A servant is an individual who acts as an assistant to another, either by chosen vocation or by some type of mental or physical enslavement. Servants may range in type from professional assistants to ordinary butlers (who are almost always guilty of something), to indentured personnel. In a negative connotation, servants may also be referred to as lackeys, cronies or henchmen.
Vampires will routinely use their supernatural abilities to hypnotically enslave a human being into becoming their trusted servant. In addition to performing menial tasks that the vampire would never condescend to perform himself, they are also responsible for protecting the vampire's coffin while he sleeps during the daylight hours.
Mad scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries are also known to employ one or more servants to assist them with setting up their lab equipment. In most cases however, they seem to keep them around so that they can have someone to impress whenever one of their experiments proves successful.
In the horror genre, the most infamous example of such a servant is the hunchbacked misanthrope Ygor from Frankenstein fame. Only slightly well less-known is Renfield, the insect devouring crazy-pants from Dracula. On the TV series Dark Shadows, the character of Willie Loomis served as a reluctant servant to Barnabas Collins.
Mister Cotton was a butler at Radcliffe Manor in the 1940 film The Invisible Man Returns. Amongst the servants at the house, he was the most upset when employer Geoffrey Radcliffe was wrongfully imprisoned for murder, citing that the Radcliffes did not have it in them for murder. A chauffeur jokingly remarked that while Cotton may have been a good butler, he was certainly no psychiatrist.
In the 1985 vampire/comedy film Fright Night, vampire Jerry Dandridge employed a servant named Billy Cole. Billy was not a vampire, but was also not entirely human either.
Types of servants
- Butler
- A butler is a hired member of an estate, generally male, who is in charge of all matters and personnel in regards to housekeeping and upkeep. A butler manages the day-to-day affairs of the cooking and cleaning staff as well as other hired help such as groundskeepers.
- Housekeeper
- A housekeeper is a hired individual charged with maintaining cleanliness and order of an estate. They may or may not have additional staff members who work under them. The are often referred to as maids or maidservants. Duties may include cooking, cleaning, laundry, and minding any children that may live on the property. In some cases, a housekeeper may actually live on the estate itself.
- Groundskeeper
- A groundskeeper is in charge of maintaining the external property of an estate. This includes maintenance, cutting, pruning and seeding of the lawn, as well as plants and shrubbery. A groundskeeper may also be charged with maintaining the family's pool if one exists.
- Slave
- A slave is an individual who is considered the legal property of another person. In the United States, slavery was a common practice, particularly amongst Southern land owners up until the mid 19th century. Slave owners made slaves work on plantations, usually under harsh and violent conditions. All of the slaves in the United States at this time were of African descent, though most of them were actually born in the country. Slavery was abolished following the American Civil War.
- Coolie
- Coolie is an old form informal term referring to slaves or indentured servants found in the regions of South Asia such as China and the Philippines. In the 1935 film Werewolf of London, Doctor Wilfred Glendon employed a group of "coolies" guide him through the mountains of Tibet in search of the elusive wolf flower, Mariphasa lupine lumina. Members of the team, which appeared to be of Cantonese origin, discussed matters relating to Doctor Glendon's work, while also shepherding the camels across the rough terrain.
Examples of servants
- Brudah: Brudah was a brutish servant, valet and henchman to the vampire known as Count Yorga. He maintained Yorga's mansion home in Los Angeles, California and guarded his master while he slept. [1]
- Doctor Wolfenstein's assistant: This unnamed man was a rather hairy individual with an apparent hunchback, who worked as the assistant to Doctor Wolfenstein, who was a television horror film host on Channel 68 in the 1970s. He was seen on briefly, wearing dark clothes and smashing pumpkins on a table with a large wooden mallet.
- Mister Plimpton: Mister Plimpton was the butler for the Glendon estate in London, England during the 1930s. He was aware that his employer, Wilfred Glendon, was a botanist who had been working on mysterious experiments in his laboratory. Plimpton had a discussion with Glendon's assistant, Mister Hawkins, but tried his best into prying into his master's business too much. [2]
Characters
| Character | Film/Series |
|---|---|
| Colin Weasler | Mummy: The Animated Series |
| Doctor Wolfenstein's assistant | House of 1000 Corpses |
| Hazel Evers | American Horror Story |
| Sembene | Penny Dreadful |