of Day of the Doctor instead.
Still I did like the War Doctor as I feel it summed up why we love the character of the Doctor. The character of the Doctor is someone who changes but not completely when he regenerates.
A lot of people think that when the Doctor regenerates he can be absolutely anybody but that isn’t true at all. The point of regeneration is that the Doctor changes on the surface but he is the same man underneath, the same consciousness, same memories and the same core personality. That’s ultimately why we have stuck with him all these years. We all come to the show through one Doctor, the first one we see who is usually our Doctor, but as soon as he leaves, and a seemingly completely different character shows up. We still stick with it because as different as the new Doctor may seem he is still the same likable hero, who treats everyone as equals, who always thinks of a way out of something that eludes everybody else etc.
With the War Doctor however we see a Doctor who might actually be different due to outside forces. We are led to believe that Hurt’s Doctor isn’t actually like the others.
He kills as a first option, he has a cynical weary view of things and even physically he stands out from the other Doctors. The first 8 Doctors physically all wore more old fashioned Edwardian/Victorian era clothing, had long hair, clean shaven faces and looked Byronesque. Even the New Who Doctors, Eccelston aside more or less follow this physical template. The War Doctor however has thick facial hair, short hair and dress in plain modern clothing.
Ultimately at the end of the story when the War Doctor decides to spare Gallifrey and works with his other selves to do so we see that he was still the same hero all along. He can’t bring himself to butcher innocent lives and so he does what he always would do, thinks up a solution that evades everyone else, that sounds insane, but works.
In the end nothing can change who the Doctor truly is. Not some magic potion, not regeneration. Faces come and go, but he is always the same hero underneath.
Hurt was brilliant as the character. Throughout the episode he does make us believe that this Doctor could go further than any other Doctor ever has and destroy Gallifrey. He makes him seem not so much ruthless and cold, but more broken to the point of no hope and cynical.
At the same time however underneath the pessimism and bleakness, Hurt also I feel keeps elements of the Doctors gentlemanly qualities and his sense of humour, such as in his interactions with the 10th and the 11th Doctors. Hurt plays superbly off of Tennant and Smith. All of this makes it perfectly believable when in the end Hurt’s Doctor ends up doing the right thing. If he had gone too dark then it wouldn’t have been believable when he saved Gallifrey, whilst at the same time if he had been too light then it would have been obvious from the word go.
Hurt found the balance and it truly is one of his best performances.
Much like with Alien, Hurt has embraced the Doctor Who fandom and has appeared at conventions. He has also reprised the role in audio stories for Big Finish too.
Other Roles
Hurt has had prominent roles in many other films and television series such as Rob Roy, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the 2012 remake of Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, Midnight Express, Scandal and the Alan Clarke Diaries.
In 1987 he provided the voice for a memorably terrifying advert warning about the dangers of AIDS.
In 2012 he was awarded a lifetime achievement BAFTA, whilst in 2015 he was knighted.
Sadly in 2015 Hurt was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. Fortunately in December of that year it was announced that his cancer had gone into remission
Lets hope his recovery continues. Hurt is truly one of Britains greatest talents.
DC and Marvel comics have between them produced not only among the most iconic comic book characters of all time but among the most recognisable fictional characters.
The impact characters like Batman, Superman and Spider-Man have had on popular culture could almost be considered a superhuman feat itself!
However which is superior Marvel or DC? Well I obviously can’t answer that objectively as no one can so instead I am going to offer up my reasons as to why I feel that DC is superior to Marvel.
Please feel free to tell me who you prefer in the comments below and also what you think of my points in favour of DC. All opinions are welcome.
1/ DC has more varied heroes
As much as I like the Marvel characters I think its true that Marvel does tend to often make its most recognisable heroes at least, mutants.
Take a look at Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Daredevil, the Incredible Hulk, Ant Man, even Captain America. They are all mutants in some way.
Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Daredevil are all the result of an accident involving radiation of some kind. The X-Men meanwhile are created from a natural mutation whilst Captain America and Ant Man are created from an experiment.
Obviously not all of Marvel’s heroes follow this formula. Characters like Thor, the Silver Surfer and Iron Man don’t fit the mutant pattern. It would also be wrong to say that Marvels characters are all similar in terms of their characterisation.
Still as so many of them are the result of a scientific accident then a lot of them do tend to explore the same basic idea of science gone wrong. Many of their heroes are scientific geniuses too like Reed Richards, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Professor X etc.
DC comics characters meanwhile I feel have a greater variety to them in terms of their origins and genre’s.
Look at the main DC rooster and you will see that they are all vastly different.
Batman is like a weird cross between Sherlock Holmes and Dracula. He is an ordinary human with no powers. His series also explores themes such as revenge and incorporates elements of Gothic and horror fiction, detective stories, and even at certain points gritty crime dramas.
Batman as a hero is a very quiet, reserved, mysterious and dark character. He is motivated by a tragic event in his past. Later stories even hint that he himself is mentally unbalanced!
Superman meanwhile in terms of powers and abilities is virtually a god. He is also an alien from outer space who battles gigantic robots, mutant dinosaurs, alien tyrants, and geniuses who can invent time machines!
His stories naturally draw on science fiction stories for inspiration instead. Superman as a character is also a well adjusted, happy, positive character who fights because he thinks it is the right thing to do.
Wonder Woman is a fantastical character. She is created by the Greek Gods and naturally her stories draw on old Greco/Roman myths for inspiration instead. Wonder Woman also having spent her entire life on an island separated from the rest of the world, is very much a stranger in a strange land type of a character.
The Flash is much like the majority of Marvel heroes a mutant and thus can deal with the science gone wrong like they do.
The various Green Lantern’s are like an odd mix of fantasy and sci fi. He is someone who has been gifted with a power ring by the Green Lantern Corp. A kind of interplanetary police force made up of aliens from across the entire universe.
Aquaman is a hero from under the ocean and thus completely divorced from the outside world like Batman, Superman and the Flash who still live in cities.
As you can see its not easy to lump all of DC’s main heroes together into a category of just being mutants. Some are mutants, some are ordinary people, some are greek gods, some are men from beneath the sea, some are aliens from outer space!
I feel this makes it more interesting when DC’s heroes meet. When the Hulk and Spider-Men meet its exciting yes, but when Batman and Superman meet it really does feel like two whole worlds clashing.
You have one hero who deals with purely evil humans, relies solely on gadgets, deductive skills, who is motivated by personal vengeance, operates in the dark of night and uses fear, and then we have one hero who is an alien from outer space with limitless power, who is used to fighting gods and monsters and who is motivated purely by the desire to do the right thing.
How would these two characters work together? One is an alien and might challenge everything the other one ever thought? One might see the other one as less of a hero because of his lack of powers? Superman might also clash with Batman’s more violent methods and see him as bitter and twisted whilst Batman might see Superman as too soft?
Its not just simply a case of two heroes with different powers meeting. It runs much deeper than that.
Thus for all of these reasons I feel that DC has a more varied rooster of heroes.
DC has more varied settings
A problem I have with Marvel is that most of its heroes live in New York. Now not only do I find this somewhat repetitive but it also does lead to a bit of a problem in that technically you shouldn’t be able to walk 5 feet in New York without bumping into a superhero. Even just robbing a bank should bring in Spider-Man, Daredevil, X-Men, and the Fantastic Four!
DC meanwhile tends to give each super hero their own city to operate in. With Batman we have Gotham, a dark, gloomy, atmospheric city filled with big Gothic cathedrals, areas that are just complete slums, dark, horrible, little alleyways etc.
Metropolis on the other hand is the complete opposite of Gotham. Its bright, its buildings look futuristic, it looks like a happy, nice place to live.
Both cities almost reflect the heroes who live in them’s personality’s. Gotham is broken and damaged like Batman, whilst Metroplis, is bright, advanced and sunny like Supes himself.
Personally I find it more interesting to actually create almost a whole world for a hero to inhabit rather than simply dumping them in a real city.
Its heroes origins often make more sense
Now a problem I think that arises from so many Marvel heroes being accidents caused by radiation is that technically there should be more than one version of them.
For instance Doctor Doom knows that flying through those cosmic rays created the Fantastic Four right? So why doesn’t he just send his own spaceship up there and gain the Fantastic Furs powers or similar super powers?
