Pestilence (Red Dwarf)

Pestilence is the antagonist from the Red Dwarf episode Gunmen of the Apocalypse. He is the one of the gang of four cowboy brothers, the Apocalypse Boys. In real world, he is just a manifestation of the Armageddon Virus in Kryten's wild west dream.

He is portrayed by Jeremy Peters.

Description
As his name says, Pestilence is a filthy and diseased cowboy, dressed in black dirty clothes. He has terrible broken teeth and is surrounded by many buzzing flies that fly around his head.

History
When there is the Armageddon Virus in Starbug, Kryten gives it to himself in order to work on an antidote. He starts dreaming that he is an always drunk sheriff of a small town in the wild west.

Kryten is soon confronted by four Apocalypse Boys. Their leader introduces himself as Death and his brothers as Brother War, Brother Famine and Brother Pestilence. They order Kryten to leave the town within one hour and he and his gang drive out of town.

To help their friend, Lister, Rimmer and the Cat enter the dream as computer game characters and face the Apocalypse Boys in a showdown in the street. However, death spreads the virus into the game and deleted all their special skills. The heroes discover that when Rimmer challenges War to a one-on-one battle and gets beaten.

Lister and the Cat manage to put their helmets off and leave the dream, so Rimmer is suddenly left there all alone. The four brothers corner him, holding their knives ominously. Death threatens to cut him into small pieces before Rimmer escapes as well.

The Apocalypse Boys then turn to Kryten and shoot him many times but he shrugs off the hits and throws his own weapons at them. The revolvers turn into doves which dissolve the Apocalypse Boys and end the dream.

Behind the Laughter

 * Pestilence is based on Pestilence from the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
 * When Pestilence smiles, his face looks similar to Freddy Krueger's.