Editorials
Chucky and Beyond: Brad Dourif’s 10 Most Memorable Horror Roles
Veteran actor Brad Dourif may have earned a reputation for playing depraved sociopaths over his extensive career, but his feature debut role of Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest earned him an Oscar nomination at the young age of 24.
A distinct voice, impressive intensity, and a dynamic range have made Dourif a bit of a chameleon, making him one of the best actors of all time whose talents often go overlooked.
From sweet, quiet roles like Billy Bibbit to the grizzled yet morally pure Doc Cochran of Deadwood, Dourif can deftly handle it all. But it’s his high-intensity style that makes him so effective in horror, above all.
While he’s semi-retired now, save for mostly voice-acting work as a certain beloved horror icon, we look back at Brad Dourif’s 10 most memorable genre roles in celebration of his birthday on March 18.
Eyes of Laura Mars – Tommy Ludlow
Based on a treatment/source story by horror master John Carpenter, this murder mystery followed a photographer that develops an ability to see through the eyes of a killer. Dourif plays Ludlow, a colleague of Laura’s who is arrested and accused of being the killer. Ludlow is a troubled character and it’s easy to see why he’d be a great red herring, and Dourif handles the role of creep quite well. Eccentric and entertaining, it became rare where Dourif plays a character that appears more menacing than he actually is.
Dune – The Mentat Piter De Vries
A role that Dourif didn’t even want to accept initially, out of fear of being typecast as the sociopath. David Lynch eventually convinced him to take the part, and he dove headfirst into researching the character and what made him tick. A twisted sadist, Dourif nails De Vries, even when the rest of the film didn’t fare as well critically or in terms of box office. It’s no wonder why Dourif would be cast in this type of role again, just as he feared, and that David Lynch would hire him again in Blue Velvet.
Graveyard Shift – Tucker Cleveland
Reception on this ‘80s Stephen King adaptation is typically ice cold or nostalgic warmth, but no matter which team you’re on there’s no arguing that the best part is Brad Dourif as Tucker Cleveland. He’s not even a lead character, but he steals every single scene he’s in as the exterminator that takes his job way too seriously. With bug-eyed intensity, Tucker Cleveland is operating on an entirely different level than just about everyone else in the film, and Dourif’s scene-chewing is so off the rails great that it elevates an otherwise unmemorable horror movie.
Death Machine – Jack Dante
Look, Death Machine is by no means a good movie. It’s frankly kind of terrible. It’s still worth seeing though, for Dourif’s unhinged, fully unleashed performance as deranged weapons designer and lead developer Jack Dante. Dante builds a cybernetically enhanced super soldier and unleashes it upon the executives that want to terminate his project and job in homicidal rage. It’s cheesy, and the horror references are shoehorned, but Dourif portraying the homicidal maniac with reckless abandon is so much fun.
The Exorcist III – James Venamun/The Gemini Killer
This sequel holds its own with the first film for many reasons, but most of it can be attributed to Brad Dourif’s turn as the unnerving Gemini Killer. Dourif switches from cool intelligence to fevered murderer in seconds with effortless ease, and his monologues in the film are some of the absolute best scenes. That he’s going toe to toe with the likes of George C. Scott and Scott Wilson makes his performance even more impressive.
The Lord of the Rings – Grima Wormtongue
As the only human character of the trilogy to turn evil, Grima Wormtongue is a bit of a terrible creep. Dourif nearly didn’t get the part. After auditioning five times, he lost the role to another actor who then backed out. That actor’s loss makes it our gain with Dourif in the role. Borrowing from childhood memories of getting bullied in boarding school, Dourif found a way to connect with a character that didn’t seem very relatable. He stayed in character on set so fully that when Peter Jackson heard his actual accent in between takes, he thought Dourif was joking around. In such a large, grand-sweeping epic, Grima Wormtongue is a small piece of the puzzle. But Dourif made him memorable.
Urban Legend – Michael McDonnell, Gas Station Attendant
Dourif’s role in this ‘90s slasher is really more of a cameo, so minimal and brief, but he’s so effective in it that it’s absolutely worth mentioning. It’s the perfect example of how he can develop a character from so little, his stutter and mannerisms making him simultaneously intimidating and empathetic. While Michelle Mancini might have been afraid of him that stormy night, he was just trying to warn her of the doom that awaited her in her own back seat. His character’s fate is revealed in a background news report, and thanks to Dourif’s performance, you actually care.
The X-Files: “Beyond the Sea” – Luther Lee Boggs
The relationship between death row criminal Luther Lee Boggs and Agent Scully was reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, except Boggs was a high strung manic as opposed to the cool intellectual Lecter. Executive Producer Chris Carter and writer Glen Morgan felt it was vital for Brad Dourif to play the part, though the actor wanted more than what the show’s budget allowed. Willing to give up script fees to get Dourif into the part, Carter called up the president of Twentieth Century Fox on Thanksgiving Day to get the okay. It worked. Only someone like Dourif could make a killer like Boggs relatable and human, even with manic tendencies.
Halloween – Sheriff Lee Brackett
If there’s any character that Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake and sequel really improves upon over the original, it’s Sheriff Lee Brackett. That’s because he’s played by the amazing Brad Dourif. Even better is that Dourif gets to play against type here as the dutiful sheriff and doting father of Annie. There’s no trace of the sociopath that Dourif typically gets typecast as; just an honest, loving single father doing the best he can. It’s Sheriff Lee Brackett’s character that you truly invest in, and Dourif’s performance during an emotional scene in Halloween II is downright devastating. Even if you hate Zombie’s take on Michael Myers’ story, it’s impossible to hate what Dourif brought to the film.
Child’s Play – Chucky/Charles Lee Ray
This one is a complete no-brainer, as we have Brad Dourif to thank for turning Charles Lee Ray/Chucky into a horror icon who has endured throughout the decades. Yet, he almost didn’t get the part, due to filming Mississippi Burning at the time of Child’s Play casting and production. Someone else got the role, did the whole movie, and then tanked during test screenings; he’d taken Chucky too far into comedic territory right off the bat. Dourif, being Tom Holland’s first choice anyway, understood the right balance of serious and camp, making Chucky the iconic killer that he is today. He went on to voice the character in every single installment in the original Child’s Play franchise, as well as in all three seasons of the “Chucky” television series.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on March 23, 2018.
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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