Similarly what happened to the Spider that bit Peter Parker? Did it bite anyone else, in which case there should be another Spider-Man? Also even if that Spider died then couldn’t the radiation that created it have created another one? Its not so unreasonable to assume another Spider would fall into its light and mutate it the way the previous one was mutated.
The Hulk’s origin meanwhile is completely nonsensical. Leaving aside the fact that being hit by an Gamma bomb should have killed him, what kind of a bomb not only can’t kill one human, but actually transforms them into an unstoppable killing machine! Imagine if the USA had dropped this bomb on one of their enemies cities. They’d give their enemy an army of the most unstoppable monsters to use against them. Worse still is when you consider that this bomb was designed by one of the greatest minds on earth. Seems to me Doctor Banner’s intelligence is overrated if he designed a weapon that would have made his enemies unbeatable!
Batman’s origins make sense. He is traumatized by what happened to his parents and vows to make sure that that will never happen again. Its a specific event that happened to him and it all depends on how he himself reacts to it.
Superman meanwhile is the last of his kind (until Supergirl and Zod show up at least) so that explains why there aren’t more supermen out there. Supes is the only Kryptonian on earth for the most part so therefore no one will ever have the power he does.
Wonder Woman meanwhile depending on her origins is either the only Amazon to leave her island or a special warrior created by the gods, so again there is no one like her.
The Green Lanterns meanwhile are not unique hence why there have been more than one version of them, Jon Stewart, Hal Jordan, Kyle Raynor etc.
With many of the DC comics characters I feel there are less holes in their origins.
I prefer DC’s Multiverse formula to the floating timeline utilized by Marvel
DC and Marvel have run for many decades and naturally their characters have not aged Nobody wants to see a 70 year old overweight Batman try and squeeze into his tights or an OAP Spider-Man battle arthritis.
Thus all of our heroes are kept reasonably young and DC and Marvel have come up with two different ways of doing this.
Marvel simply ignores the fact that many decades have gone by. Much like the characters in the Simpsons, Marvels heroes haven’t aged at all or at least aged very slowly as the decades have gone by. This process is referred to as a floating timeline and I don’t think it works quite as well in a serious storyline. Its fine for comedy, hell if anything it can add to the comedy, but in Marvel’s case it sadly makes it seem somewhat silly.
Peter Parker has been 28 now since about 1975. Things like the death of John Lennon, the fall of the Berlin wall, 9/11, the war in Iraq, have all happened in about one year in the Marvel universe. Its even worse for Marvel as a large part of Marvel’s appeal is that it’s heroes for all the fantastical, science fiction elements live in a world that is like our own and deal with everyday problems.
Its odd thinking that stories in the 70’s only happened at most a few years if even that away from stories in 2016 when obviously the world around them has changed so much. Why didn’t Peter Parker have a mobile phone in stories set in 1969 for example? Also how come the Punisher and Tony Stark are still young men in 2016 despite being Vietnam war veterans? Magneto who was a holocaust survivor should be a lot older than he is now.
DC got round this by revealing that all of their stories from the 30’s-mid 50’s took place in an alternate universe to the stories from the 60’s-mid 80’s.
This wasn’t simply a reboot however. We actually had the Flash from the 60’s-80’s travel to the universe of the Flash from the 30’s-50’s and the two of them work together.
Part of the reason DC introduced this multiverse concept was also to explain why there were different versions of heroes such as the Flash. In the 1950’s the company hit financial troubles and most of their series including those starring heroes such as the Flash and Hawkman were cancelled. The big three, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman continued to run throughout the decade of course. During the 1960’s DC revived many of their heroes such as the Flash and Hawkman.
These versions of those characters however were completely different. They had different, origins, in some cases different powers, and different identities. The original Flash was Jay Garrick, the then modern Flash was Barry Allen.
The only problem with this was Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman who had run right the way through had had crossovers with both the old and the new versions of heroes like the Flash and Hawkman.
Thus the alternate universe idea was dreamed up to explain this continuity blip more than anything else. All of the stories with the Jay Garrick Flash took place on Earth 2 which had its own version of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman who were the versions we saw from the 30’s to the 50’s, whilst the stories with Barry Allen took place on Earth 1. Its kind of confusing the way the modern earth was called Earth 1, but that’s only because Barry Allen discovered Jay Garrick’s earth first.
The comic that establishes the DC comics from the 30’s-50’s take place in an alternate universe to those from the 60’s-80s, Flash of Two Earth’s.
It was really a bonus that the alternate universe also explained why the characters hadn’t aged. When we saw the Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman of Earth 2 they had all aged accordingly. The Superman and Batman who had been around during World War 2 were now old men on earth 2. Other continuity errors were explained away this way too.
The alternate universe explanation I felt was a genius idea that not only got round the heroes not ageing problem as well as some big continuity issues, but it also opened up new and exciting story possibilities that weren’t available to Marvel.
For instance DC were actually able to finish their characters from the 30’s-50’s stories. That’s another thing about the floating timeline is that it does feel like nothing can ever change. They can’t for instance bring Spider-Man’s story to a close and kill him off. Okay he has been killed off in the past, same with Captain America, but the point is they aren’t going to stay dead are they? They aren’t going to age, retire, settle down with children because if they do then that’s that no more series.
In DC meanwhile the Batman from Earth 2 eventually married a reformed Catwoman and the two had a daughter named Helena who after her mother was killed by criminals became a costumed hero called The Huntress.
The earth 2 Batman would later die in battle with a powerful wizard. Remember this wasn’t any old Batman, this was the Batman who had been in every Batman comic from the 30’s-50’s. This was my grandfather’s Batman! Thus his death within the context of the story was quite a big deal.
His daughter the Huntress would later travel to Earth one where she would meet its version of her father whom she came to call Uncle Bruce.
We also got to see the earth one and two versions of Superman and Wonder Woman meet too, with the two versions of Wonder Woman developing the closest relationship with one another.
There were regular crossovers between the Justice Society of America the original superhero team from the Second World War and the Justice League of America the more modern superhero team.
Different versions of villains would even meet. The Lex Luthor of Earth 2 who had hair and was a more openly vicious, savage and sadistic character would work along side his bald, more cerebral earth 1 counterpart and an evil version of Superman from earth 3 to try and conquer earth 3..
The multiverse concept was sadly written out of DC in 1985 in the story Crisis on Infinite Earth’s which saw nearly every universe be destroyed by a powerful being called the Anti monitor. The few surviving universes were then merged into one universe called New Earth. All stories post 1985 took place on New Earth and DC thus sadly adopted the floating time line idea too. Fortunately the multiverse was recently restored in all its glory.
I’ve always found it lots of fun seeing the Superman from the 30’s, my grandad’s Superman with white hair fighting the Superman of the 21st century in Final Crisis. To me it was just simply a better idea than pretending the characters don’t age.
Conclusion
For all of these reasons I prefer DC to Marvel. I certainly don’t hate Marvel and I will admit I do think Marvel did some things better than DC.
I think that Marvel were better at making their heroes more relatable than DC. Also I think Marvel generally do teams of heroes better than DC. I do love the Justice League but ultimately I think that the X-Men, Fantastic Four and the Avengers are more interesting than the Teen Titans or the Justice Society.
Also I think Marvel has a better track record at making films. In all fairness I think the Batman movies are better than any Marvel film (except for the X-Men), but Marvel still has the better track record simply because they haven’t put all the focus on just two characters. Hell Marvel have been able to bring completely obscure series like Guardians of the Galaxy to the big screen.
DC haven’t to date made a solo film about their third most famous character Wonder Woman and so for me Marvel deserves more credit for not just focusing on two bloody characters all the time!
Overall DC and Marvel have produced some of the finest characters in the history of sci fi and fantasy and the genre’s would surely be a poorer place without them. But in my opinion DC is just that little bit better than Marvel. For the record though my second favourite hero is Spider-Man, but Batman is still my all time favourite.
Throughout the 80’s there was something of a revival of fantasy, sword and sorcery films which produced many beloved genre classics. From The Princess Bride, to Labyrinth, to The Black Cauldron, to Legend. Though ironically many of these films were actually flops when they were first released, they still have devoted followings decades on.
Now as with many other films, the most memorable characters in these movies were often the villains. The villains were naturally the more colourful, and over the top characters. They were naturally often played by the most engaging actor in the cast from John Hurt to David Bowie!
In this article I am going to run through my list of top 10 villains from 80’s fantasy films.
