36The scare that launched a thousand scares
(The Mutants, aka The Daleks, 1963-64)
Nearly 60 years on, the cliff hanger to the rst Dalek story - in which Barbara is menaced by the most famous sink plunger in history - has lost none of its charged potency. Doctor Who Scare 101, its power lies in the sheer conviction that all involved bring to it, from Jacqueline Hill’s visceral terror to Christopher Barry’s clammy, claustrophobic direction and the menacing throb of Brian Hodgson’s otherworldly sound design.
But while the Daleks, once revealed, are clearly very cool - and prompted a national outbreak of fully . edged Dalekmania - are they really that scary?
“The Daleks are de nitely scary,” says Nicholas Briggs - writer, Big Finish exec producer and TV’s Voice of the Daleks. “Everything about the way they were rst presented was designed to signal to the audience that they were scary. The slow reveal, Barbara’s bloodcurdling scream, the nightmarish sounds of the Dalek city… Everything signalled ’scary things are on their way’. And when they arrived, their voices were staccato, inhuman, their movements jerky, like the spasms of the diseased or dying.