Who Was Yer Favorite?

I was thinking of all of the various movie adaptation of Stevenson's THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR JEKYLL AND MISTER HYDE that have been filmed over the decades. I have seen quite a lot of them. Not all, but several.

Each film has dealt in a different way with the character of Mr. Hyde. Everything from slightly crazed, drug-addled versions of the "good" alter-ego of the doctor  (such as portrayed by John Malkovich), to simian creature (as played by Frederic March), to super-villain/Hulk-like monstrosity (as done by special effects men and the actor Jason Flemyng).

So, then...who is yer favorite Mr. Hyde?

Probably my favorite screen version of Mr. Hyde. John Barrymore.

Bernie Casey as Mr. White (Hyde).

One of the worst versions ever. That's Boris Karloff under that stupid ape-like makeup. (Or maybe a stuntman pretending to be Karloff.) What a waste of a great and expressive face.

Christopher Lee does his version.

I've always thought that Jason Flemyng wasn't  so much Mr. Hyde as the Incredible Hulk. If only the people who made the Hulk movies had handled the character in this manner. What a missed opportunity.

John Malkovich as Hyde from the lousy film MARY REILLY.

I'm sorry, but March's version of Hyde always makes me laugh. Can you say "hambone"?

Jack Palance as Hyde from the Dan Curtis production.

A more nuanced version of Hyde by Spencer Tracy.

Model Contest, MAD MONSTER PARTY

This model of Boris Karloff was exceptional. As you can see, the fellow who assembled and painted it even thought to add the excellent detail of Karloff having sliced his thumb testing the edge of his headsman's axe.

It's the little things that count.

Why I Write: Monsters

What was it that Guillermo del Toro said? "I have Monsters in my heart." I believe that was the quote. He meant it in a totally religious way.

I think that's how many of us feel about the monsters that placed us all on our path in the Fantastic. It's definitely one of the main things that has motivated me to create. I've loved monsters since the day I cracked the covers of a book about dinosaurs that my dad gave me. They were fantastic, they were amazing, they spurred my imagination. They were monsters.

Following are the celluloid monsters that made me create.

May we see more of their like until the day the last human lays down and finally dies. Dreaming of monsters.


The first time I saw this movie I was maybe five years old. I was hooked. There was no going back. There has never been anything like it since. A pox on those who tried to recapture this magic. It can't be done. You can't improve what is already perfect.

The Wolf Man, the hunter who becomes the hunted. So many underlying themes and endless possibilities.

George A. Romero's flesh-eating zombies. Good gravy, this was a stroke of pure genius. "They're dead. They're all messed up."

The TV series OUTER LIMITS floored me when I was in grade school. I watched it every week, wondering what new monster they would deliver. Along with the Zanti Misfits, the Galaxy Being was one that totally horrified and thrilled me.

I place this most fantastic of the dinosaur monsters here because it was so influential on the Atomic Age monsters who followed. And also because it was created by the best monsterist of my day, Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen shaped my mind as a kid. Along with his childhood pals, Ray Bradbury and Forry Ackerman: the triumvirate of monster men.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is one of the most iconographic film monsters of all time. Every kid I knew was blown away by this critter. Superbly realized and most effective monster-as-victim. Having Julie Adams as co-star didn't hurt.

Godzilla. More popular than James Bond. For a reason.

Dracula. The vampire has become one of the most popular monster types in popular media. For me, Christopher Lee portrayed him best.I'll end with an actor. Boris Karloff (William Henry Platt--but we won't talk about that). He was Karloff to me when I was a kid. I think I loved every movie I ever saw that had him in it. One of the most under appreciated and underrated actors of the film era. Because he portrayed mainly monsters, and the larger critical community has no time for monsters. But I did. And I do. And I will.

The New Karloff

On another occasion my pals and I were discussing the old movie stars. We quickly began to talk about the various actors who had staked their careers on being monsters of various stripes, or playing second fiddle to monsters in films when they weren’t actually being the monsters.

Of course the king of all of these actors was Boris Karloff. He was the best of them, and the greatest.

Then we began to wonder who the “new” Boris Karloff was. Surely there must be an actor among the modern crop who filled the same niche as the old master, Karloff. One reason the list is short is because some actors, fearing themselves being typecast, will run from genre offers in hopes that something “better” will come along. Anyone remember Jonathan Frid? So, knowing there weren’t a lot of actors to choose from, we began to run through the very short list.

Brad Dourif?

Nope. One-off guy. Good actor and all that, but voicing a murderous doll in a series of movies doesn’t quite count.

Robert Englund? Nah. None of us figure he’s much of an actor, and all he ever did was play Freddie. A neat character and all that, but a one-note actor.

Christopher Lee? Well…maybe he would have fit the bill twenty-five years ago, but he’s rather long in the tooth (haha). He might count, as he’s quite the actor and has played quite a lot of monsters, including Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. But we struck him off the list since he’s all but a contemporary of Karloff’s.

And then…for the longest time, we were just stuck. Finally, though, it occurred to me. Who was the actor I’ve seen the most who’s almost always covered in prosthetic makeup whenever he’s appeared in a feature film?

Ron Perlman.

He’s quite good, as actors go. Maybe not at the top of the heap of actors, and he could never really be a straight leading man (not with that mug!). But he’s quite effective in every role I’ve seen. And, of course, he’s almost always a monster or creature or in some altered state in just about every film.

The first time I saw him (Quest for Fire) he was a Neanderthal man, or some kind of archaic human. With that simian face of his, they didn’t need to add a lot of makeup. He played a retarded hunchback in The Name of the Rose. In the TV series, Beauty and the Beast…well, he was a human lion. In Enemy at the Gates, he was a steel-toothed sniper (really! Steel teeth!). In Blade II, he was a blood-sucking vampire. Perlman was The Sayer of the Law in The Island of Doctor Moreau. The muscle-bound strongman in The City of Lost Children. The man was a scar-faced mercenary in Alien: Resurrection. He was an extra-terrestrial humanoid in Star Trek: Nemesis. And in my favorite of his performances, he was the all-too human demon, Hellboy in the film of that name (a role which he is about to reprise in a sequel).

As a voice actor, he has appeared as any number of monsters and villains and super-heroes in a range of cartoons, both theatrical and for TV.

So, there you have it, folks. There is a modern-day Boris Karloff. His name is Ron Perlman.