Les Kalkon (portrayed by Ian Watkin) is an antagonistic character in Peter Jackson's horror-comedy film Braindead. He is the uncle of protagonist Lionel Cosgrove and brother of Lionel's mother Vera. Les is an obese man who regularly inhales oxygen due to breathing difficulties. He is also greedy and lecherous as he tries to exploit Lionel after Vera's death.
History[]
After the death of his sister Vera, Les attends her funeral, not so much as to mourn her but to find out if he was included in her will. Annoyed to find out that Vera had left everything to her son Lionel, Les pays his nephew a visit after the funeral to discuss the inheritence. He snoops around the house and discovers that Lionel has several reanimated corpses, including Vera's, tied up in the cellar. Les realises that he can use this to his advantage, threatening to report Lionel to the police for murder and necrophilia. To avoid going to prison, Lionel is forced to give up the house and Vera's money to Les.
To celebrate his newfound wealth, Les decides to throw a house party and Lionel is forced to stay and serve the guests. After one of the zombies breaks out of the cellar, Les demands that Lionel get rid of them. Lionel poisons the zombies and buries them in the cellar, but the poison only makes them more ferocious and they soon break down the cellar door, attacking and slaughtering most of the guests and turning them into zombies. Les does whatever he can to survive the onslaught, including throwing one of his guests to the horde as bait and even hacking up a number of zombies with a butcher knife and meat cleaver.
Death and reanimation[]
Les is attacked by the zombie baby Selwyn who kicks him in the groin. Infuriated, Les runs after the mutant infant, following him into a pitch-black room. Inside, Les encounters Vera who has inexplicably mutated into a giant monster. With her long, clawed digits, Vera grasps Les' head and pulls it off his shoulders, though it remains connected to his body via the spine.
After dying, Les comes back as a zombie. In his undead state, he crawls on all fours with his head and spine waving around above his back. While Lionel is busy mulching the zombie horde in the house foyer with a lawnmower, Les attacks Paquita Sanchez and Rita Bridell in the kitchen. Paquita grabs Les' spinal cord and pulls it off his body, then swings his head around above her before bringing it down and smashing it against the kitchen counter.