| “ | Siobhan: Well, you make a pile of money for every prisoner you take. So you pack them in like sardines, provide crap food, crap medical, dangerous conditions and zero chance for rehabilitation. Lane (laughs evilly): I'm proud of you, dear. Irmgard: That's our business model exactly. |
„ |
| ~ Siobhan Klaxon learning of the true nature of her parents Lane and Irmgard. |
Lane and Irmgard Klaxon are the main antagonists of the 2022 Netflix stop-motion adult animated horror comedy film Wendell & Wild, based on an unpublished book of the same name written by Henry Selick and Clay McLeod Chapman.
They are the owners of Klax Korp, who planned and attempted to build a private prison on Rust Bank. Years before the events of the film, the Klaxons burned down Rust Bank Brewery as the first step into getting their prison, but the conspiracy starts to catch up over the years and, once Kat Elliot, the daughter of two of their enemies, comes back to the town, the Klaxons find their plans endangered.
Lane was voiced by David Harewood, who also played Captain Poison in Blood Diamond and Thomas Sinclair in Killzone Shadow Fall, while Irmgard was voiced by Maxine Peake.
What Makes Them Pure Evil?[]
- Years before the events of the film, they were already devious businessmen who wanted to create a private prison system of their own in the town of Rust Bank, even though such action would destroy the futures of the town's children.
- During five years, the Klaxons would try to incite the town's council to build their dream project. (Fortunately, their proposal was rejected every time, as they presumably knew their intentions.)
- As pointed out by their daughter Siobhan later in the film, the prison system would make sure all kids were imprisoned tightly, supplied with poor food and medical assistance, allowed to live under dangerous conditions and counting with no chance of being rehabilitated. Hearing their daughter's concerns, Lane and Irmgard just congratulate her for learning how the "family business" works.
- They burned down the Rust Bank Brewery once Delroy Elliot, its previous owner, dies and do so during the burial of Delroy and his wife Wilma despite there being several workers inside the factory when they burned it, killing ten or twelve innocents in the process.
- If the newspaper clippings Mariana Cocolotl collected are of any indication, the Klaxons silenced and sabotaged people to cover up the truth. What's more is that they were banned from doing business at the United Kingdom.
- They supported the Rust Bank all-girls Catholic school in exchange of the cooperation of Father Bests, its Headmaster, in convincing the council to build their prison. By the time of the film's events, Father Bests decides to stop supporting them, so Lane and Irmgard resort to murder him by braining him with a golf club and then tossing him into a frozen lake to drown for good measure. They also imply that they have done this to others previously.
- Upon his revival, Father Bests has a hunchback-like pose and his head is on his chest, proving how savagely the Klaxons disposed of him.
- They make a deal with the demons Wendell and Wild, who resurrect Father Bests upon coming across Delroy's daughter Kat and telling her that they would resurrect her parents, by promising them and Bests to giving their support to their project of making a dream faire and funds for the Catholic school in exchange of them bringing back the Old Guard members from the dead so they can technically vote for the approval of their prison project and overrule the council's decision, but also ban them from trying to resurrect any more people in the cemetery out of fear that the brewery workers would rat them out under the threat of pulling out all their support.
- Once Bests and the demon brothers fullfill their part of the deal, the Klaxons pay them, but as Siobhan informs them, Lane and Irmgard paid them with fake money that doesn't have any real value, even mentioning that they pay their workers all the time.
- They managed to get their prison project approved by bringing the Old Guard members to the council's meeting about what they could do with Rust Bank and take advantage of the Old Guard members being "alive" so overrule the current council members.
- They prepare bulldozers and excavators for the construction phase of their project and order the undead Old Guard to take the vehicles and demolish all of Rust Bank despite its population campaigning against them, with the Klaxons being okay with rendering all of them homeless out of greed. As shown in a vision to Kat, had the Klaxons proceeded with their demolition plans, Rust Bank's water tower would have been toppled down and the flood would have destroyed several houses and likely claimed several lives.
- They send their undead henchmen to go after Kat Elliot, Wendell, Wild and their friends, including Siobhan, and kill them for interfering with the project, endangering all of the heroes and leading to the brutal second deaths of the undead Old Guard members.
- They try to escape to avoid justice for their actions before karma reaches them in the form of the Rust Bank Brewery's employees reviving as well and testifying against them, leading the police to finally arrest them for their misdeeds.
- Unlike Buffalo Belzer, they do not show remorse for their actions. In fact, as they are taken into custody, Lane has the gall to try to pin all of the blame to Irmgard so he can get away, leading Irmgard to strangle him with her cuffs. As this is the last we see of the Klaxons, if Irmgard ended up murdering Lane, that would make her a spouse murderer, even if Lane absolutely deserved it.
- Their love for their daughter Siobhan is purely conditional, as they shower and pamper her with affection when she agrees with their decisions, but once she stands up against them with her friends to save the town, Irmgard has no qualms in ordering their undead forces to kill her as well and Lane does not protest to it.
Trivia[]
- In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Wendell & Wild director/writer Henry Selick and producer/co-writer Jordan Peele spoke about Lane's and Irmgard Klaxon's Pure Evil nature, stating that making them private prison builders and murderers was intentional to reflect the irony of how in a story involving demons and monsters, the worst characters are bad humans like the Klaxons.
- Lane and Irmgard Klaxon are, alongside The Beldam, two of the three Henry Selick villains to be Pure Evil.