10/ The Crystal Spider/Krull
Krull overall is decent if somewhat overlooked fantasy flick, but the scene with the Spider definitely always stood out the most for me. Its a classic moment that is both genuinely moving and frightening at the same time.
The woman at the centre of the Spider’s maze, known as the widow of the web is a powerful sorceress who was exiled there after murdering her and the character Ynyr’s only child.
When Ynyr manages to make his way into her lair she redeems herself by giving him the knowledge of the location of the black fortress. Sadly in order to allow him to escape past the Spider and tell the others where the Fortress is, she is forced to not only sacrifice her own life, but his as well as. The spell she casts will protect him from the spider, but as soon as the sand runs down he will die. Though he does manage to get free and tell the others of the Spider’s location, the Spider subsequently eats the Widow alive who is happy to finally be free of her pain and guilt.
This scene truly is perfect. Its incredible the way we end up feeling sorry for the Widow despite the fact that she carried out the most heinous crime one can imagine. I think it was this moment that really gave the movie a lot of gravitas and stopped it just being another generic fantasy flick.
The Spider itself is well animated and the fact that it can move so fast along its own web helps to create a feeling of helplessness when Ynyr is trapped.
The idea of a damsel in distress being trapped somewhere that’s guarded by a monster and the male hero then has to try and slay it, and whisk her off her feet is perhaps the oldest trope in fairy tales and fantasy stories. The Spider and the Widow however manages to turn the old trope on its head in quite a sinister way.
It gives us a very bleak take on the idea. Here the male hero dies and the damsel is actually imprisoned by the beast for something horrible she did, and is beyond the point of saving because as she does not want to live with her guilt any more.
As the spider is at the centre of the conflict of this fantastic scene then I have to rate it as one of the most memorable Fantasy villains of the 80’s.
9/ Medusa/ Clash of the Titans
One of Ray Harryhausen’s best. This monster scared the hell out of me as a child.
Harryhausen doesn’t just simply give us a woman with snakes in her hair. He turns Medusa into a hideous half woman, half snake hybrid that crawls along the floor like a reptile.
He also gives the face of the monster a hideous, cruel expression that gives you the impression that it enjoys trapping its victims in a state of living death forever.
The idea of Medusa was always a terrifying concept. A woman cursed to transform anyone who looks at her into stone, but Harryhausen I think much like with the Centaur in Golden Voyage of Sinbad really beefed the idea up and made the creature even more frightening.
Whilst the Kraken may be the more iconic beast from this movie, the Medusa definitely scared me more as a child.
8/ The Kurgan/ Highlander
The Kurgan is an evil immortal. In the Highlander universe immortals are people who start out human but after they are killed they come back to life in a state where they will never age and cannot die unless they are decapitated. It is said that all of these immortals will fight with each other until only one remains, who will win an ultimate power known as the prize which will allow them to rule over the earth forever.
The Kurgan originally came from a tribe of people known as the Kurgans who used to toss children into pits of wild dogs for fun! The Kurgan killed all of the other members of his tribe so that he would be known as THE Kurgan. He would go on to take many more thousand Immortals heads as well as rape and pillage his way through history; until only he and his archfoe, Connor McLoud a Highlander from Scotland (who first death the Kurgan was responsible for) are the last two Immortals left who battle it out in New York city in 1985 for the Prize.
The Kurgan isn’t the most nuanced villain, but he is lots of fun because he is just such a petty asshole. He does the most childish and nasty things like scaring old ladies, knocking people off bikes, even just putting the candles that Connor lights in memory of his wife out.
Clancy Brown who plays the villain added a lot of the comedic elements to the character. Originally he was written as nothing more than a generic thug, but Brown injected a lot of black comedy into the villain which made him more memorable.
At the same time however the comedic aspects didn’t prevent the character from still being genuinely menacing and there are many disturbing moments with the villain such as his brutal murder of Ramirez played by Sean Connery, whose death he prolongs for his own sadistic pleasure. Or his rape of Heather, Connor’s wife which he later taunts Connor over telling him that she must have loved it and wished he would return!
Clancy Brown is absolutely sensational in the part and really I’d say he steals the show from both Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery.
There were many sequels to Highlander and even a whole television series, but the Kurgan never appeared in any of them which was probably for the best as none of them where as strong as the original.
This role also helped to launch Clancy Brown’s career, though he would be typecast normally as villains such as Captain Byron Hadley in the Shawshank Redemption and Lex Luthor in various animated series and films. The Kurgan however will probably always be the part he is most remembered for.
7/ Thulsa Doom/ Conan the Barbarian
Now this version of the character was actually an amalgam of two Conan villains from the original comic books Thulsa Doom and Thoth Amon. Inspiration was also drawn from real life cult leaders such as Charles Manson too.
James Earl Jones is excellent in the role. He underplays it and brings a real quiet menace to the villain. Its true that in certain ways a villain who doesn’t shout, scream or chew the scenery can be more frightening. Sometimes a more insane villain works, but in this case, Jones’s quiet, soft spoken voice adds an eerie quality to the villain.
Thulsa Doom is depicted as a demented cult leader who also has the power to turn into a snake! He is also responsible for the deaths of Conan’s parents. He feeds his father to dogs and cuts his mothers head off right in front of him.
Conan later gets even with him by chopping his head off in front of all of his minions. I think of all the villains on this list Thulsa has by far and away the best death.
Fair enough the Kurgan is also decapitated, but with Thulsa we not only see him die, but everything he has ever believed in, everything he has spent centuries building die with him as Conan slaughters him in front of his entire cult and destroys the image he has created for himself as a god in an instant.
The other cool thing about this scene is that technically its The Terminator vs Darth Vader!
6/Count Tyrone Rugen/ The Princess Bride
The supporting villain in The Princess Bride, Tyrone Rugen makes the list as he is without doubt the most vicious villain in the film. The other two main villains of the movie played by Wallace Shawn and Chris Sarandon are presented in a more comical, silly way, with Sarandon’s Prince Humperdinck being a total pansy.
Rugen however is portrayed as a relentless sadist who enjoys torturing his victims as seen when he actually tortures the main character Westley to death. Apparently during the torture scenes Christopher Guest who played the Count got so carried away he actually injured Cary Elwes who plays Westley in real life.
Rugen also gets a very memorable death scene where he is killed by Inigo Montoya whose father he had butchered as well.
5/Queen Bavmorda/ Willow
The main villain from the cult classic Willow, Bavmorda is an evil witch who seeks to destroy a baby that is prophesized to bring about the end of her reign of terror. She plans to destroy the child’s soul in order to prevent it from being reincarnated. The great irony is at the end she herself falls victim to the very magics she had planned to use to destroy the child.
Jean Marsh is excellent as the Queen. She did seem to make a career out of playing witches. She also played a witch in Return to Oz who steals people’s heads and in the Doctor Who story Battlefield she played the evil witch Morgaine.
4/ Nothing/ The Never Ending Story
The Nothing is an endless void that erases everything in its path. Its ultimate aim is to consume the entire land of Fantasia.
The Nothing unlike a lot of the other villains on this list has no real character. He isn’t played by an actor who can give him a big gloriously over the top personality like the Kurgan. At the same time he is also not really a monster like the spider or Medusa. He’s just a big puff of smoke.
Still despite this I found him to be an effective villain overall. The fact that it is just an endless mass in some ways makes it more terrifying as there is nothing you can relate to. Its just whirlwind of death that sweeps through the entire land consuming everything in its path. Its not something you can understand, its not something you can reason with and its not even something you can fight.
I used to have nightmares where I would be chased by the nothing through my neighbourhood and I’d be trapped outside my house as it came closer and closer.
3/ Jareth The Goblin King/ Labyrinth
Jareth is the main villain from the Jim Henson classic Labyrinth. He captures the brother of the main protagonist Sarah and gives her 24 hours to make her way through his maze or else her brother will become one of his goblins forever.
Now as we all know I often don’t have time for in love villains, but in this case I’ll make an exception as hey, its David Bowie!
Bowie is exceptional as Jareth. He never makes Jareth seem either too evil or too friendly. He is always manages able to add a certain air of mystery to the character where you aren’t really sure what his motives are throughout large chunks of the film.
Is he an evil monster who is just toying with Sarah and would never have released her brother? Or does he want to simply teach her a lesson and would never have harmed either of them? You’re not entirely sure as Bowie adds so many different dimensions to the character. Even the way he talks, almost in a sing song voice that sounds quite pleasing at times, yet also unnerving helps to make this a truly mysterious character.
