Red Skull is one of Marvel Comics’ scariest villains, and a 34-year-old Marvel movie helped to prove this fact with a comic-accurate rendition of the Captain America villain. Red Skull is one of the oldest villains in Marvel Comics and the arch-nemesis of Steve Rogers’ Captain America. Red Skull’s striking appearance resulted from the character being injected with an early and underdeveloped form of the same Super Soldier Serum that gave Rogers his powers and helped to make the character so memorable.
Red Skull made his MCU debut in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger as portrayed by Hugo Weaving. Weaving’s take on the character was widely well-received, though arguably all too fleeting as he was removed from the picture by the movie’s conclusion, after giving an exceptionally sinister performance. Yet this wasn’t Red Skull’s first live-action outing, and it was far from his scariest. That accolade instead goes to the Red Skull who appeared opposite the titular hero in 1990’s Captain America.
Captain America was an ill-fated early cinematic outing for the titular hero and still holds the unfortunate record of being the worst-rated Marvel movie. Critics took aim at the performance of its leading man, Matt Salinger, and the sub-par script that typified many superhero movies before the 00s invigorated the genre. One thing that can’t be denied about Captain America, however, is the fact that Red Skull is at his most terrifying – a facet that places him in close proximity to his terrifying comic book counterpart.
Hugo Weaving’s makeup in Captain America: The First Avenger was well done, but it will always be difficult to outdo the haunting character design of Scott Paulin’s rendition. While Paulin’s Red Skull looks less like a skull than his successor, the makeup used to convey the effects of the Super Soldier Serum gone wrong is sufficient in making this rendition of Red Skull liable to haunt one’s dreams. Paulin’s performance, meanwhile, was incredibly conducive to making this version of Red Skull as terrifying as it should be.
By the time Captain America was released, Red Skull actor Scott Paulin was already a well-established actor, having appeared as such characters as Deke Slayton in 1983’s The Right Stuff and Zack Gregory in Turner & Hooch. His experience shines through in his role as the arch-villain of Captain America, where the actor leans into his villainous role by pulling a series of unsettling expressions in his handful of showdowns with Steve Rogers. Suffice it to say, Paulin made the most of the makeup he was given.
Though his haunting performance was not enough to save the movie from its critical fate, it helped to make it slightly more memorable. Hugo Weaving’s portrayal, by comparison, was less expressive as the actor opted instead to convey Johann Schmidt as a calmer and more calculating adversary. With that being said, by virtue of 1990’s Captain America being so critically lambasted, it is fair to say that Weaving’s portrayal will continue to be the definitive live-action version of Red Skull.