The All-Time Greatest Horror Movie Performances

The horror genre is full of bloodsucking vampires, flesh-craved zombies, and all sorts of ghouls, ghosts, and gremlins. But it's also packed with incredible actors and actresses giving performances that surpass almost anything you'll see in your typical hunk of Oscar bait. The horror genre forces actors to reach down deep into their subconscious and draw upon their worst fears and darkest desires. Whether they're playing horrified heroes or psychopathic villains, these talented men and women are often required to travel down into some truly messed-up places. They have to scream, cry, and murder each other, all while convincing us the horror we see onscreen is totally real. (That's especially hard considering when, in real life, they're actually safe and sound, surrounded by cast and crew.) Using all their thespian powers, these actors have given us blood-curdling characters, blood-soaked moments, and some of the greatest performances in horror movie history.

Believe it or not, Sissy Spacek wasn't Brian De Palma's first choice for the role of Carrie White. The director almost went with a different actress before Spacek nailed her audition. What was it about Spacek's tryout that earned her the role? As her husband Jack Wisk told Rolling Stone, "The other girl played Carrie as someone you could hate....Sissy, you felt hope for. You could almost fall in love with Carrie White when she played her, and it made the film twice as effective."

And that's the secret to Spacek's performance. She's so innocent and pure that you desperately want things to go her way. From the opening scene, she's an awkward outsider, harassed by bullies and her psychotic mom. When she experiences her first period and has no clue what's happening, her screams are those of a terrified little girl. She can't make eye contact with anyone, let alone a handsome boy, and while she's technically too old for the part, Spacek channels that high school lack of self-esteem so well that you completely buy that she's a teenager.

But as Carrie grows in her psychic powers, Spacek's performance grows in confidence. She firmly stands up to her mom and even tries to flirt with her prom date. Of course, when everything — like that bucket of blood — comes tumbling down, Spacek flips a switch and turns into a different creature. Her eyes go wide, like they're going to explode from her skull, and she pivots her head like she's a hungry praying mantis. She's like an all-powerful alien among mere mortals. Then, moments later, she's back to a shivering wreck, scared and lonely, making Spacek's performance one of the scariest and saddest in horror movie history.

When people talk about the great comedic stuntmen, they remember Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Chan — actors who rely on movement instead of monologues. But when recalling these physical performers, nobody ever mentions Bruce Campbell. And that's a shame, because Campbell's performance in Evil Dead II is right up there with classics like Modern Times and The Legend of Drunken Master.

Directed by Sam Raimi, this slapstick sequel finds Ash Williams (Campbell) alone in the woods, dealing with demons in a haunted cabin. That sounds like a scary scenario, but we're all having a great time thanks to Campbell's over-the-top antics. The man is the hammy king of exaggerated screams, but his biggest strength is his Looney Tunes physicality. Ash runs down never-ending hallways, bursts through doors, trips over barrels, and wildly spins around in circles. He's slammed against walls, dragged around by monsters, and when he goes insane — surrounded by cackling furniture — the way he bobs up and down like a madman is overblown brilliance at its best.

Of course, Campbell's tour-de-force moment comes when Ash battles his possessed hand. He bashes himself with plates, pulls his own hair, punches himself, and flips himself forward in a painful-looking somersault. (That's actually Campbell doing those moves, using skills he learned as part of an acrobatic comedy troupe.) And filming was hell for Campbell. Whenever Ash was possessed, he had to wear thick contacts that blinded him. He was constantly breathing tobacco smoke, which was pumped through pipes threaded down his body and out the chainsaw to create those fumes. And after Raimi dropped gallons of gore on his face, Campbell was "blowing red snot for...a week." But thanks to Campbell's masochistic dedication, horror fans were treated to a truly groovy performance.

Before we talk about everybody's favorite cannibal, we've got to say that Jodie Foster is the heart and soul of The Silence of the Lambs. There's a reason she won the Best Actress Oscar for her turn as Clarice Starling, an ambitious FBI trainee hoping to prove herself in a world of men. With anyone else in the lead, Jonathan Demme's thriller would fall apart. So we definitely want to give Foster props, but come on, Anthony Hopkins steals the spotlight every time he steps onscreen.  

