Ian McCulloch is a sandy haired, authoritarian-looking Scottish actor who has achieved fame in several cult television and film productions. He first became a household name via his central performance as Greg Preston in Terry Nation's popular BBC television series Survivors (1975), about a genetically engineered germ plague that nearly wipes out the entire population of the earth.

He then starred in several notoriously violent Italian made horror films of the early 1980s that were part of the "video nasty" controversy within the UK. McCulloch was the male lead in the Romero inspired Yüzde 99 ölüm (1979) aka "Zombi 2" directed by Lucio Fulci, he was back battling more living dead in Zombi Holocaust (1980) aka "Dr Butcher MD" directed by Marino Girolami, and then McCulloch took on interplanetary invaders in the Yaratık (1979) rip-off Contamination (1980), directed by Luigi Cozzi.

McCulloch returned to BBC television, which included playing a villain in Warriors of the Deep: Part One (1984), another role he is well-remembered for by cult television fans, not least because the story featured quite possibly the most unconvincing monster in the history of the series.