Can Someone Explain Why Great Actors Star in Awful Horror Movies?

September 24, 2012 6:00 pm     Posted in Celebrity, Entertainment, Homepage Exclusive  Katie - Miami University (OH) g+ page


By Katie

Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence takes on a lead role in the new movie House at the End of the Street, a horror film now in theaters. I just saw a trailer for this movie come on the other day and my roommate, a die-hard Hunger Games fan, literally screamed, “What the heck is she doing in that movie?! But she’s so good!”

Although scary movies are often known for cheesy special effects, cheap scare tactics, as well as horrible scripts and acting, it turns out that a ton of amazing actors and actresses go on to star in these less prestigious roles. It’s almost become an initiation into the acting hall of fame. Moviefone’s put together a list of some of Hollywood’s finest who have starred in terrible horror films.

Can you believe these actors were in some of these movies? View the list here!

[Lead image credit]

14 Comments on "Can Someone Explain Why Great Actors Star in Awful Horror Movies?"

  1. Camburnsmith says:
    Tue, 25th Sep 20123:16 am 

    It is so Interesting and Mind Blowing acting in the Horror Movie . http://intensedebate.com/people/DorisHanson

  2. sam says:
    Tue, 25th Sep 20125:38 pm 

    should've shown a picture of a great actor in a horror movie to prove your point

  3. @2FingersBerben says:
    Wed, 26th Sep 20123:09 pm 

    A lot of these can be explained by timing – a studio makes a crap film, they know it's crap, then the star goes on to make something huge and blow up – so they pull the film out of the "round file," dust it off, and throw it up on the screen, hoping that the new fame of their star will help them to sell this POS, all while said star cringes, wishing they'd never made that POS to pay the bills now that they're box office gold.

  4. Brad says:
    Fri, 15th Feb 20135:00 pm 

    Many of the second rate horror films were made before the actors/actresses were famous. Alternately, there are often clauses in the major picture contracts that will have the actors and actresses lend themselves to a 5 to 10 day shoot of low budget films for which they get scale and some of the back end.

  5. —Keith Hale— says:
    Tue, 26th Feb 20133:06 pm 

    MyCocaine (Michael Caine) said once that he makes the crap films like Jaws 3D to pay for the art films he wants to be a part of. We as a society are conditioned to a state of what i call "AutoSnark". We criticise mercilessly with zero regard to the actor (or other crew) who just need to work … for things like paying rent; keeping their health insurance going; justifying their career-choice to family (and self). If a good friend of yours was in a "terrible" horror flick like these in question, you would maybe tease them a little, but you'd be happy they got a chance to work on a film that got distributed at all.

    I have friends that have been in SMALL-time things that no one raves about, but they were glad to have the work. Critics must stop what they do. TMZ is a social disease. If we treated celebrities like, say, humans – the Lindsey Lohan Saga (please pardon the dead-easy example) would be much, much less commonplace. Instead we treat them like animal entrails on the way into a sausage grinder.

    Paradoxically, the more we like them, the worse we treat them. Remember kindergarten concepts like fairness, getting along, understanding, not-hounding-Sally-with-hundreds-of-guerrilla-paperazzi-until-we-cluck-our-tongues-when-we-learn-they-killed-themselves? Remember those? Are you SURE you remember those? Why does anyone that achieves some level of success forfeit their right to common decency?

    Scolding ends, i have to admit i have been and am still part of the problem. This subject must be on my mind: this story was barely an example of the Snarkitude i'm hoping to erode.

  6. horror kid says:
    Wed, 6th Mar 201311:28 am 

    i agree with the article about hateots. it was a HORRIBLE MOVIE but i support any actor]actress trying to get into the horror genre. Jennifer Lawrence next horror should be directed by Rob Zombie

  7. fangirl says:
    Wed, 6th Mar 20131:05 pm 

    Many actors get their start in cheap horror movies. George Clooney was in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes 2. Jennifer Aniston (pre-nose job) was in Leprechaun.

  8. Taka says:
    Sat, 9th Mar 20136:28 pm 

    None of these stars are great, and almost all of them made the horror movie BEFORE they were a star…

  9. Hungergamslover34 says:
    Tue, 12th Mar 20138:45 pm 

    Hey hey hey!! That movie is really good. I’ve seen it and loved it so much I watched it twice in one day, and I hate doing that. So all u haters watch movies before u trash them. She does a real good job in this movie and she rocks it. Rocks getting kidnapped and is hot with a gun and knows how to beg for freedom SHE ROCKS and I AM ALSO a die hard HG fan to the point I’m countering down the days. GO JENNIFER

  10. unknown says:
    Wed, 20th Mar 20133:35 pm 

    hats off to you bud.. well said

  11. Joe says:
    Thu, 4th Apr 20137:16 pm 

    The real question is why would an awesome horror movie star make some crap summer blockbuster garbage

  12. SpaceDazee says:
    Sun, 7th Apr 20137:41 pm 

    I know I'm late coming into this, but still gonna give my answer none-the-less. I am also going to jump on the "A job's a job" bandwagon here. Not every movie made is going to be amazing, groundbreaking, or even.. well.. good. But actors still need jobs and can't always be "I'm too good for this" about it. They'll find themselves without much work with that kind of attitude.

  13. Space Dazee says:
    Sun, 7th Apr 20137:41 pm 

    (had to split it into two)
    And, honestly, and this is just speculation here… I'd have to think that some of these lower budget horror films have to be fun or at least less stressful. There's not as much stress to give an Academy award performance. They probably won't expected to do many if any promotional things for it (interviews, TV spots, red carpet events, promotional shots, so on, so forth, whatever famous people do to promote huge movies). Sure, those can be fun and exciting, but I'm sure it's stressful and sometimes they just want the break. It reminds me of Seth Green talking about being in Ticks/Infested and how the cast just got silly with it near the end because it was such a ridiculous movie. No one's looking at winning anything, they're just looking at getting out something entertaining.

  14. Marta Pastor says:
    Sun, 14th Apr 20139:37 pm 

    Claro y conciso. Muchas gracias. Besos!

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