From the moment he enters the frame, standing perfectly straight at mock attention, Hopkins is electric as Hannibal Lecter, the sophisticated serial killer with a taste for fine wine and human flesh. When he stares into the camera with his icy blue eyes, you can feel Starling's discomfort. You're looking right into the soul — if he has one — of a psychopath who sees you as nothing more than a thought experiment...or lunch. As Lecter needles and prods Starling, trying to exploit her subconscious, Hopkins seems to be having fun. He's playing evil incarnate, a man who enjoys torturing others, whether he's skinning faces or prying into Starling's past. And he does it all with such glee that you can't help but root for the guy when he makes his big jailbreak, even as you're watching through your fingers.

Hopkins is so captivating that he won the Best Actor Oscar for less than 20 minutes of screen time. The man definitely left his mark on horrified moviegoers who couldn't forget how he mocked Clarice's past, tormented a grieving mother, and bashed a cop to death before basking in his handiwork. And with that psycho stare and eerily charming accent, Hopkins will continue sending shivers down spines for decades to come.

Filmed for a mere $60,000, The Blair Witch Project scared up almost $250 million at the box office and revolutionized the horror genre. But like all uber-popular movies (e.g. Titanic), audiences eventually turned on Blair Witch and its lead actress, Heather Donahue. Somehow, she even "won" a Razzie for Worst Actress.

Honestly, though, the Blair Witch backlash was completely misplaced. Not only is the movie a bona fide classic, but Donahue's performance is completely on point. Playing a student filmmaker (named Heather), Donahue starts off as a pretentious, excited, and confident kid...until she gets hopelessly lost in the woods. She tries to stay cool and collected, but as she encounters rock piles and stick figures, you can hear her voice start to crack. The bravado is vanishing, replaced by uncertainty, and as her facade crumbles, you can hear the dread creeping in.

Soon enough, her tough girl persona is totally gone, replaced by frightened desperation. What follows is a painfully honest portrayal of true fear, with Donahue screaming, gasping, and whispering to herself in pure fright. Her famous apology scene is as raw as it gets, with snot pouring from her nose and tears welling from her eyes as she realizes she's going to die. And when she runs into that creepy cabin, screaming "Mike!" again and again, you know that's what actual panic feels like. It's all the more impressive when you realize the film only took eight days to shoot and that Donahue was improvising almost all of it. She was able to convey so much fright — even from behind the camera — that whoever gave her that Razzie needs to make their own apology video.

Directed by Jennifer Kent, The Babadook freaked out both Stephen King and William Friedkin, and while Kent is masterful behind the camera, the movie works so well thanks to the ragged and exasperated performance from Essie Davis as Amelia. It's an incredibly tricky role to play, as Amelia is guilty of the ultimate sin: she's a mom who kind of hates her kid. No doubt Amelia loves her monster of a son (a totally terrifying Noah Wiseman) and would die for him...but she might also kill him if he doesn't stop screaming.

That's the treacherous tightrope Davis has to walk. Audiences need to sympathize with this single mom — she lost her husband in a car wreck as he was driving her to the hospital to give birth — before she morphs into a complete monster. And with Davis in the role, we can totally feel how she's been worn down by everything the world has thrown her way. She looks absolutely exhausted. Putting up with this kid has taken years off her life. He's figuratively and literally suffocating her. On top of all that, she's constantly living in the shadow of her husband's death and its connection to her boy's birth, unable and unwilling to move on.

It only gets worse when a disturbing pop-up book appears on her doorstep. Soon, a top hat-wearing demon shows up, and Amelia's anger starts creeping out. Her struggles and sadness give way to malice and hate, and her performance becomes an even scarier version of what Jack Nicholson did in The Shining. Davis completely wins us over by the time she snaps, so we're hoping her character can defeat her demons as she hunts her own son. And her final rage-filled scream against the grief and darkness of the Babadook cements her as one of horror's most complicated yet sympathetic heroes.