Upon leaving the cinema recently after watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I found myself slightly unnerved. The noxious smells and unbelievably sticky floors of my local multiplex never fail to make my skin crawl, but the absence of hygiene standards wasn’t what worried me here. Likewise, the worst acting offences of the latest Potter picture and the daftest bits of dialogue that the film had to offer weren’t responsible for my feeling of being riled. Indeed, it was the film’s baddie - the despicable Dark Lord Voldemort - who irked me as I watched the wizard movie that night. What was it about Voldemort that struck me so significantly? Well, look at the villain’s face…

Quite clearly, the character has no nose. Most people are lucky enough to have such an organ in the centre of their face. It gives you something to scratch when you’re bored or acts as a handily-shaped hoover for that raging cocaine habit. Two slits for nostrils suffice for this ferocious embodiment of evil; despite having the equipment to smell though, the man lacks that definitive bump that characterises the appearance of the average human head. Along with the eyes, the nose makes up the key triangle on which we focus when looking at other people’s faces. Without one third of this triangle, I found myself a bit lost when it came to watching the Dark Lord. Two eyes: check. But what about the bit below them? Alas, it is empty space!

Thinking over the absence of such a notable protuberant feature, I began to feel sorry for Voldemort. How can he enjoy life without ever having the free opportunity to pick his nose? No wonder he’s driven to such lengths of evil activity: his frustration is exacerbated by the fact that he can’t just pick and flick a bogey at his victims to please his inner bully. Nose-rings are not an option, and it’ll always be impossible for the Big V to do a proper Bruce Lee impression (the legendary nostril flick is crucial). What’s more, if you stare at his diminutive slits long enough, Voldemort begins to look like a cat. How can you hate the arch-nemesis of Harry Potter if the sight of him brings to mind images of innocent little kitties?

I can manage to get around the empathy for Voldemort with his absent nose though, mainly due to Ralph Fiennes’s fantastic performance – one which has always been spot on throughout the series. If you can get past the unusual, unnerving aspect and the fact that bogey-picking isn’t possible, the Dark Lord’s lack of a notable nose proves an age old film precedent to be true. The formula is such: freaky physical appearances make for a fascinating, memorable villain. If you want to truly create movie-legend and an unforgettable bad guy brand, give them an unconventional appearance that shows signs of obvious physical trauma.

The James Bond franchise is the key upholder, and indeed master, of this movie rule. Metallic body parts are a series mainstay as seen with Dr. No’s hands, Jaws’s teeth and the clamp-arm that Tee-Hee wields in Live and Let Die. Artificially-engineered organs aren’t the be-all and end-all though. All it takes is a light touch of hinted physical trauma such as Emilio Largo’s eyepatch in Thunderball or the good-old fashioned facial scar; whether it be as subtle as Le Chiffre’s in Casino Royale or as overwhelmingly obvious as that of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in You Only Live Twice (before he had plastic surgery and became Telly Savalas for the next film). Especially in blockbuster pictures, audiences like to be led by their eyes. Expressing the villain’s past of unfortunate accidents and ugly incidents through their body, or playing upon perceptions of inhumanity in an unconventional appearance is the direct route to easily defining an evil-doer. It also leaves a lasting mark. Can you properly recall every single plot-point of the unceasingly complex Pirates of the Caribbean series? It’s too confusing, but you can’t fail to forget the incredibly cool visage of Davy Jones with his slithering squid-face and tentacle beard combo. It sounds sick, but a bit of deformity can do wonders for even the most woeful movie.

Voldemort’s visual nature makes him stand out and successfully scares the kids. The slits give him a serpent-like quality; appropriate considering his reptilian associations (the parseltongue and basilisk-owning activities of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and his ties with the House of Slytherin at Hogwarts. Plus, he looks suitably undead and unnatural in comparison to the fresh-faced teens upon whom he preys, and he doesn’t get totally out-done in the iconography stakes by the specs-and-lightning-scar style of Harry Potter. In a film franchise that ricochets inconsistently between the good and the mind-bogglingly bad, the fact that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named doesn’t have a snout is something to shout about. Indeed, Voldemort’s missing nostrils are a magic touch.