With Ethan Hawke most recently delivering a laudable performance in the terrifying box office hit Sinister, due to hit UK DVD and Blu-ray on 11 February through Momentum Pictures, we decided to take a look back at some other Hollywood notables who made their mark on the genre with style. Aaaaand ACTION!
Danny Glover – Saw (2004)
Perhaps best known as Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon films, Danny Glover also has a long history of roles in smaller independent films. So it was perhaps not surprising when he turned up as obsessive Detective Tapp in low-budget horror Saw. Glover shot his scenes in two days, and the film went on to spawn one of the biggest horror franchises of all time.
Kevin Bacon – Friday the 13th (1980)
Famous for more than just Footloose, Kevin Bacon has one of the most memorable horror movie deaths ever in the original Friday the 13th. While filming the Tom Savini-designed scene was uncomfortable, Bacon was pleased with having a classic horror death: “You fuck the girl, you smoke the joint, you’re dead. So that was good.”
Donald Pleasence – Halloween (1978)
Blofeld himself, Donald Pleasence, appears in one of his most memorable roles as Dr. Sam Loomis in the Halloween franchise. Featuring in five of the first six films, Pleasence once joked that he’d “stop at twenty-two!” In the end he was sadly stopped by his own death shortly after filming Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), although his picture appears in Halloween H20 (1998) during the opening sequence.
Nicole Kidman – The Others (2001)
2001 was a very good year for Nicole Kidman, who starred in box office hit The Others after taking the world by storm in musical smash Moulin Rouge! Initially reluctant to explore such dark avenues after her all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza, Kidman asked the producers to find another actress for the role – and we’re all glad they didn’t!
Josh Hartnett – Halloween: H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)
Getting his big break alongside Michelle Williams in 1998’s Halloween reboot, Josh Hartnett sports one of the worst haircuts in horror history as he plays the son of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode. The film was a hit and opened doors for Hartnett, who has since starred in a diverse range of films including The Faculty (1998), The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Sin City (2005).
Kiefer Sutherland – The Lost Boys (1987)
Receiving his first big break in the heartbreaking coming-of-age movie Stand by Me, Kiefer got his second big break in this absolute vampire classic… and quite literally so! He was only meant to wear David’s trademark black gloves when riding the motorbike. However, while messing around on the bike behind the scenes, he fell off, subsequently breaking his arm so he had to wear the gloves through the whole movie to cover his cast. Ouch!
Courteney Cox – Scream (1996)
Best known for her role as Monica Geller in the sitcom phenomenon that is “Friends,” it was rather ironic to hear about Courteney landing a role in this Wes Craven modern masterpiece as cold-hearted weather girl Gale Weathers, who quite literally has no friends! Apart from one close friend it seems, her co-star David Arquette, whom she ended up marrying. We won’t mention the divorce…
Bruce Willis – The Sixth Sense (1999)
Luckily for some huge actors, film studios can’t kill off your career if you piss them off. No, they just make you play dead and control you like a puppet! Fortunately for Bruce Willis, though, this helped form one of his most memorable roles. The Sixth Sense was the first of two movies that Willis owed Disney after he caused another production, The Broadway Brawler, to be shut down due to him firing the director. He also was paid $10 million, half of his usual salary at the time.
Sigourney Weaver – Alien (1979)
The first day that Sigourney shot a scene involving Jones the cat, her skin started reacting badly. Horrified, the young actress immediately thought that she might be allergic to cats and that it would be easier for the production to recast her instead of trying to find four more identical cats. As it transpired, Sigourney was just reacting to glycerine sprayed on her skin to make her look hot and sweaty. Whew!
Daniel Radcliffe – The Woman in Black (2012)
While seeking to protect his son from the dark supernatural depths of Northern England in this Gothic chiller, Daniel Radcliffe opens another father-son relationship for trivia fans here! In the Harry Potter films Daniel plays the son of actor Adrian Rawlins, who had previously played the same role of Arthur Kipps in an earlier version of The Woman in Black in 1989. Like father, like son it would seem!
Elijah Wood – Maniac (2012)
While he’d already shown us an affinity for the twisted with his performance as the perverted Kevin in Sin City (2005), Wood pulls out all the stops in Franck Khalfoun’s phenomenal Maniac remake with a frighteningly effective performance that bleeds sheer psychosis from the screen. A docile Hobbit no more, with Maniac Wood proves himself a genre figure to be reckoned with.