10 actors who were overqualified for horror movies

Richard Burton – ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’

Richard Burton has a very strange career, as he was a highly respected actor who started making a ton of terrible movies towards the end of his career – on paper, signing up to be in Exorcist II: The Heretic made a lot of sense, as the first film had been a massive hit and an awards darling, and while the original director, William Friedkin, did not return, the sequel was directed by John Boorman, the visionary behind Point Blank and Deliverance.

Exorcist II: The Heretic ended up being one of the most baffling, incomprehensible films of all-time, and featured Burton as a new priest who is brought in to investigate the events of the original classic. Burton isn’t exactly bad in the movie, but he’s helpless in a project that was viewed as heretical because of how thoroughly it understood why the first The Exorcist had worked.

Roy Scheider – ‘Jaws 2’

Roy Scheider is perhaps the most underrated actor of all-time, and Jaws had proven that he was a legitimate movie star. None of the principal cast or creative crew were set to return for Jaws 2, which was clearly a cheap cash grab meant to take advantage of the first film’s success.

Scheider wasn’t originally supposed to be in Jaws 2, but he had been forced to make another project with Universal as part of his contract after he dropped out of The Deer Hunter, allowing Robert De Niro to replace him. Thus, Scheider returned to play Chief Brody in the sequel and accepted a healthy paycheck. The film was terrible in almost every regard, but it made a nice profit and is far and away the best of the three Jaws sequels (which really isn’t saying much at all).

Tom Cruise – ‘The Mummy’

Tom Cruise was seeking another franchise role after the Jack Reacher sequel flamed out at the box office, the Mission: Impossible series seemed to be winding down, and Top Gun: Maverick was in development, so in one of the most stunning examples of creative incompetence in Hollywood history, Universal made an ambitious plan to start a shared universe, similar to that of Marvel or DC, featuring all of the classic monster characters in their library.

The “Dark Universe” was set to kick off with a reimagining of The Mummy, which aimed to be more horror-centric than the trilogy that had starred Brendan Fraser. Cruise is completely miscast and gives one of the only truly terrible performances of his career. Hilariously, The Mummy was so reviled that Universal cancelled its plans for the “Dark Universe” altogether, even though the film had made a big deal out of introducing Russell Crowe as Dr Jekyll.

Jared Harris – ‘The Ward’

John Carpenter has frequently spoken about his frustrations trying to make projects within the current financial market, as he wishes for a structure like that of the 1940s, where filmmakers were under contract by studios. Carpenter had struggled to gain funding for many attempted projects in the early 21st century before he settled on The Ward, a generic horror thriller set in a psychiatric facility.

It’s evident that Carpenter was working with little to no resources and had lost his passion for the material, as The Ward only barely ended up getting released theatrically. Although the cast is mostly populated by relative unknowns and stars on the rise (including Danielle Panabaker and Amber Heard), the great Jarred Harris is cast as a senior medical resident, and acts circles around his co-stars. It was baffling for Harris to be in The Ward in the midst of his legendary run on Mad Men.

Jeff Bridges – ‘The Vanishing’

Jeff Bridges is by no means a stranger to genre flicks, as he received an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actor’ for his performance in the John Carpenter science fiction drama Starman. The Vanishing seemed like a good career move because it was directed by George Sluzier, who was remaking his acclaimed international horror film of the same name. Unfortunately, the remake was a complete clunker that didn’t contain any of the suspense or intrigue of the original and featured a downright embarrassing performance from Kiefer Sutherland.

Bridges’ performance isn’t as bad as it is weird, his strange vocal intonations seemed as if he was emulating a performative choice from the original that simply didn’t translate into an English-language adaptation. If it weren’t for the involvement of Bridges, Sutherland, and a young Sandra Bullock, The Vanishing might have been dismissed as a B-movie.

Linda Cardellini – ‘The Curse of La Llorona’

The Conjuring was such an overwhelmingly successful horror sensation that it was expanded with both sequels and spinoffs, and while the main sequels to The Conjuring that brought back Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga maintained a consistent level of quality, many of the spinoffs were obvious cash grabs that were only tangentially related to the shared universe. The Curse of La Llorona is by far the worst entry in The Conjuring universe, as it didn’t even have the brand recognition of The Nun or Annabelle.

Poor Linda Cardellini was stuck in the thankless role of a terrified mother in The Curse of La Llorona, which is the only film in the series that was completely rejected by audiences. Cardellini is an underrated actress who had co-starred in the ‘Best Picture’ just one year prior, and was clearly above appearing in such laughable shlock.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead – ‘Final Destination 3’

Final Destination isn’t exactly a franchise that required recognisable actors, as the true star of the series is Death itself; the only actor of note is the late great Tony Todd, whose appearances helped to bind the sequels into a connected narrative, and while Mary Elizabeth Winstead would go on to become a very successful actress, landing a breakout role in Scott Pilgrim vs the World in 2010, it was four years prior that she appeared as the “final girl” in Final Destination 3.

Unlike many of the other entries on the list, Final Destination 3 is actually a really good film and is notable for having one of the best kill sequences of the entire franchise, which involves a rollercoaster. That being said, it’s odd to see Winstead in the movie, considering that none of the other stars of the Final Destination sequels went on to do anything significant.

James McAvoy – ‘Speak No Evil’

James McAvoy is a great actor who is too often overlooked, but he managed to reintroduce himself as a scream king when he delivered a phenomenal performance in the M Night Shyamalan thriller Split, which he would go on to reprise in Glass – McAvoy was riding that high when he was cast to star in Speak No Evil, a remake of a popular international horror film released only two years prior.

In general, English-language remakes of international horror flicks rarely go well, as they often end up turning into disasters like The Grudge or Oldboy. However, McAvoy is truly great in Speak No Evil as a charismatic charlatan who gets under the skin of a couple (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis) that he meets while on vacation. The remake of Speak No Evil is a perfectly adequate film that becomes a great one thanks to McAvoy.

Sarah Snook – ‘Run Rabbit Run’

Netflix has a habit of picking up festival films that feature recognisable stars, as they’re likely to do well on the service because the actors’ faces can be featured in a thumbnail on their homepage. It doesn’t matter if the movie gets good reviews, as Netflix subscribers will watch pretty much everything under the impression that it is essentially “free”.

Run Rabbit Run was a cheap, confusing horror film that was clearly made before it became evident how big of a deal Succession was going to be, and how truly special Sarah Snook’s performance as Shiv Roy was. As a result, Netflix acquired Run Rabbit Run so it could be on the service just months after Succession had wrapped up its final season, in which Snook’s performance as Shiv earned her a Primetime Emmy Award for ‘Best Actress in a Drama Series’.

Guy Pearce – ‘The Seventh Day’

Guy Pearce admitted that opportunities dried up for him after Warner Bros blocked him from appearing in Christopher Nolan films, and many other studios essentially blacklisted him. As a result, Pearce ended up starring in a number of less-than-stellar projects that were clearly above him, many of which were released directly to VOD or streaming.

The Seventh Day has an admittedly cool premise that imagines “Training Day meets The Exorcist”, in which Pearce plays an older priest teaching his acolyte the ropes of exorcising demons. The film, however, is not scary at all and was clearly made on a shoestring budget, and given that it was dumped into theatres and on VOD at the height of the pandemic, nobody actually ended up seeing The Seventh Day – those who did got to witness that hammiest performance of Peace’s career, which made his role as Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3 look subtle in comparison.