The adventures of Macaulay Culkin, AKA “Kevin!” in Home Alone, were a mainstay of your childhood. The last few months have orbited around his brother, Kieran, and his boardroom politicking as Roman the showman in Succession. Now get ready for another Culkin brother to take over your screens. Rory Culkin: your time is now.
If you thought you saw a familiar-ish face in the new series of Black Mirror, you’d be right. If it passed you by, then let us be your guide to his role in the new series of Charlie Brooker's dystopian series (and what you may have seen him in before…)
Which Black Mirror episode is Rory Culkin in?
The sixth outing of Charlie Brooker's critically-acclaimed series is a bit of a mixed bag, but luckily for Rory, he appears in the best episode (in our humble opinion) of the lot: “Beyond The Sea”.
“Beyond The Sea” – starring Josh Hartnett, Aaron Paul and Kate Mara – imagines a parallel world taking place in the 1960s, in which two astronauts are turned into replicants. Their original human form has been sent up into space on a six-year mission, while their clones live on Earth with their respective families. Technology allows the two men to jump into their duplicant bodies every now and again, meaning they can revisit their partners and kids.
All’s well and good on planet Earth – David (Hartnett) is even treated as something of a celebrity when he’s out and about – but then one fateful night, David hears intruders enter into his (stunning mid-century) mansion.
Enter the long-haired Rory Culkin, who introduces himself as Kappa, and his cult-like group of friends, Sigma, Theta, Epsilon. Except, this cult isn't into peace and love: they want violence and bloodshed, specifically targeted at David's replicant. After tackling him and holding him down, Kappa slices off his cyborg hand with a knife, saying: “You don’t even bleed right.”
He then adds: “You are nothing natural, my friend”, before commanding Theta to get David’s wife and two children. Kappa tells the wife: “None of what has occurred in your home, with your full knowledge, is right in nature. A man sleeps in the sky while his mechanical image walks the earth… Defying nature must come at a cost or what will become of us all?”
In incredibly harrowing scenes – though most of the action is off-screen – David is forced to watch as his family are murdered by Kappa and his group, before they set David on fire. Disturbing? Yeah. You won’t want to watch this episode last thing before bed.
In the subsequent newspaper coverage, The Boston Globe covers the story with the headline: “Earth Replica Astronaut’s Family Slain: Hippy gang calmly awaited arrest”. And, in a little easter egg for Black Mirror fans, the “White Bear” symbol (harking back to another episode of sadistic violence) is shown in a picture of the murder site.
What has Rory Culkin Been in before?
Much like Kieran Culkin appearing alongside older bro Macaulay as bed-wetter Fuller in Home Alone, Rory also popped up alongside Mac in another ‘90s classic, Richie Rich, where he played Richie as a young boy. They kept it in the family for the 2002 indie flick Igby Goes Down too, where Rory played a younger version of Igby, who was played in the rest of the film by… Kieran.
Rory then starred in the 2002 M. Knight Shyamalan film Signs as Morgan Hess, and then appeared in TV shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Job and the rebooted The Twilight Zone, various art-house and indie films, popping up in some bigger movies such as Scream 4, then jumping back into TV shows Halston, The Expecting, and most recently, as a one-night stand in Donald Glover’s Swarm.
Black Mirror is streaming on Netflix now.
