I got plenty in mind...like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. His descent into madness as Jack Torrance was both terrifying and mesmerizing especially for the time the movie went out. I can't imagine this movie without Nicholson!
Same for Anthony Hopkins’ as Hannibal Lecter...He turns what could have been a straightforward villain into a charismatic, chilling character who steals every scene he’s in.
Who do you think transformed their horror role into something truly exceptional?
YESSSS to Christian Bale. He's always amazing though. He was scary good in The Machinist too.
Christian Bale used a Tom Cruise interview as a base for the character [sauce: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144084/trivia?item=tr1113045]
Gotta love Katie in Misery. Well perhaps not James Caan with her hobbling surgery. 😂
Everyone loves Kathy Bates, but James Caan fucking delivered too.
Agreed. Caan brought his a game for this one
YES I agree! I still have Caan's victorious typewriter scene doing her in , implanted in my brain 😳🫨🤯🤣😂
For me it’s one scene where Annie hugs him, and you get an almost soap opera-style shot of his facial expression behind her back. Fantastic.
Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer was so upsetting and terrifying that I walked out of the theatre. He was so completely believable. I’ve never done that before because of being so very disturbed.
I saw it for the first time about 10 years ago. I never want to see it again.
I think it disturbed me so much because I ended up not hating him as much as I wanted to. I didn't like him, but I guess I appreciated his code in some twisted way.
It was a mind fuck.
And Kathy Bates as Delores Claiborne. Not that much a horror film but a great thriller and a wonderful performance.
I honestly don't think anyone else could've played Annie quite as well as Cathy Bates. She was superb.
Kathy Bates is the answer.
Without her presence, the film would not be the classic it is
Anthony Perkins in Psycho
Kathy Bates in Misery
Brad Dourif in The Exorcist III
Brad Dourif for the win!
Brad Dourif is incredible in everything he’s in.
I love him as the rat catcher in Graveyard Shift.
I love him as Wormtongue and Billy Bibbit. Was he in Percy in The Green Mile?
He wasn’t Percy.
He is definitely one of my favorite actors of all time. He has such range!
Brad Dourif as Suder on Voyager
Brad plays a GREAT redneck in Mississippi Burning and was awesome as the stuttering little guy, Billy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
All performances in Exorcist 3 were great, Dourif's especially.
It's a TV show, but Tim Curry as the serial killer on criminal minds
Tim Curry in anything! He's so menacing.
Except for Clue, my favorite Tim Curry film. That one is a non-horror classic. MARTIN MULL STILL CONSISTENTLY GETS WORK!
C Thomas Howell was legit on CM too
Tim Curry as Darkness in Legend.
Tim Curry as Pennywise
I love Tim Curry and I love Criminal Minds and sometimes have to skip his episodes during rewatches because they are so unsettling.
Patrick Stewart in Green Room. A pretty good horror film made quite uncomfortable by his incredible performance.
That's true, few other actors would have been able to bring an intimidating presence, an unsettling calm, and some weird type of ruthless, fatherly politeness, to the character. Also kudos to the director for not just going for an easy stereotype. The banality of evil is so rarely portrayed in movies, most villains (not just in horror movies that is) are screaming caricatures.
All I knew going in was that he was in it, and I knew him from Star Trek-I was shook when he came onscreen!
Watcthing him drop hard-r n-bombs was unsettling in and of itself.
He’s so out of place there but he really made it work.
Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis in The Fly (1986)
That movie is so sad which somehow makes it scarier. I’m not scared that the scary fly monster is going to come get me - I’m scared that I’m going to lose someone I love because of a stupid avoidable mistake
Mads Mikkelsen also as hannibal
His performance in 'Hannibal' is magnificent. I was so engaged with and terrified of his character.
He is Hannibal to me. Anthony Hopkins was a little over the top and creepy. Mads was perfect.
Indeed, he's perfect for it and I've heard he's hard on the case for bringing it back.
By god he made that series. 12/10
I never thought anyone would be able to top Hopkins oscar winning turn as H.L. Was I ever wrong. Mads brings a whole new level of unsettling charm and savagery. He will, in my mind, forever be Hannibal.
He's just amazing in every scene. His dope ass suits are a character of their own. Also, Hugh Dancy is phenomenal as Will Graham. Their bond feels so real.... I hope to God they bring this show back. They could do at least 2 more seasons.
Toni Collette in Hereditary was amazing
As well as the 6th sense. She has done some great films. Even Little Miss Sunshine was great. Albeit not a horror film.
