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The Ultimate List of Movie Mad Scientists

A stroll through movie history with fifty of the maddest scientists to ever hit the big screen.
Re Animator
Empire International Pictures
By  · Published on December 5th, 2018

Dr. Hans Reinhardt (The Black Hole)

Black Hole

One of the weirdest moves Disney has ever made—and at the time, their most expensive cinematic endeavor to date—is undoubtedly The Black Hole, a humorless and surprisingly dark attempt at replicating the Star Wars formula that helps illuminate why Disney ended up being so dead set on buying actual Star Wars. In the film, the USS Palomino spaceship bound for Earth unexpectedly encounters the USS Cygnus, a vessel long thought lost, hovering at the edge of a black hole. Docking with the other ship, they discover renowned research scientist Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell)—and no one else, save an army of faceless drones and a menacing-looking killbot called Maximillian. Reinhardt explains that the rest of the crew headed back to Earth decades earlier while he alone decided to stay on to pursue his research. This quickly proves to be a lie; the rest of the crew did wish to return to Earth while Reinhardt did not, but instead of somehow leaving without him, they mutinied, so Reinhardt lobotomized and “reprogrammed” them all into a drone army. The crew of the Palomino try to escape, Reinhardt tries to stop them, and somehow everybody ends up getting sucked into the black hole, which looks like something out of Dante’s Inferno for some reason. Reinhardt ends up fusing with the robot Maximillian, presumably then heading off to eternal damnation as a cyborg, while the Palomino gets saved by what appears to be an angel, who carries them out of the black hole and sets them on a path back to Earth in a painfully literal deus ex machina.


Dr. Henry Wu (Jurassic Park)

Jurassicworld Dr Wu

Here’s the thing about bringing dinosaurs back to life: cinematically, paleontologists are the most benign scientists. They are almost always okay. Cary Grant even played one that one time. On the other hand, geneticists are inevitably bad news. Even when they mean to do good, things tend to go very, very poorly. With this in mind, when dealing with a plot involving the resurrection of dinosaurs using discovered dino DNA, there’s a pretty clear in-built hero/villain dynamic involved. While Henry Wu (B.D. Wong) only plays a minor role in the original Jurassic Park as the man who makes the dinosaurs happen, for better or for worse, Jurassic World has brought him further and further into the spotlight, with more of an emphasis on the dangers of genetic engineering than ever.


Dr. Josef Heiter (The Human Centipede)

Human Centipede

After building a prestigious reputation for separating conjoined twins over the course of his surgical career, following his retirement Dr. Josef Heiter (Dieter Laser) grows obsessed with the idea of surgically conjoining people instead of separating them through the creation of a “human centipede.” If you somehow missed the memo about what a human centipede is exactly, here’s Wikipedia.


Doctor Génessier (Eyes Without a Face)

Eyes Without Face

Parents going above and beyond for their children is a well-documented phenomenon that takes a decidedly sinister turn in the story of Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) and his daughter Christiane (Édith Scob) following Christiane’s severe disfigurement in a car accident. With the help of his assistant Louise (Alida Valli), he kidnaps a young woman whom he uses to source a full-face skin graft for his daughter, disposing of her body after she dies in an escape attempt. While the surgery itself proves successful, Christiane’s body rejects the new skin. Génessier kidnaps a second woman with intent to repeat the process. However, Christiane, disgusted with her father’s methods (and more than a little unhinged in the aftermath of her own trauma and subsequent social isolation), kills Louise with a knife to the neck and her father by releasing the dogs he uses for experimentation, who promptly maul their repeat abuser—an ending generally reserved for the worst of the worst (see: Ramsay Bolton, Game of Thrones)


Wayne Szalinski (Honey I Shrunk the Kids)

Honey I Shrunk The Kids

As mentioned before, movie scientists in general, but mad ones especially, tend to have no luck with love. The few that do often serve as indications that this is probably for the best, as basement laboratories full of dangerous experimental stuff operated by individuals prone to tunnel vision and absent-mindedness plus small children tend to make a bad combination. Case in point: Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis), who leaves his experimental shrink ray lying around unattended in his attic laboratory where his children manage to accidentally activate it and shrink themselves down to Ant-Man size. Coming home after a frustrating day, Wayne takes his feelings out on his prototype and smashes it, proceeding to throw it and his children in the garbage. Of course, he eventually realizes A) his kids are missing and B) what probably happened, but it takes a while. Get your shit together, Wayne.