Things become even more complicated when Jareth seemingly ends up falling in love with Sarah. Bowie is able to make Jareth seem somewhat sympathetic in the scenes where he pines for Sarah and unnerving when we see how much his infatuation with her is driving him over the edge.
When Bowie sadly passed away in January of this year he left behind a truly incredible body of work and whilst he may be remembered more as a singer, he was also a brilliant actor too and Jareth is definitely his greatest role.
2/ Darkness/ Legend
One of Tim Curry’s finest performances. Darkness is an ancient Demon that seeks to kill two unicorns which will cause eternal darkness to fall over the land and allow him to rule it forever. He is essentially meant to represent Satan himself and is arguably one of the most iconic depictions of Satan in cinema history.
Like Jareth, Darkness also falls in love with the main female protagonist, Princess Lily and tries to corrupt her into becoming his bride. The difference between Darkness and Jareth is that whilst a whole generation of young girls ended up falling in love with Jareth, Darkness is a hideous, twisted monster. Its like a dark version of Beauty and the Beast where the monsters love for the human woman does not redeem it. Instead it tries to drag her down to its level.
Whilst the make up for the beast is absolutely incredible, Tim Curry really gives the character a lot of menace and presence. His naturally deep, strong voice helps to overcompensate for the fact that he is more limited by the make up that completely covers his face.
Like many of the other actors on this list who have played the villain, Curry easily steals the show from the hero of the film Tom Cruise and really his performance is what people remember from this film more than anything else.
1/ The Horned King/ The Black Cauldron
The Horned King is a Disney villain, but he is unusual among Disney villains in that he is treated very seriously, isn’t camp, doesn’t have a badguy song and is scary as fuck!
Its hard to believe this guy was the main villain in a movie aimed at children! With his rotting green skin, bright red eyes he looks every inch the perfect horror movie villain.
To me the Horned King is the ultimate Dark Lord. There are no shades of grey to him at all. No falling in love with the hero’s girlfriend, no moping about, he is just pure evil. His ultimate plan is to use the black cauldron to summon up an army of indestructable zombies to kill every living thing on earth. So he essentially wants to create a Zombie apocalypse in a Disney movie!
The Horned King is voiced by John Hurt who gives him a somewhat monotone voice which helps to reinforce the idea that he is a living corpse. Though there are moments when he loses his temper, and he is also still shown to have something of a dry sense of humour such as when he taunts the main heroes. To me it seemed like the Horned King was dead to all feeling except for when he was causing pain and suffering.
John Hurt has of course gone on to play a wide variety of other characters throughout his very long and successful career. To modern day fantasy fans he is probably best known as Mr Olivander and the War Doctor (two roles that could not be more different to the Horned King!) Still he certainly made a huge impression on those who saw this film as a child.
Whether he’s playing a time lord, a wizard, a twisted Roman Emperor, the victim of an oppressive regime, the head of an oppressive regime, or an evil zombie king with pet dragons. John Hurt always manages to make the role his own.
Tim Curry is without doubt one of my favourite actors. He’s one of these performers who regardless of how poor the production he is in, or how small a role he has been given, he always manages to make it memorable.
The man is just sheer entertainment and joy in human form and in this article we are going to be taking a look at his most popular and celebrated roles in cult films and television series.
Unlike other actors in this series we won’t be able to look at every genre role he has played as Curry had been in hundreds of different series and films. He has been compared to the late great Christopher Lee in this respect in that though both men have starred in many genre classics, the fact that they were in so much means that sadly they were in quite a lot of shit too like Congo and in Lee’s case Captain America 2: Death too Soon.
Instead we will be looking at his most popular and iconic roles as well as a few of my own personal favourites in order to give you an overview of the great man’s career.
Doctor Frank N Furter/ Rocky Horror Picture Show
Curry’s breakthrough role. Curry first played this character on stage before going on to play the part in the film adaptation of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975.
The character was according to Curry originally intended to be just a generic pastiche of evil scientists from old horror movies, but gradually over time both he and the director of the original stage show added more flamboyant aspects to his character, such as his cross dressing nature, and his plummy accent which Curry said he based on an old lady he had seen on a bus.
You’d be hard pushed to find a more over the top villain than Frank N Furter. A cross dressing alien who shags the main male and female characters, eats his servants and builds a perfect man to sleep with in his lab. Naturally of course only Tim Curry could bring such a gloriously flamboyant character to life.
The moment that secured Curry’s status as an LGBT icon for all time and managed to confuse more than a few straight men.
Its not hard to see why Curry’s performance was so popular at the time and remains so. Its completely sensational. From the second he first appears he manages to stand out in a film full of already quite colourful characters.
Curry is able to inject a lot of feminine and masculine qualities into the character which I think is more effective than if he had simply played it as a man who wants to be a woman. He truly does give the impression that Frank N Furter (an alien) is someone to whom gender and sexuality doesn’t matter one bit. On the one hand the way he talks at times can be very masculine. Despite having based the accent on an old lady, Curry makes Frank N Furter’s voice very deep and booming, yet his mannerisms are obviously very feminine too. Frank N Furter manages to be appealing to both the male and female protagonist as a result and confuses just about everyone who ever saw the film!
In terms of his musical performance Curry really excels too. A natural born singer and performer on stage Curry manages to inject Frank N Furter with the charisma and showmanship of Freddie Mercury, mixed in with the androgyny of a Glam rock era David Bowie. Curry mentioned David Bowie as an influence on Frank N Furter. Freddie Mercury may have been an influence as whilst Freddie was largely unknown when the original stage show started in London, he and Curry were very good friends.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show having been a huge success on stage would prove to be an even bigger hit on the big screen, though it was universally slated by critics at the time, it has since gone on to develop a massive cult following almost like no other film. It’s still in a limited release in cinema’s around the world today. This makes it the longest running theatrical release in cinema history.
Despite the films global following, Tim Curry for many years shied away from discussing it. There are a few interviews with Curry you can find on line of him talking about it, but generally speaking he seemed to often not want to mention it in public.
The reason for this is not because Curry hated the Rocky Horror Picture show, but simply because Curry in general is a very private man who actually rarely gives interviews on anything. Virtually nothing is known about his private life. He didn’t discuss the character of Pennywise another one of his most famous roles until 2015!
Added to that as The Rocky Horror Picture Show was such a sensation Curry was scared about being typecast. Its understandable that a young, up and coming actor would want a chance to play many different characters.
On stage Curry did manage to avoid being typecast playing roles as diverse as Amadeus Mozart (which he cites as his favourite role) and King Arthur in Spamelot, but on film and television he would often play the flamboyant villain due to Rocky Horror’s success.
Still I’d say that Curry did manage to break away from the shadow of Frank N Furter only in the sense that whilst he may have made a career out of playing mostly flamboyant and crazy villains, he has become I think just as well known for other characters as much as he has for Frank N Furter.
To some people Curry is Pennywise. A friend of mine who attributes her fear of clowns to watching IT as a child has never seen Rocky Horror and knows nothing about it, but she absolutely loves Tim Curry because of the big role his character had in her childhood. To her he will always be Pennywise. Similarly I myself never saw Rocky Horror until a year or so ago. Growing up I always knew and loved Tim Curry because of the movie Clue, which is still one of my all time favourite films. Whenever I think of Tim Curry, Clue is the first film that springs to mind.
In more recent years Curry has been more willing to talk about his role in the Rocky Horror Picture show. He appeared at its 40th anniversary reunion in 2015 and is scheduled to play the role of the Criminologist Narrator (a role played by Charles Gray in the original) in the upcoming remake starring Laverne Cox as Frank N Furter. This will mark Curry’s first live action role in over 6 years due to his stroke. It somewhat fitting then that its in a remake of the film that made him a household name in the first place.
Curry with the rest of the cast at the 40th anniversary reunion.
Darkness/Legend
One of Curry’s most famous villainous roles and arguably the most famous depiction of the devil in cinema history. Darkness is the main antagonist of the 1985 film Legend. He plans to murder two unicorns so that he can use their horns to destroy all light on the earth and bring eternal chaos to the world. At the same time however he also falls in love with Princess Lily and attempts to marry her.