She made me cry in The Sixth Sense. As a mother I could feel her pain for Cole and how much she just wanted to see him happy and for his suffering to stop. And the story she told about her mother and the bumblebee pendant 😭
I loved Little Miss Sunshine! It was so much funnier than I expected. I tried to tell my nephew he should watch this movie about a girl's beauty pageant and I could tell he was like, yeah, no, which was my feeling when I kept hearing people talking about it. Excellent film with so many funny scenes. That one where the cop pulls them over and finds the naughty magazines was just hysterical on its own.
I loved her in Muriel’s wedding
And krampus too!! She plays the frazzled mom so well there
💯 she deserved a Oscar for that performance.
Like THAT was a grieving mother
Was looking for this. The wailing. My God the wailing.
That scene hit me like a knife in the heart. It was like watching myself when I was 29 and my husband died very very suddenly and in a way that makes it feel so avoidable. I'd just cry and wail and scream til I was just unable to speak anymore. Kiddos are the only thing that held me in place and made me keep going. I know how intense and consuming that grief was in losing my partner but a parent losing their beloved child is truly the worst thing I can imagine. Especially when it's just so sudden and senseless. And then being the one to find them?
Some actors make you truly believe what you're seeing and some make it painfully aware they're just acting in a movie. She's one of the truly amazing ones who stick with you once it's over.
I cannot watch that part without crying myself. No matter how hard I try.
I’m a sympathy crier. If someone is crying, I’m crying. But her acting at that part is so believable. Being someone who experienced a similar (though not as intense) reaction when I was informed my stepmom had died, it’s so realistic.
Her being inconsolable. Her trying to verbalize her feelings, but she just can’t because the pain is so overwhelming. Being relegated to the floor and rocking back and forth…
I’m serious tearing up just thinking about it!
This is the correct answer. I think it was an Oscar-worthy performance
Christopher Lee in everything.
Incredibly versatile actor and all around gentleman. My favorite film of his is The Wicker Man. Definitely recommend this for all fans of Lee. He sings and dances in it too!
Especially because he actually murdered people. Ian Flemming based James Bond partially on him. When they filmed LotR and had Saurman stabbed in the back, Lee insisted that Peter Jackson reshoot the scene because he didn't get the sound when somebody gets stabbed quite right.
Nicholas Cage's performance in Willy's Wonderland. He spoke no lines but carried most of the scenes, and he was fucking brilliant.
He was also excellent in Mandy!
Can’t wait for longlegs
His facial expressions sold it perfectly for me.
I really liked Billy Zane in Demon Knight. He was beyond evil, but was also charming and could trick the cast. I feel the same way about Alex Divoff in Wishmaster.
Billy Zane in that role.. YES!!!! Charismatic, flirtatious, charming and evil as evil can be. I still have a crush on him for that role.
I forgot about Demon Knight. He was fantastic in that
I loved that movie so much! He really carried that film.
Robert Englund in Nightmare on Elm Street. He’s a really underrated actor with a lot of range, and the fact that he created a character that became a cultural icon can’t be denied.
He does put his all into his character and perfects creeping people out. Ironically, he seems like a really nice person in real life.
A friend knows him and said he is the nicest guy and really cracks up when he sees him in horror movies. He says it's hard to be scared during Englund's films because he knows him as this nice neighbor!
Anybody who doesn't think Robert Englund is what made those movies worth watching should just check out the remake. (Although, to be fair, I don't know if ANYBODY could have made the stupid-looking makeup they used work.)
Already commented but I have to add Terry O'Quinn in The Stepfather (1987). It could've been a B movie but he elevated it to a classic.
I used to watch and love Lost. And when they did what they did with his character, it was damaged beyond repair. Locke was the anchor for that show, because of O'Quinn.
Who am I here?...chilled me
Arnold Schwarzenegger made the Terminator into a cold emotionless cyborg. His movements in the garage scene, reminds me of a camera.
I was so hoping that someone would mention this performance. James Cameron changed his whole concept of what the terminator was after meeting Arnold, and Arnold took the role and ran with it.
The scene at Tech Noir is my absolute favorite.
I cannot and will not disagree about Arnold, but I want to shine a line on Robert Patrick in T2. I read about how he was already a trained runner, but he practiced running without breathing for this role. And he also practiced firing a gun without blinking. And that made me realize why the T1000 was always so fucking uncanny on screen. That dude received his assignment, and he blew it out the water.
Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project. She delivered a stellar performance. Anyone saying otherwise just isn't able to tell the difference between a (mildly) annoying character and an outstanding actress. Either that or they've been fed so much crappy fake-realistic Hollywood pseudo-natural acting that they can't recognize when characters are actually acting and talking like normal average people on screen. I will die on that hill.
Her hyperrealistic acting (and also the other two leads', but esp hers) made that movie into the masterpiece of psychological horror that it is.
Also, I can't not name Tilda Swinton literally playing three roles in Suspiria 2018. Dakota Johnson (playing the main character) was great as well, esp for such a complex character to play throughout a movie full of surprises.
And I also wanna mention Alyssa Sutherland, the awesome actress playing the infected mother in Evil Dead Rise. Her performance was chilling and exceedingly creepy.
BWP gets mocked a lot but it is just VERY much a “you had to be there” thing. It was the first of its kind in the mainstream, and the concept has been done so much since that to watch it now it feels cliche. But it was legit terrifying.
(I know I know, there are people who WERE there and hated it, obv speaking in generalities)
Denzel Washington in Training Day. He was AMAZING in this role. He scared me way worse than any horror movie villain.
Great movie & performance. I love Denzel in Training Day so much. While unrelated to horror, if you haven't seen Flight, that's another one of his incredible character studies. Has he done any horror at all? I would love to see it happen.
Fallen (1998 film) - Wikipedia)
Denzel was in Fallen (supernatural horror). I think he was great in it.
Thank you so much for the rec! The cast looks stacked with talent, can't believe I didn't know about it.
Fallen is such an incredibly hidden gem.
It's not one actor in particular, but the whole cast and direction of Absentia (2011) elevated a relatively banal movie into one of the best horror movies I've ever seen, all due to the rare realism of the acting of everyone involved.
FYI, it's the first movie of Mike Flanagan, director of Oculus. If you haven't watched Absentia, I highly recommend.
Thanks, I’ll check it out!
Well, there's Bruce Campbell.
I love him! I've seen so many of his films and while he sort of plays the same character all the time, he is EXCELLENT at it! It's hard to pick a favorite but I did love him in the TV show, Burn Notice, and hope he was paid a lot of money for bringing me such joy in his earlier low budget stuff. He also does great cameos, too! Spiderman and, especially, at the end of Darkman. Nice guy too! Comes to a bunch of fan conventions and always gives the fans a treat.
The Evil Dead movies would not have been nearly as entertaining without him!
Tim Curry in anything.
"Herkermer Homolka. Formerly of Romania. Free now of the chains of Ceaucescu. Traveling the world, doing good."
Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs
Matthew Lillard in Scream. He effortlessly shifted from goofy friend to absolute psycho on a dime.
Elisabeth Moss in The Invisible Man
I just rewatched it today. I agree, the scenes she was in were quite poignant.
Robin Williams:
One Hour Photo
August Rush
People may hate the series, but Patrick Wilson is phenomenal in both Insidious and the Conjuring. We just need more Patrick Wilson love all the way around.
Edit to add video of him singing because he is incredible
I love Patrick Wilson. I think is great in pretty much everything he does.
I agree. I love how subtle yet unnerving his performances can be.
And Hard Candy and In the Tall Grass, I love it when he plays the bad guy.
Yeeeees!!!!
James MacAvoy, Split! Holy crap!
Very much this!
He really didn't get enough credit. Like the move or hate it. He pulled off all of those characters and switching back and forth on a dime. Damn he was fantastic!
This was the very first thing I thought of and wanted to look before I posted it. It was such a great performance and I haven't seen glass yet but it's on my list for the very near future.
I can't read etcetera in any other voice now.
And Glass
Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Absolutely. He made that movie. Though I like Wynonna Rider, she did not fit that role and the other actors carried the movie. Nothing is more horror romantic than when Dracula says, "I have crossed oceans of time to find you."
Luke Evans in No One Lives was epic.
And you can't ignore the king, Bruce Campbell is an absolute treasure.
It's good to be the King.
No one lives doesn’t get the love it deserves
Dughg Bradley? Pinhead
He's brilliant in that role. Brilliant.
I love that they didn't let him into the wrap party after the movie because he was not in makeup and was a very quiet and polite person (he did eventually get in)
Jim Cummings as the alcoholic sheriff trying to catch the killer in The Wolf of Snow Creek is amazing
Bruce Campbell made a comedy hero in Ash into an icon
Say what you will about the Saw franchise, but Tobin Bell has nailed each and every one of those movies.
Peter Stormare in literally anything he does. He was the perfect devil in Constantine.
