Udo Kier: 10 Of His Weirdest And Wildest Horror Roles

Long before Oscar Isaac took up the mantle, Kier was doing unspeakable things with bodies in the lab in his first horror outing with director Paul Morrissey in 1973's Flesh for Frankenstein. The gloriously grotesque take on Mary Shelley's seminal sci-fi horror novel sees the titular mad Baron attempting to create a so-called master race by butchering bodies and creating a perfect male and female specimen. Banned in Italy of all places for being too explicit, Flesh for Frankenstein sees Kier go full sicko mode, and it's as hilarious as it is horrifying. Come for the camp, stay for the scene of Frankenstein elbow-deep inside a girl's guts while he orgasmically chants his way through a list of her internal organs.

In John Carpenter's “Cigarette Burns”, the most infamous of all of the Masters of Horror episodes aside, perhaps, from Takashi Miike's “Imprint”, Kier stars, alongside Norman Reedus, as a rare film collector desperate to acquire an apparently lost film that drove viewers at its Sitges premiere to madness upon viewing. Kier's smouldering intensity is on full display throughout this terrifyingly meta episode as a man barely clinging to sanity, his madness ultimately serving as the centrepiece of one of Carpenter's goriest and most disturbing scenes. You'll never look at a movie projector the same way.

Marketed in the U.S. as “positively the most horrifying film ever made” and proudly part of the U.K.'s video nasty list, Michael Armstrong's 1970 Mark of the Devil is one of the more sadistic of the post-Witchfinder General witch-hunting horror boom. Up against a repulsive hunter known as Albino (the equally striking Reggie Nalder), Kier put those baby blues to good use in a protagonist role as Count Christian von Meruh, who becomes romantically involved with a woman accused of dabbling in black magic. Mark of the Devil was only Kier's second major movie role, and yet he owns the screen like he'd always been there, his ethereal presence a balm to some of the pic's more graphic scenes (of which there are plenty, mark our words).

Few actors could hold their own against a scene-stealing Willem Dafoe in character as Max Schreck method acting as Count Orlok, but in E. Elias Merhige's meta-black-comedy-horror Shadow of the Vampire, Kier did just that. A film like Shadow of the Vampire, that's full of, as we often lovingly refer to them, “weird guys”, was made for Kier, and although he could've easily eaten up the lead role of Expressionist director F.W. Murnau, even in the supporting cast he couldn't help but elevate the film to cult classic status.

Of all the Draculas ever put to screen, few capture the sickly, anaemic desperation of a hungry vampire quite as well as Kier did. In his second horror pic with Paul Morrissey following the aforementioned Flesh for Frankenstein, Kier's Count Dracula is having trouble finding a virgin woman to feed on (because, in his ever-so eloquent words, “the blood of these whores is killing me!”) and so relocates to the Catholic lands of Italy hoping to satiate his hunger, only to find himself at the mercy of Marxists and sexually liberated women. Kier may have had to lose 10lbs in one week for the role, but he more than made up for it with the amount of scene-chewing he does in this bloody, horny cult classic. If you only have time to watch one Udo Kier movie today, make it this one.

Few actors on earth were more suited to playing an ancient vampire lord than Kier, which is what made him so utterly believable as Gitano Dragonetti in 1998's Blade. While his appearance in Stephen Norrington's Blade marked another short but sweet role for Kier, Dragonetti's death scene at the hands of Stephen Dorff's Deacon Frost remains one of the most brutal vampire executions in all of cinema. We were robbed of a Wesley Snipes (who Kier referred to as “wunderbar“)/Kier showdown, though.

While we could attempt to explain Kier's role of Åge Krüger in Lars von Trier's surreal supernatural horror miniseries The Kingdom to you, we're not sure our words would do it justice, and so we'd rather let the late, great man himself speak for himself: “There is this beautiful, big naked woman. I’m in her stomach, lying on a piece of wood with four wheels. I hear the word “Action!”, push myself between the legs, so I’m just a head, and go: “Waaaaah!” Yep. Sounds like an Udo role.

If your erotically-charged European period piece horror didn't have Udo Kier in it, did it even count as an erotically-charged European period piece horror? In Walerian Borowczyk's dreamy and debauched The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne from 1981, Kier plays the sensible side of the titular double-edged doc, waxing lyrical about the nature of man before handing over to Gerard Zalcberg for the more deranged moments as Mr. Hyde. It's a more restrained performance from Kier, but if you like your horror as sexually provocative as it is stylish, don't miss this one.

Kier's role in Dario Argento's 1977 technicolor nightmare Suspiria might be small, but you can't exactly have a horror movie about dancing witches set in Germany and not include him in some way. As Dr. Frank Mandel, Kier plays a key part in helping Suzy discover the supernatural mysteries of the Tanz Akademie, looking sharp in his mint green suit jacket (that perfectly complements those iconic eyes) while he does it. His performance may be dubbed to hell and back, but any time Kier was onscreen was a good time.

Kier's breathy, accented voice was as distinctive as his face, making him the perfect pick to voice the criminal mastermind Professor Pericles in the Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated animated series. As the tiny but maniacal Pericles, Kier served as one of the show's chief antagonists, trying to thwart the Mystery Inc. gang's plans at any turn. There aren't many Kier roles that were suitable for children, but if you're looking to ease your little ones into his filmography for when they're much, much older, Professor Pericles is a great place to start.