Curry won the role of Darkness based purely on his performance as Frank N Furter. Ridley Scott was a fan of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and felt that Curry who had acted superbly in high heels as Frank N Furter would be perfect to play the cloven hoofed Satanic villain in this film.
Darkness is a truly memorable creation. A fantastic combination of excellent make up and Tim Curry’s incredible stage presence. Whilst the make up obviously gives the character a memorable look, at the same time such heavy make up can be limiting for an actor, as it can prevent them from using their facial expressions. Curry however manages to rise above this and ironically makes Darkness despite his monstrous appearance a somewhat alluring villain.
Normally I don’t like in love villains. I often find them to be a bit dull and boring and even at times pathetic as really to me a bad guy should be more than just the heroes love rival or jealous ex.
Here however I feel that it works as they are able to turn the classic Beauty and the Beast story on its head. We all know the story of the big scary monster that falls in love and we see its tender, sweet side through its love for the human woman. With Darkness however his love for Lily is presented in a frightening way as we see him try and corrupt her and drag her down to his level. He is also shown to be abusive towards Lily, even striking her when she defies his will.
Whilst Darkness does genuinely love Lily its in the most perverse and twisted way possible which is befitting to a creature that knows only evil.
You can really appreciate the time and effort that’s been spent into creating the make up for the beast and Curry’s performance.
Legend much like many of Curry’s other films such as Clue was a bit of a slow burner. It received some acclaim upon release but was basically a box office flop. Nowadays it is regarded as a cult classic and indeed Curry’s performance as Darkness is by far and away the thing people remember the most about the film, certainly more than its leading man Tom Cruise.
By far and away my favourite performance of Curry’s. Growing up this was one of my favourite films and it still is. I must have rewatched it about 100 times. Whenever someone mentions Tim Curry I get an image of him as Wadsworth from this movie. Again I think that’s the great thing about Curry is that he is not just known for one big iconic role like say Sean Connery. Obviously Connery has had a brilliant career, but whenever you mention Connery I think to most people James Bond would pop up in their heads before any others.
With Curry though like I said it isn’t like that. Yes to lots of people the Rocky Horror Picture Show will spring to mind but to others like my friend, Pennywise will be what they think of and for others it might even be Nigel Thornberry. For me and many others however we will always think of Clue first when we think of Tim Curry.
Clue was released in 1985. It was based on the famous board game (known as Cluedo in the UK.) It sees 7 guests invited up to a mysterious mansion in the middle of nowhere. All 7 of them are victims of blackmail and all are given assumed names to protect their real identities.
The butler of the Mansion Wadsworth (played by Tim Curry) reveals that one of the guests Mr Boddy is the one blackmailing the others. Wadsworth tells them that he has phoned the police and that all the guests should reveal to them what Mr Boddy has done in order to put him behind bars. Many of the guests however are unhappy about this as they too will be exposed.
Mr Boddy offers them all a way out. He gives them all weapons and the chance to kill Wadsworth who has the key to the front door so that they can all escape before the police can arrive and identify them.
Mr Boddy turns out the lights and allows them to kill Wadsworth, but his plan backfires and he himself is killed by one of the guests in the dark. Wadsworth feeling guilty over his death then explains the truth. He too was a victim of Mr Boddy. His wife had friends who were socialists (the movie is set during the McCarthy era in the 1950’s) and with this knowledge Mr Boddy blackmailed the both of them into working for him as slaves.
Wadswroth’s wife then killed herself and Wadsworth became determined to bring Mr Boddy to justice and invited all of his other blackmail victims here to try and expose him and force a confession out of him. Even he however never dreamed Mr Boddy would go this far and try to murder him.
One by one 5 more people are murdered as Wadsworth and the other guests try to figure out who is the murderer. The cook is stabbed to death, a motorist who shows up after his car breaks down is hit over the head with a wrench, a Cop who arrives at the house is beaten to death with a lead pipe, Yvette the chamber maid is throttled to death and finally a singing telegram girl is shot dead.
After the singing telegram girl is killed Wadsworth works out who the murderer is and goes to the effort of re enacting the entire evening to the guests in order to explain how the murderer did it.
From here there are 3 different endings. This is meant to reflect the nature of the board game itself where anyone can be the killer. One night you play it, it could be Colonial Mustard, another it could be Miss Scarlet etc.
In Ending A, Miss Scarlett and Yvette are revealed to be the killers. She and Yvette worked together to gain access to the government secrets from the other guests (all of the guests at the house work for the government in some capacity) and killed Mr Boddy and his accomplices together (the motorist, the cop, the cook and the singing telegram girl were all Mr Boddy’s informants.)
Miss Scarlett then turned on Yvette herself in order to have sole possession of the government information which she intends to sell to the highest bidder. She also plans to continue blackmailing the others in order to gain access to further government information.
Before she can kill Wadsworth who as a mere butler has no access to government information, Wadsworth manages to disarm her and the police arrive. It is revealed that Wadsworth was in fact working for the FBI to bring down Boddy and Scarlett all along.
In Ending B it is revealed that Mrs Peacock killed Mr Boddy and all of his informants. The cook used to be her cook something which Wadsworth worked out when she reveals that she had been eating her favourite recipe at dinner. “And Monkey’s brains though popular in Cantonese cuisine are not often to be found in Washington DC.” Despite this however Wadsworth allows Mrs Peacock (who still has the gun) to leave. Outside however she is ambushed by FBI agents with it being revealed that Wadsworth once again is an undercover agent.
In the final ending Wadsworth reveals that virtually all of the guests carried out the murders. Professor Plum shot at Mr Boddy in the dark, pretended he was dead and then later killed him by bashing his head in with a candle stick. Mrs Peacock just as in the second ending killed her former cook. Colonial Mustard killed the motorist who had been his driver in the war and had informed on him, Miss Scarlett killed the cop who she had been bribing, and Miss White strangled Yvette who had been having an affair with her husband.
To everyone’s surprise Wadsworth then reveals that he killed the Singing telegram girl and that he is in fact Mr Boddy. The person they thought was Mr Boddy was in fact another victim of blackmail who the real Boddy had forced to pose as him to ensure his safety. However the blackmail victim soon turned on him and tried to get the other guests to kill him (it can be assumed that Boddy had forged evidence “proving” that that the blackmail victim was Mr Boddy instead.) Ultimately this ended up playing right into the real Boddy (Wadsworth’s) hands.
Boddy tells them that he got them here to deal with his network of spies and informers and that now that they are all dead there is no evidence against him, so he can continue to blackmail the guests. Just then however Mr Green the only guest who didn’t kill someone lifts out a revolver and shoots Boddy dead. He reveals that he is a plant from the FBI and once again the FBI arrive, only this time they take everyone away as they all did it.
Clue truly is a classic film. Everything about it works, it has a fantastic story, its multiple endings gives it a completely surreal aspect that helps it stand out from other whodunnit mysteries. I love the way in two alternate universes Tim Curry is this cheesy, even somewhat romantic hero, whilst in another he is this evil Machiavellian mastermind who is shot dead by Mr Green.
Above all else however Clue is brilliantly cast. Its really an all star cast made up of comic/cult movie royalty. You have Christopher Lloyd best known for playing Doc Brown in the Back to the Future series and General Kruge the main villain in Star Trek 3 who famously orders Captain Kirk’s son’s death. Michael McKean best known for starring in This is Spinal Tap as one of the main characters David St Hubbins and Madeline Kahn who is best known for her collaborations with Mel Brooks, such as in Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles which won her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.
All of them are at the top of their game in this film and each get their moments to shine, but I think the best thing about the movie is how they all play off of each other. The chemistry between all of the main characters is just so enjoyable. Apparently in real life all of the actors involved had an excellent time making the movie and I think that really helps with the finished product as they all feel so natural in each others presence as a result.
In spite of all this however I’d still say that Tim Curry completely and utterly steals the show. Its no easy task to dominate a film from with such an impressive cast, many of whom give among their best performances. Madeline Kahn in particular has a truly shining moment of comedy gold when she describes her hatred of Yvette in the most deranged way possible.
Its even better when you find out this bit was improvised and the other actors reactions to it are real!
Still undeniably this is Curry’s film. It kind of reminds me of what people said about the late great Rik Mayall’s performance in Blackadder as Lord Flasheart. Even in a room full of comedy greats like Rowan Atkinson, and Stephen Fry, Mayall was still able to completely hog the limelight and upstage all of them and with Curry in Clue its the same.