Dr. Willingdon (Seven Days to Noon)

Seven Days To Noon

While feeling internal conflict or even downright animosity is quite reasonable when working on weapons of mass destruction—Einstein quickly became an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons while Oppenheimer also quickly changed his tune—atomic scientist Dr. Willingdon (Barry Jones) takes things several steps further. Unless Great Britain drops out of the nuclear arms race, he will detonate one of the atomic bombs he helped build in central London. His desperation has a decidedly megalomaniacal edge to it, as mad science so often does, complete with biblical quotes and allusions. As it’s not Dr. Strangelove, Willingdon is stopped in the nick of time and killed while attempting to flee.


Dr. Hal Raglan (The Brood)

The Brood

Psychotherapist Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed) runs the Somafree Institute, where he practices his unique “psychoplasmics” therapy, which encourages patients to let go of suppressed emotions through physiological changes. Turns out that manifesting emotional trauma as physical trauma leads down some pretty nasty roads—like cancer, or in the case of Nola Carveth (Samantha Eggar), an army of killer gremlin children birthed from an external womb sack who, being manifestations of Nola’s rage, attack anyone foolish enough to invoke her ire. Including, ultimately, Raglan himself, who realizes the extent of the danger posed by psychoplasmics far too late.


Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)

Silence Of The Lambs Lecter

Calling psychiatrist and serial cannibal Hannibal Lecter a scientist may be something of a stretch considering the criteria established in the intro, as Lecter does not invent or discover anything. Still, Lecter is too connected to precursors like Dr. Mabuse and later crazy psychiatrists who more cleanly fit the mad scientist label, such as Dr. Crane (Cillian Murphy) of Batman Begins and his fear toxin, to leave out. While Lecter appears in several films, Anthony Hopkins’ Oscar-winning performance in The Silence of the Lambs is a cut above all the others. In 2003, the AFI named Lecter the greatest villain in the history of American cinema, and for good reason. He’s not just mad as a hatter and thinks he’s a genius—he genuinely is a genius.


Dr. Henry Jekyll (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

Jekyll And Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde introduces one of what might be called the (un)holy trinity of classic mad scientists in Dr. Henry Jekyll, a chemist who seeks to better himself through the creation of a “transcendental” medicine that will allow him to separate the virtuous and sinful parts of his nature and become an entirely good person. Instead, the sinful side of his personality, dubbed Mr. Edward Hyde, starts to take over. Having been made and remade far too many times to count, Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 adaptation starring Fredric March in an Oscar-winning performance is arguably still the most highly regarded, with its incredible Jekyll-to-Hyde transformation sequence that films for decades afterward tried and failed to emulate.


Ash (Alien)

Ash Alien

While the most memorable villain in Alien is undeniably the alien itself, science officer Ash (Ian Holm) takes the widespread trend of scientist characters being socially inept to the point of being practically non-human to its natural conclusion by being actually non-human. Much like Dr. Carrington with the Thing, it is Ash who enables the Xenomorph fiasco, first by insisting the Nostromo investigate the signal coming from LV-426 and then by breaking quarantine protocol to allow Kane back onboard with the facehugger still attached. When Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) learns from the ship’s computer that Ash is acting under orders to return to company HQ with the alien, no matter the cost. When she confronts him about it, Ash attacks. Much like everything else he does in the film, it’s a dick move, but this is one instance where it can be safely said that this is indeed in his programming. Parker comes to Ripley’s defense and practically decapitates Ash in the process, at which point they finally realize that their science officer was never actually a person. However, being a machine, decapitation doesn’t kill Ash at all, so Parker incinerates him with a flamethrower, the most effective weapon in all of horror.


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Ciara Wardlow is a human being who writes about movies and other things. Sometimes she tries to be funny on Twitter.