Top Sci-Fi & Fantasy Goths

We welcome back Lost Girl to UK screens with a guide to fantasy’s foremost goths

Be warned – you may feel like biting the head off a bat after you’ve gone through this lot.

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Lydia Beetlejuice

It must be every goth girl’s dream, to actually see a ghost. And sullen, sulky Lydia (Winona Ryder in a role that she’s never quite been able to shake off, even in real life) gets to see a whole bunch of them in Tim Burton’s dark fairytale. Ironically, the encounter actually seems to perk her up a bit – she’s doing a song and dance by the end. So here’s a warning: meeting ghosts can seriously damaged your goth cred – after all, if you know there’s a jolly afterlife, there’s no reason for all that gloomy introspection. On a side note: Winona Ryder appeared in Mermaids with Christina Ricci (they played sisters), who also makes an appearance in this list… (Spoilers!)

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Eric Draven The Crow

The Crow is the movie incarnation of “goth”, a celluloid fusion of leather, bondage, khol and Sisters Of Mercy bass lines. It’s so dark it may as well have been shot in black and black, while the undead, revenge-fuelled Eric Draven looks like he’s stepped out of a Marilyn Manson video. Even the tragic events surrounding the death of its star – Brandon Lee, killed in a shooting accident on-set – increases its goth credentials, giving the film a real-life macabre poignancy that reinforces its dark thrall.

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Morpheus & Death Sandman

Of course, there is an argument that Neil Gaiman – the man who once said “I own 23% of the world’s black” – should be on this list, but we’re keeping it to fictional goths. Besides, he’s well represented by his creations: uber-goth Morpheus, god of dreams (all black, flowing robes, silent demeanour, internal struggles and shaggy barnet) and perky goth Death (witty, sassy, down-to-earth, but still handy with the black eyeliner and midnight hair dye). Then again, when you’re a god of death, you don’t really need to try too hard…

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Drusilla Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Although Drusilla was introduced to the Buffyverse as a punkish Nancy to Spike’s Sid, her initial heroine chic look isn’t as memorable as some of her flashback appearances to olden days. Back then she favoured the full-on Anne Rice-vampire look. In either period she often spoke in quotes from a teen goth’s attempts at poetry: “Do you love my insides, the parts you can’t see?”

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Vampire Willow Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Vampire Willow, who only appeared in two episodes – season three’s “The Wish” and “Doppelgangland” – was the result of Anya creating an alternate universe where Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. Considering vampire Willow is a sexually aggressive, tight-leather-wearing, bisexual, thrusting-bosomed bloodsucker, it could just as easily have been Anya granting the wishes of a large section of the audience.

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The Addams Family The Addams Family

A collection of goths so dense they’re in danger of collapsing into a black hole, The Addams Family embraces all thing gothic with a deliciously dark delight. Charles Addams’s original satirical one-panel cartoons – which started life in 1938 in The New Yorker – introduced the Addams, an American family who loved the grotesque and bizarre but didn’t actually consider themselves anything other than an ordinary family. They were also totally unaware that people outside the family thought they were all freaks. Mum Morticia (though, fact fans, none of the characters were named until the ’60s TV series) would cut the heads off flowers; daughter Wednesday would find bizarre ways to torture brother Pugsley or tell Brownies that she had made brownies from real Brownies; Dad Gomez liked nothing better than to crash his toy trains. Oh, and grandmama was a witch, which probably explains a lot.

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Lily Munster The Munsters

Unlike the Addams Family, the Munsters only really had one true goth in the household – mum Lily. Hubbie Herman was a Vaudevillian Frankenstein’s monster, daughter Marion was a glamour puss, Grandpa was a panto vampire and son Eddie – though a werewolf – was just a snotty kid in shorts. So it was left to Lily to fly the goth flag, and she did it with aplomb. The hair, the eyeliner, the flowing dresses… surely every goth would want her as a mum?

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Ryuk Death Note

Death God (or Shinigami) Ryuk from the brilliant manga and anime Death Note is like The Joker meets Loki with a goth makeover. Bored with inactivity in the Shinigami realm he sends the Death Note to Earth for a bit of fun – anyone whose name is written in the Death Note will die. (He couldn't have just settled for a GameBoy?) Having lit the blue touch paper, he then stands back and watches the carnage unfold, as the teenage Light who finds the Death Note succumbs to that old “power corrupts” malarkey. Not sure if Ryuk’s love of apples is very gothy, though…

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Peter Vincent Fright Night (2011)

Tennant’s stint as a goth doesn’t last long. In action as Las Vegas stage magician Peter Vincent he’s a gothgasmic cross between Russell Brand, Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro and a sale at Leather World. But then he peels of the wig and facial furniture, rearranges his balls in his tight pants and turns into a sweary slob. But it was fun while it lasted.

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Coreen Fennel Blood Ties

Not one of the most convincing goths on the list, Coreen was myopic private investigator Vicki Nelson’s secretary in Canadian vampire show Blood Ties . She was played by Gina Holden, who went to star as Dale Arden in Syfy’s Flash Gordon , and to be frank, Coreen was a bit like watching clean-cut, wide-eyed, gosh-wow all-American girl next door Dale trying (and failing) to be a goth. Black was simply not her colour and you could tell she was desperate to put a brush through her hair.

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The Murgatroyds Anno Dracula

The Murgatroyds (named after a bunch of ghosts in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore) were a subculture of vampires in Kim Newman’s exquisite novel Anno Dracula that were looked down upon by all the other vampires. Led by Anne Rice’s Lestat (the novel features a lot of, erm, guest stars), these fashion-conscious vampires swanned around in goth regalia and embraced the whole gothy, bloodsucker cliché. Which reminds us of something from Twilight …

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Helena Bonham-Carter In Anything, Really

She could play Miss Marple and still come across like a goth.