My favourite moment in the film is at the end when Curry explains how the murderer carried out the killings and acts out the entire film in about 5 minutes. Curry’s energy in this scene is just incredible the way he darts from room to room, tosses Michael McKean, Madeline Kahn and Miss Peacock around in his recreations of what happened. I could watch Tim Curry explain things all day. Apparently the rest of the cast found it difficult to keep straight faces during these final moments with Curry.
I’d say that Wadsworth is Curry’s best performance. Its not as sensational as Frank N Furter, and obviously Pennywise is the scariest of his many villain roles, but Wadsworth I think is his best role as it gives him more to do.
With Wadsworth not counting the last ending, he is given a chance for once to play the charismatic and likable hero. There are also so many different layers to Wadsworth.
He has a fairly tragic backstory that’s enough to make the viewer sympathise with him, yet at the same time there is an air of mystery about Wadsworth throughout the film. This coupled with the fact that at times he can seem like a bit of a bumbling oaf, yet in other moments he is clearly cleverer than all of the other main characters combined makes it believable in all endings when he is revealed to be more than a mere butler.
Even in the third ending though Curry is once again the villain, its a more restrained, cold calculating character instead of his usual theatrical over the top type of villainous roles.
I remember actually hating the third ending as a child as I loved Wadsworth so much I didn’t want him to be the bad guy. He was one of my favourite heroes in anything and I’d often switch it off before the last ending.
Obviously now that I’m older I can see that the multiple endings are really part of what makes the film so special and I think they benefit Curry’s performance as they allow you to look at certain moments with his character in different ways when you watch it back.
For instance near the beginning of the film there is a scene where Wadsworth gathers all of the guests together, and Mr Boddy attempts to leave before Wadsworth can explain what’s going on. Though all the doors are locked Boddy attempts to throw a brick through a window and escape only for a pit bull to appear. Realising there is no escape, Boddy gives up and Wadsworth gives him a smug look.
Now if you take either of the first two endings as the real endings then this is a moment where Wadsworth the hero has finally after years of abuse; turned the tables on the evil villain who drove his beloved wife to suicide. You root for Wadsworth when Mr Boddy is unable to escape.
However if you take the final ending as the real ending then it actually becomes a very dark scene. Here the person we think is Mr Boddy is actually another black mail victim who is being forced to go along with something where he knows he most likely will die. This is his last chance to escape but unfortunately the evil mastermind Wadsworth (in reality Mr Boddy) has everything prepared and that final little smile Wadsworth gives him is a horrible little taunt that he will never be free.
When it was first released Clue was a massive flop both critically and commercially. Much like Rocky Horror and Legend however, Clue would gain acclaim many years later as a cult classic.
It’s cult following nowadays is almost on a par with the Rocky Horror Picture Show itself. Schools have even begun to perform versions of it!
Much like the Rocky Horror Picture Show there have been midnight screenings of Clue all across the world ever since and many other performances of the film on stage too.
In 2015 the 100th episode of the American series Psych cast three of the actors from Clue, Christopher Lloyd, Martin Mull, and Lesley Anne Warren in an episode that was a tribute to the film set in a mansion with a murder mystery.
Finally it was also announced in 2011 that there was a remake of the film planned, which makes it one of three of Curry’s most famous projects that is scheduled for a remake.
Personally I don’t think they will ever be able to find a cast that gels as well as those in the original and I really doubt they will ever be able to find anyone as good as Tim Curry to play Wadsworth.
Pennywise the Dancing Clown/ IT
Arguably Curry’s most terrifying villain, Pennywise is an evil monster that originated from another universe. It emerges every 27 years to prey on the children of Derry, Maine.
It has no true form, but it will often appear as a clown named Pennywise. It has no real goals other than to devour children, though it enjoys eating kids more when they are terrified. Throughout the two part telemovie it often tries to bring them to the very limit of their terror first before killing them. It will use anything it can, memories of abusive parents, school bullies, even horror movies to terrify its victims before eating them alive. At one point he disturbingly remarks that the children all taste so much better when they are scared.
With Pennywise Curry is given a chance to create a truly nightmarish character. Unlike Darkness who at least had some charisma and was alluring in a dark way, or Frank N Furter who had an incredible sex appeal, Pennywise is a blood curdling monster through and through. By far and away his most terrifying moment is when he lures poor little Georgie down into the sewers and tears him apart with his bare teeth.
Hard to believe that’s Wadsworth!
The Georgie scene demonstrates why you don’t need lots and lots of gore to make something truly bone chilling. There’s not a drop of blood here. Instead its entirely down to the atmosphere, the writing, the music and of course Curry’s performance that its such a memorable scene.
Its so disturbing watching Pennywise lure Georgie in. You can tell that Georgie is naturally scared of this clown, but Pennywise manages to tempt Georgie in with his little paper boat that he lost. Pennywise’s eyes just light up when Georgie reaches down for it and he knows he’s got George. Curry is absolutely savage when he moves in for the kill, screaming at his victim that he’ll “float too!” We also don’t get to see what it is that Pennywise does to Georgie as he pulls him in. Its just left up to imagination which is even more terrifying. I also like the way we see the full effect of Georgie’s death on his family too. It helps make the terror seem more real.
Whilst Pennywise is a monster, Curry is still incredibly enough able to bring a lot of humour into the villain too. I find that younger viewers often miss out on the comedic elements of Pennywise’s character as they are often too scared of the darker aspects.
I know that when I was younger I was completely terrified of Pennywise to the point where I could barely watch him, but when I watched it again as an adult it was even better as I could see that Curry whilst scary as Pennywise was also really funny too.
In many ways Curry’s performance as Pennywise serves as quite a good mirror of the other main villain of IT, the evil school bully Henry Bowers.
Curry plays Pennywise like a demented child. He loves just playing sick, twisted pathetic little games on the most vulnerable people. He is what Henry would be if he had the same kind of power. At the same time however I also like the way Pennywise drives Henry insane.
It kind of highlights how there’s always a bigger bully out there, also the fact that Henry is so terrified of Pennywise his hair turns white when the monster attacks him shows how much weaker he is than the people he targets. In spite of Pennywise’s tricks which played on their deepest fears, they remained strong, whilst just the sight of the monster was enough to make Henry go completely and hopelessly insane for the rest of his life.
Whilst Curry may not be given as much screen time as in other projects like Clue he is able to make every bit as big an impression on the viewer in a different way.
Fortunately for Curry he didn’t have to wait for IT to be appreciated like the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Clue or Legend. It was an instant ratings and critical success and Pennywise has since gone on to be seen as one of the scariest horror movie villains of all time.
He regularly makes the top ten horror movie villains lists.
Much like with the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tim Curry never mentioned Pennywise in interviews for over 20 years until 2015 where he said that it was a wonderful part.
It was announced in 2009 that a remake of IT would be made and in 2016, Bill Skasgard was confirmed to be playing the role.
This makes Pennywise one of three classic Curry characters along with Frank N Furter and Wadsworth to be reinterpreted by a new actor sometime soon.
Mr Hector/ Home Alone 2 Lost in New York
I think its funny when you compare this character to Curry’s other famous villains like Frank N Furter, Darkness or Pennywise, all of whom are such powerful, strong villains. Mr Hector in comparison is just a petty little jobs worth.
I think it just goes to show what a good actor Curry is though that he can play less charismatic and theatrical characters if he needs too. I think this is also a case of Curry making what was a fairly minor, dull character quite memorable. Everything about him just the way he looks, his mannerisms, his voice all give the character a wonderfully prissy, uptight persona that just makes it all the better when Kevin outwits him.
Kevin is lucky that it was Mr Hector and not Pennywise.
Hexxus/ Ferngully: The Last Rainforest
One of Tim’s most acclaimed animated roles. Hexxus is an ancient Demonic entity that thousands of years ago very nearly destroyed all life on earth before being imprisoned within a tree by fairies.
He is later re-awoken when the tree is cut down, after which he plans to make the fairies suffer for imprisoning him before resuming his quest to destroy all life on the planet.
This character scared me when I was a child, though a large part of that was the design.
Curry isn’t given that much screen time as the villain, but he makes the most of the role. By far his greatest moment is when he performs the song Toxic Love.
Even as a demonic black ooze Tim Curry still manages to have some sex appeal. Check out the comments.
