Kurtz (Heart of Darkness) circumstances and remote settings to assert power over others. It is widely believed that Conrad drew influence from these characters, as well as Stevenson's plot lines, when writing "Heart of Darkness". In the 1958 loose adaptation for the CBS television anthology series "Playhouse 90" Kurtz was played by Boris Karloff. This version uses the encounter between Marlow and Kurtz as its final act, and adds a backstory in which Marlow had been Kurtz's adopted son. Francis Ford Coppola's acclaimed Vietnam War film "Apocalypse Now" (1979) centers on the protagonist's mission to find and kill the renegade Colonel Kurtz (played by
Kurtz (Heart of Darkness) Marlon Brando), based on Conrad's character, who has gone rogue far up a river, deep in the Southeast Asian jungle. The script acknowledges "Heart of Darkness" as a source of information, and the last words of Colonel Kurtz, "The horror! The horror!", echo those of his namesake in the novel. In the mostly poorly received 1994 TNT version of the story directed by Nicolas Roeg, Kurtz, who has gone insane and is now doing the most horrible and blasphemous deeds, was portrayed by John Malkovich. The video game "" (2010) features a character in many ways similar to Kurtz; a