Also David Dastmalchian in Late Night with the Devil. He played it so cool, in a role that easily could have been way over the top.
So happy to see David Dastmalchian getting more love. His part was the only bit in Boogeyman I enjoyed.
2 excellent call outs
I don't wanna admit this, but Frailty might be the best Mathew McConaughey performance in his career, and Rust from True Detective kinda reminded me of that.
Also those bizarre Buick commercials.
Actually that's my final answer. Mathew McConaughey's performance in Buick commercials makes those things fucking terrifying. That's all him. Horrific tension - who is he talking to while driving off road in the moon light? Where is he coming from and how many prostitute corpses are displayed like the zodiac signs there? These are things Buick has no answers for but cubic foot trunk capacity.
I'll stop now.
Tony Todd. I love the candymab
Vincent D'Onofrio in The Cell
Not technically a horror series, but Antony Starr as Homelander in The Boys. He embodies the whole vibe so well, I hear the stage hands avoid him.
Brad Pitt in Kalifornia
I love this movie! She names the cactus Shelly lol Idk why I just love her!
Angela Bettis - May
This movie got forgotten, unfortunately. But I remember it was freaky and poignant.
This movie is a trip, but it is creepy.
Matthew Lillard as Stu in "Scream."
So much of what took him from a typical lackey without much character to a very memorable part of the film was on Matthew's part.
Even in the script Billy is the main focus of the two killers.
That man is amazing in so many roles.
Hamish Linklater in “Midnight Mass”
YES!
After watching all of New Adventures of Old Christine I couldn’t believe that was Matthew!!! Goofy old, non scary Matthew?
Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise in IT. He took an already terrifying character to the next level.
Jason Miller, of course.
Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector
Have you seen the Hannibal series? Mads Mikkelsen is Hannibal.
Daeg Faerch, young Michael Myers in the Rob Zombie Halloween remake.
People always talk about what a terrific actor Robert Englund is and how he is what carried the Nightmare series.
He did. I don't think that franchise would have continued without his performance.
I always loved him as Freddy, and I know they briefly attempted to replace him on Freddy's Revenge before resigning the fact that Englund was Kruger and Kruger was Englund. But hearing the consistent praIse from 100% of his peers and coworkers has elevated my admiration of him as an actor and an all-around good shit.
Tony Shalhoub and Matthew Lillard in 13 Ghosts. Without them, that movie would have been a campy, over the top parody.
David Howard Thorton as Art the clown.
He was the main reason the low budget horror schlock of TERRIFIER is interesting. He took what could have been another evil clown role and without a word, made the character one you can't take your eyes off of.
Zachary Quinto in American Horror Story.
In Heroes too, in my opinion.
Rutger Hauer - The Hitcher
Robert Englund, Freddy Krueger
Essie Davis in The Babadook and Toni Collette in Hereditary come to mind
karen black in trilogy of terror, (1975) especially the zuni doll part!!
Leslie easterbrook in devils rejects she sunk her teeth in soooo hard on that part!
Kurt Russel in The Thing. It isn't the same movie without his MacReady
In Manhunter (1986):\ Tom Noonan as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde (spelled Dollarhyde in this movie); and\ Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecter (spelled Lecktor)
For me there is no other Tooth Fairy than Tom Noonan . Never will be again. He's the Marlon Brando in Streetcar, or Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. There shall be no other.
While all three actors who played Lecter were great in their own ways, Cox inhabited the role with superficially genteel civility over a monstrous core unlike any other. Of the three actors (I don't mean characters) Brian Cox is the only one I wouldn't turn my back on. He just seems like he's not acting in Manhunter, the Jason Bourne movies, Rob Roy, Troy or Succession. He seems like an extremely self disciplined guy who recognizes what horrors people are capable of and channels it into certain roles without ever becoming a cliche or cartoon character.
Carla Gugino, Gerald’s Game!
Piper Laurie in “Carrie”. In an interview she said that during filming she was under the impression that it was a black comedy so she went full on camp.
Florence Pugh in midsommar. You could feel the anxiety and depression seeping out of her the whole time
I never thought Nicholson was the right fit for The Shining. He played like Jack Torrence was crazy to start with but had it well hidden. Being at the Overlook just let his crazy run wild.
It should have been a "descent into madness," but Nicholson seemed crazy from the get-go.
Skarsgard in IT was great
Malcolm McDowell A Clockwork Orange
John Goodman- Cloverfield Lane
Anthony Hopkins - Hannibal
Jach Nicholson- The Shining
Kathy Bates - Misery
James Mccavoy - Split
I grew up watching Roseanne. I never thought John Goodman would make my skin crawl.