Ferngully was a reasonable success when it was first released and has since developed a cult following like many of Tim’s films, though it can be argued due to his status just about any film he’s in will develop a cult following just because he’s in it!
Professor Oldman/ Scary Movie 2
Now this is not one of Tim’s best movies. He’s hardly in it and its a pretty poor film all around (Though surprisingly this was a big hit when it was first released unlike Clue!)
Still Curry’s performance as Professor Oldman, the pervy old professor who spends all of his screen time ogling the young female characters of the movie is hilarious and yet another example of how Curry is able to take what is a small role in a poor production and elevate it. Though he only has a very little screen time he is really the thing people remember the most about the film.
Curry’s performance reminds me somewhat of Rik Mayall as Richard Richard in Bottom. The pervy little laugh he does when he’s told how he can spy on all the young women in the house whilst they are taking a shower, or the look on his face when he’s eating an apply as Cindy tries to seduce him are just complete Richie moments.
My favourite scene however is his death when he is lured away by a sexy female Ghost who kills him. I love the way the ghost woman is as sinister as can be. Creeping about in the shadows, speaking in a spooky echoing voice, but Oldman doesn’t care as he thinks she is hot and he blindly follows her to his death. Again the little pervy laugh he gives when he first sees her never fails to make me laugh. The only bad thing about his death scene is that it comes to early in the film.
All of Curry’s scenes in Scary Movie 2, which are not surprisingly the only scenes worth watching!
Nigel Thornberry/ The Wild Thornberrys
Probably the most harmless and least villainous role Curry has ever played. Nigel Thornberry is also probably Curry’s 5th big character. His big 4 are definitely Frank N Furter, Darkness, Wadsworth and Pennywise, but I’d say that this character is definitely the one that pops up in connection to his name the most after them. Its certainly his most acclaimed animated role.
Curry voiced this character for all five seasons of The Wild Thornberry’s. Though he was only a supporting character Nigel quickly became the most popular member of the cast among fans due to his bumbling, oafish, yet sweet natured personality and his ridiculously posh, high voice.
Over 1 million views is not bad going for a Saturday morning children’s cartoon that hasn’t been on in almost 15 years, and that isn’t part of a big franchise like Batman or Superman.
Thornberry is not the most nuanced role, but it was still great to see Tim play what is essentially the complete opposite from most of his other roles and its a very funny character overall.
To a whole generation of people Curry is Nigel, which I suppose must seem quite jarring when they go back and look at his other roles like Frank N Furter and Pennywise. It just goes to show what a versatile actor Curry is overall.
Long John Silver/ Muppets Treasure Island
This is one of Curry’s best comedic roles. He himself has cited it as one his favourite parts, having been a huge fan of the Muppets for years, Curry joked that it had been ambition of his for many decades to work alongside Miss Piggy.
Silver is a classic hammy badguy role for Curry. He even gets another great badguy song too.
I don’t think any actor has performed as many badguy songs as Tim Curry!
At the same time however I feel that this role also gave Curry a chance to portray a slightly more nuanced villain. Unlike say Frank N Furter there is some good in Silver as he is shown to genuinely to care about Jim with whom he develops a fatherly relationship with. He shares some of his deepest secrets with Jim, risks his life to save him and even offers him a chance to join him. He also demonstrates some self awareness telling Jim that he respects him because he is brave, honourable and kind all things that Silver wishes he could be.
Thus whilst the character was yet another villain role for Curry I feel that it gave him a chance to play a character with some gravitas and the final moment between Silver and Jim is actually rather touching.
Captain Hook/ Peter Pan and The Pirates
Another villainous Pirate role, this is one of Curry’s most popular and enduring animated roles. Sadly I myself have not had a chance to view the series yet, though its on my to do list. Still I felt this was worth mentioning as Curry won a Daytime Emmy award for his role as the villain in this series.
This sadly marks won of only 4 awards the actor has won throughout his career, including his lifetime achievement award. The rest are all to do with his stage work as well.
Skull Master/Mighty Max
The Skull Master was the main antagonist of the short lived but very memorable animated series called Mighty Max.
Mighty Max evolved around a young boy named Max (obviously) who was chosen to protect the earth by the last Lemurian (an intelligent bird like creature) and his immortal sidekick Norman. Together the three of them battle The Skull Master an ancient, all powerful Demon who was responsible for the exterminating the entire Lemurian race as well as all of Atlantis too. The trio’s battle with the Skull Master takes them all across the globe and even at certain points through time and across different dimensions.
The role is a pretty straight forward dark lord character, but he is still lots of fun and Tim Curry really gives him more personality than he would have otherwise had.
Pretorius/ The Mask Animated Series
The main villain in The Mask Animated Series, Pretorius is a camp, psychopathic scientist who has managed to transplant his head onto a robots body, though he also has other spare robot bodies too. He seeks to gain control of the Mask so that he can use its power to become a god. Though he is the Mask’s archenemy he has a great admiration for him, even at one point telling the Mask that if he were a girl then he would marry him!
Pretorius was brilliant fun. The Mask is such a flamboyant and over the top character that he needs a villain who is every bit as OTT as he is or else he won’t seem like a match for him at all. Fortunately as Pretorius Curry manages to if anything be even more crazier at times than the Mask himself.
Curry was one of the 4 main voices of 90’s villainy. Just about every cartoon from that decade had either Mark Hamill, Clancy Brown, David Warner or Tim Curry as a villain.
Hamill will always be the crazy villain like the Joker, Warner, the dignified, cultured British villain, Brown either the barbarian or the criminal mastermind and finally Curry fittingly would be the most flamboyant, gloriously over the top villain.
Its just a shame that there has never been an animated series that featured all 4 of them together.
Farley Claymore/ The Shadow
Similar to his role in Home Alone 2 this character is more a weasly, unlikable little creep than a dark charismatic figure of evil. He’s not the main villain of the piece, more just a treacherous self server.
When it was first released The Shadow was not a big hit but over time like many of Curry’s other films it has developed a strong following.
Pa Bracket, Ma Bracket, Winona Bracket/ Tales From The Crypt
In this classic episode of the famous Anthology series Tim Curry plays an entire family of demented salesmen killing psychopaths.
Under heavy make up Curry creates a uniquely horrific personality for all three characters, though the worst is the daughter, who the main character of the episode Judd Campbell played by Ed Begley Junior is forced to marry in order to avoid being hacked to pieces. Winona is kind of like Frank N Furter, a sex crazed perverted monster, but unlike Frank she has 0 sex appeal
Though the episode is quite gruesome in places there are also some really funny moments too. Curry is absolutely sensational as all three characters. The first time I saw it I wasn’t even aware that it was one guy playing all of the villains.
The episode earned Curry an Emmy Nomination and it remains one of his most popular television roles.
Other Roles
Curry has played many high profile villainous roles in many animated series including MAL in Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Professor Finbar Calamitious in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius, Slagar the Cruel in Redwall, and Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars the Clone Wars. He has also lent his voice to various video games too such as the Dragon Age series where he played the evil Rendon Howe and the Gabriel Knight series where he played the title character.
Curry has also had many other prominent live action roles on both film and television.
He appeared in the 2000 remake of Charlie’s Angels as the sleazy businessman Roger Corwin. I always felt this role was comparable to Professor Oldman as he was a similar leering pervert. Most of his screen time is basically just him perving over Lucy Liu’s character. He did get a few good moments in the film such as his fight with Bill Murray where he beats him in a Sumo match and I always laughed at this moment.
“Those hack journalists said I only went into racing to overcompensate for my diminishing libido. I had them all fired”
(everyone bursts out laughing)
“What’s everyone laughing at? I did!”
Pennywise beats up Doctor Venkman.
Sadly however much like in Scary Movie 2 his character is killed off way too early in the film by the real villain of the piece, The Thin Man played by Crispin Glover.
Curry also played the villainous Cardinal Richelieu in the 1993 film adaptation of The Three Muskeeters and Rooster Hannigan in the 182 adaptation of Annie, which remains one of his most popular roles. He also starred as The Grand High Wizard in the popular 1986 telemovie The Worst Witch.
Another notable villainous performance was as Gaal in the short lived sci fi series Earth 2. Curry has also guest starred in other series such as Will and Grace, Lexx and Agatha Christie’s Poirot.
