Entertainment
Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Scariest Monster Was Secretly There From The Beginning
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was filled with plenty of scary monsters, but one was infinitely more frightening than any vampire: the Judge, an ancient demon who is reassembled by Spike to wreak absolute havoc in Sunnydale. Thanks to the show’s killer makeup team, the Judge looked even scarier than his centuries-old reputation, and he remains one of the most iconic monsters the series has ever known. That makeup was so good, in fact, that most Buffy fans never realized that the Judge was played by Brian Thompson, the actor who played the show’s forgotten main villain from its very first episode!
In the Buffy series premiere, “Welcome To the Hellmouth,” Thompson played a vampire character named Luke. He is a member of the Order of Aurelius and is over 150 years old by the time he first tangles with the Slayer and her Scooby Gang. He also served as the de facto main villain of this first episode because he served the Master, an ancient vampire who has been trapped beneath Sunnydale thanks to an ancient spell.
The Original Big Bad
Luke featured heavily in the Master’s plans to escape his magical prison: specifically, this younger vampire is designated as the Master’s vessel, and when he feeds on humans, it transfers power back to his demonic boss. Once he and his undead posse take over the Bronze, it originally seems like he will have no trouble feeding on enough of Sunnydale’s young residents to finally free the Master. But Buffy outwits Luke, distracting him by mentioning a non-existent sunrise before she stakes him through the heart, dusting the vamp and temporarily foiling the Master’s escape.
While Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff have brought multiple vampires back from the dead (including Angel and Darla), Luke was never resurrected, but he left a lasting impact on fans. After all, since the Master was trapped, Luke served as the de facto main villain in the first episode of what would become a major television phenomenon. Eventually, however, Luke returned in a different way, when actor Brian Thompson played the Judge in the episodes “Surprise” and “Innocence.”
Here Comes The Judge
Under all that makeup, it can be hard to tell that the Judge is played by the same actor who first menaced Buffy in “Welcome to the Hellmouth.” At the very least, this new character is a major upgrade over the old one. While Luke might have been a superpowered vampire, the Judge was an ancient demon whose body was hacked to pieces ages ago by a vengeful army; however, his body parts remained alive, and in the Season 2 episode “Surprise,” Spike reassembles this ancient monster to impress Drusilla, the vampire girlfriend who first transformed him into a creature of the night.
Additionally, the Judge has a much more memorable death than Brian Thompson’s earlier villain. As a vampire, Luke was killed by a simple stake, but the Judge boasts that he cannot be killed by any weapon forged by man. Reasoning that this was only true of old-timey weapons, Buffy utilizes an exceedingly modern solution and blows the Judge up with a rocket launcher!
Two Icons, One Actor
It’s a crowd-pleasing moment, one that would remain a highlight of the entire series. But both the life and the death of the Judge are that much cooler once you realize that he is played by the first major villain the Slayer ever had to tangle with. In this way, Brian Thompson left his mark on this iconic TV series by playing two of the coolest villains in Buffy the Vampire Slayer history!