And yet he’s so good at it! His performance in O Brother, Where Art Thou? was really unhinged as well.
Goodman was freaking awesome in the Cloverfield movie!
Surprised no one has mentioned Wolf Creek yet. Yeah, the other actors were good, but if John Jarrat weren't in it, it would be a completely different movie, possibly utterly forgotten. His Mick Taylor is almost transcendently evil yet entirely believable.
Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster in 3 films.
Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula.
Lon Chaney Jr. as Lawrence Talbot, the Wolf Man.
Ooohhh OG horror... love it! I did a deep dive recently into those old Universal Films and they still hold up almost 100 years later! I wonder if folks will be watching them another 100 years from now.
Luke James in Them: The Scare
Vincent Price in Witchfinder General. Played it totally opposite to his usual camp style and he is fantastic in it.
Vincent Price in most films he’s done, honestly.
Dwight Frye. He made Reinfield and Fritz like Lugosi made Dracula, and Karloff made the Frankenstien monster, his own unique character.
Great Renfield
Frank Silva in Twin Peaks makes what you can spin pretty easily as just a generic demon situation into something fucking terrifying, although the plot itself was pretty well done for a variety of reasons.
Hopkins conveyed menace buried beneath an urbane exterior and was able to seamlessly move between calm and feral in a single sentence. His is the defining performance of Hannibal.
Mads Mikkelsen's take on Hannibal was amazing too. His Hannibal reveled in the manipulation and deception as well as the slaughter. He took great pleasure in the art of cooking and treated murder as art form as well. The crossover between those passions added so much tension to the show, always leaving the viewer wondering if the meal he was lovingly preparing included his most recent victim.
Michael Berryman in 'The Hills Have Eyes' (1977)
Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Patrick Troughton and especially Billie Whitelaw in The Omen...
Christian bale on American psycho or Robert generous in cape fear
The main cast of Bone Tomahawk. Every one of those characters feel so ridiculously real and lived in
The entire cast of Jaws.
Danny Devito as The Penguin always scared the fudge out of me as a kid. Especially the black blood dripping from his mouth.
Evan Peters will never not be the Dahmer
Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West in Re-animator.
Bruce Campbell as Ash
Colm Feore in Storm of the Century. One of the most terrifying performances of the Devil.
Judd Nelson in the Cabin By the Lake films. Those films gave me nightmares for a while. I have not been able to look at him the same.
Toni Collette in "Hereditary" is incredible. It could have been a really cheesy performance but she absolutely kills it and gives a harrowing performance.
To be honest, she's great in everything.
Brendan Gleason in 28 days later. “Takes out the fire but leaves the warmth.” Takes a hard horror film and makes it make you want to cry for the characters
Toni Collete in Hereditary. Her performance was outstanding. Like Oscar worthy. She disappeared in that role and her grief I felt down to my core. Unpopular opinion, I didn’t like the movie all that much, but her performance is just something I’ve never seen in a horror movie before.
Kurt Russell. John Carpenter’s The Thing. Hard drinking helicopter pilot tries to maintain order among his stranded comrades when one or more are the thing in hiding.
Viggo Mortensen's in "The Prophecy" as Lucifer was pretty jaw dropping. Christopher Walken's Gabriel in the movie was of course extraordinary, but Mortensen — who wasn't a particularly household name of an actor yet — managed to in an all of about 5 minutes on screen make enough of an impact with being both inviting & terrifying that he ended up being every bit as spine chilling & memorable in the movie as Walken's lead villain did.
Ted Levine as Jame Gumb in Silence of the Lambs. He's such a good actor. I loved him in Monk.
Anthony Perkins
Gary Oldman as Dracula
Tony Collete and Alex Wolff in Hereditary.
Poltergeist 2, i thought Julian Beck as Kane was just tremendous! he was the highlight of that movie!
Jack Nicolson was amazing in that role but I think Shelly Duvall is the true unsung hero of that film. Everything Jack does is all the more terrifying because of the way she plays off him.
Thomas Jane (who is typically a mediocre at best actor in my book) was spectacular in The Mist. And that final scene was worthy of an Oscar IMHO.
I truly believe that Rebecca Ferguson's performance in Doctor Sleep should be every bit as lauded as Jack Nicholson's in The Shining.
James Mcavoy in split I am in love with him
Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes in the movie Misery. She was a revelation.
Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. He played it a little too well.
Michael Rooker as Henry in Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer. Again, almost seemed like he played it too well.