His career on the stage has been just as remarkable and arguably more varied. His stage career began in the 1960’s when he was part of the cast of Hair. He then went onto to star in the Rocky Horror Picture Show which launched his career on both film and stage. From then on other prominent stage roles included Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Amadeus, The Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, Scrooge in a Christmas Carol, and King Arthur in Spamelot.
In 2015 Curry was given an artistic achievement award at the Tony’s to celebrate his work in theatre.
What Could Have Been
As we have seen Curry throughout his long and varied career has played many iconic characters and definitely secured a place as one of the UK’s most beloved character actors.
Sadly however he also missed out on playing two of the most famous fictional characters of all time. Batman’s archenemy the Joker and The Doctor from Doctor Who.
Curry almost played the Joker twice. In 1989 he was Tim Burton’s second choice for the villain whilst in 1994 he was cast as the villain in the now considered classic Batman the Animated series.
He recorded dialogue for 7 episodes as the character. Christmas with the Joker, The Last Laugh, Jokers Favour, Be a Clown, Joker’s Wild, and The Laughing Fish.
Ultimately however Curry was replaced by Mark Hamill in the role. The recordings Curry made as the character have never been released. Hamill re recorded all of the lines for the 7 episodes Curry did. Traces of Curry’s Joker however did appear in two episodes.
In Be A Clown Tim Curry’s Joker laugh is used for a Robot Clown in the Joker’s base. Also in the episode Dreams of Darkness when Batman is attacked by a hallucination of the Joker caused by Scarecrows fear gas Curry’s laugh is once again used for the hallucinatory Joker.
As to why Tim Curry was replaced three different reasons have been given.
According to head writer Paul Dini in the companion book to the series whilst the producers were impressed with Curry they felt his interpretation was too dark and too frightening. Dini said that they wanted a Joker who would scare the kids, but not too much. Thus with regret he said they decided to replace Curry.
Bruce Timm the producer of the series however refutes this claim. He says that they were perfectly happy for Curry to continue to play the Joker, but that the role put too much stress on his vocal chords. He could not sustain the Joker laugh for long enough periods as it would make him cough and gag violently due to his smoking habit. Thus Curry himself had to pull out for health and practical reasons.
Mark Hamill (himself a massive fan of Tim Curry) said that his performance was excellent, but that the real reason he was replaced was simply because at that point Curry was on so many Fox animated series that the studio was worried he would be seen as the voice of the studio much like how Mel Blanc was seen as the voice of Warner Bros. Not wanting any actor to have that kind of sway they demanded that he be taken off the Batman project (arguably their biggest property)
2017 Edit Update: It was recently revealed by Curry that the reason he was dismissed from the role was simply because he had bronchitis and as they couldn’t delay the production until he got better they had to find somebody else.
Curry would later go on to play another villain for the sequel series Batman Beyond called Mutro Botha.
Its sad that Curry has never got a chance to play the Joker properly. I have no idea if the tapes he recorded still exist. I hope that if they do Bruce Timm releases them as a special feature on release of Batman the Animated Series. I’d love a special feature where you can watch the seven episodes he did either with Curry as the Joker or Hamill as the Joker.
I don’t know if Curry could still voice the Joker since his stroke as his speech has slowed down. Hopefully though if his recovery continues he might be able to one day.. I’d love to see him play the character in an animated movie or series. It really is a role he should play as he would just be so perfect for it.
I will say though I am glad that Hamill got the role in Batman the Animated series. Hamill is my fave Joker also I think the role of the Joker helped to establish Hamill as a prolific villain actor himself.
In the early 90’s the creator of the Daleks Terry Nation and the co-creator of the Cybermen Gerry Davies attempted to revive Doctor Who. Nation mentioned in an interview that his first choice for the role of the Doctor was Tim Curry. Sadly however Nation and Davies’ pitch for the series was rejected by the BBC who wanted to sell Doctor Who to America at that point.
Curry was later cast as the 8th incarnation of the Doctor in the mid 90’s when the BBC were planning to revive Doctor Who as a British/American co-production. Curry was the producers number 1 choice for the time lord and he happily accepted the part. He said in an interview that he was looking forward to playing the Doctor as he hoped it would help him escape his typecasting problem of always being the villain.
Sadly the project went into development hell for many years and by the time it was ready to go ahead Curry was busy with other commitments and regretfully had to drop out leading to Paul McGann being cast instead.
According to some online sources Curry did suggest Paul McGann to the producers.
In addition to this during the 1980’s John Nathan Turner approached him about appearing as Sharez Jek the main villain in what is now considered by many critics to be the greatest Doctor Who story ever made The Caves of Androzani . Though Curry expressed an interest in appearing, other commitments once again prevented him from appearing in the show.
I think its even more annoying that Curry missed out on a chance to play the Doctor than the Joker. Whilst he would have been great as the Joker, I honestly think if he had been the Doctor he would have been as good as Tom Baker himself.
No disrespect to Paul McGann who was also a great Doctor. I am not saying I would rather he didn’t play the Doctor. I would have preferred it if the Beeb didn’t torpedo the show in 1989 and allowed it to run throughout the 90’s and Curry could have been either the 8th or the 9th Doctor and McGann similarly could have been either the 9th or the 8th Doctors too. We can still keep the new Doctors of course, they will just be later incarnations as a result.
I think Curry would have been the perfect Doctor for many reasons. To start with I think that the Doctor should always be played by a character actor who’s not your average leading man.
The likes of Tom Baker, Patrick Troughton, Colin Baker, William Hartnell, Sylvester McCoy, and Matt Smith were certainly not your standard leading men. They were all quirky character actors and that’s why they all I think really threw themselves into the character as it was really the only time they got a chance to be the star of their own show.
Even the current Doctor Peter Capaldi falls into this category. Prior to the role of the Doctor though he had had a long and successful career, he had also not ever really been a leading man. He had played the lead role of Malcolm Tucker, but Tucker wasn’t exactly what you would call a hero to millions of people or a role model to children was he?
I think if he had been cast Tim Curry would have similarly embraced the role like no other in his career.
The role of the Doctor is also a personality part above all else. You need someone who is naturally eccentric, who naturally has quite a big persona, and someone who in many ways can just play an exaggerated version of themselves. Again its not hard to see how Curry would be perfect for this type of character. He definitely has a very large and theatrical stage persona to say the least.
I can see Curry’s version of the Doctor being comparable to Wadsworth. Wadsworth is kind of like the Doctor in that he is a posh, eccentric, at times somewhat bumbling hero who is still nevertheless two steps ahead of everyone.
Tim Curry and Michael McKean’s interactions with each other in Clue remind me of Tom Baker’s Doctor and his first male companion Harry Sullivan. In both cases you have one character who is a bit of a clumsy oaf (Harry and McKean) and another more flamboyant, OTT, at times equally oafish, yet devilishly clever at other points character (Wadsworth and the Doctor.)
Both are a perfect match as both take it in turns to be the straight man. Sometimes McKean and Harry are too slow in figuring things out compared to Wadsworth and The Doctor and their clumsy nature can make them seem silly, yet at other times Wadsworth and the Doctor are just so mental, they frustrate McKean and Harry.
Take a look at this clip of Wadsworth and McKean below and then compare it to another clip of Tom Baker with Harry and you can see how Curry’s Doctor might have fitted in with Tom’s.
You can definitely see how Wadsworth is very Docotrish and if Curry had played it that way then I think it would have been excellent.
Sadly due to his recent stroke it seems very unlikely that Currry will get a chance in the TARDIS, but still he could play the role in an audio unbound story.
For those of you unfamiliar with them the Doctor Who Unbound stories are audios set in alternate universes which allow other actors a chance to play the Doctor. Pesronally I’d love to see Tim play an unbound Doctor. Big Finish if you are reading this get him on the phone.
As it is of course Tim Curry and Doctor Who managed to be legends (no pun intended) without each other, but still I think its a real shame that he never got a chance to play the Doctor as he would have easily been one of the best.
Health Problems
Curry sadly suffered a stroke in 2012. He now uses a wheelchair and though he can thankfully still speak, his voice is much slower and deliberate than before.
Its sad seeing him like this but the good news is that he is still able to act and has done some voice work since the stroke. He is all set to appear in the remake of the Rocky Horror Picture show as the Narrator.
Lets all hope the great man continues to recover. He definitely has a great body of work behind him already and will always be remembered for his most iconic characters, Frank N Furter, Wadsworth and Pennywise.
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