Who doesn’t love seeing Broadway actors in movies? There’s always a curious sense of satisfaction that comes along with it, like we’ve seen our children go on to do amazing things in the world. Of course, the results are not always so amazing. (Right at you, people who saw Jonah Hex for 8 minutes of Johnny Gallagher.) Here’s a short list of Broadway actors who have ventured over to the (very) dark side, to horror movies.
Also, we should disclaim this a bit: We’ve never seen any of the movies in question, probably because kids who like Broadway tend not to be obsessed with, like, horror movies. So forgive our lack of understanding of the genre, and these performances in particular. Feel free to comment with any firsthand impressions.
Patrick Wilson in Insidious
Oh, Patrick Wilson. Patrick Wilson the movie star. Beautiful, twice-Tony-nominated Patrick Wilson, who has been in some incredibly great movies (Angels in America, Little Children), and some crazy bad ones (The Switch, The Phantom of the Opera). In his latest, he plays a bland dad-type—we’re praying with all our might that he doesn’t fall headlong into this typecasting gutter—who has a possessed kid. Our favorite part: When the mom hears scary voices coming out of the baby monitor. Oh dear.
RottenTomatoes rating: 60%
Raul Esparza in My Soul to Take
Here’s what we know: He played a psycho killer with “good” and “bad” voices for his different personalities. Here’s what we love: Not even the New York Times could resist namedropping Stephen Sondheim in its review of this film. Raul doesn’t turn up in the movie’s hilarious-for-multiple-reasons trailer, but he appears to have really long hair.
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 8% — OUCH!
Roger Bart in Hostel: Part II
In a film by gore-porn auteur Eli Roth, Roger Bart plays… get ready… an American businessman who wins a lottery in which he is allowed to kill a young female tourist. Oh, FABULOUS. A clear, logical progression from Carmen Ghia. We can’t bear to even read about this film, mostly because we’re already sufficiently terrified/mortified by that image of Roger on the poster.
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 45%
Stark Sands in Day of the Dead
No lie: Stark Sands played a vegetarian zombie in a movie with Mariah Carey’s husband, and his one line in the trailer is, “Sweet spear.” That’s so ridiculous that it’s kind of awesome. Goodness knows that we’re suckers for Stark in uniform, but still. This one probably won’t be on our Netflix queue any time soon.
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 14%
{ 4 comments… add one }
I guess I’m that very rare person who is obsessed with both Broadway and horror movies. Roger Bart made my skin crawl in Hostel 2. I’d say he definitely nailed that performance heh. I don’t know if Hard Candy necessarily classifies as a “horror” movie but Patrick Wilson is pretty fantastic in that.
I fall into the “I can’t watch horror movies because I like fun musicals” category, so I couldn’t bring myself to watch these video clips. I started to watch the “Insidious” clip and stopped it as soon as I heard a crying baby. Yep, babies and kids FREAK ME THE HELL OUT. In real life too (just kidding).
I’ve seen nearly every single thing Raul has ever done from Broadway musicals to tiny readings, in New York and out, since his debut in Rocky Horror and even I would never see that shitty Wes Craven movie. That’s how much I hate horror movies.
Liev Schreiber was in The Omen and I almost saw that. The only little kid horror movie I’ve seen is Joshua, starring Sam Rockwell, and it was so worth it. I don’t want to encourage Patrick Wilson being in shitty movies, but I saw The Switch and it was honestly kind of good? A dumb premise but the cast really committed to it and the characters were realistic.
And I think Roger Bart gets his dick cut off in that movie.
It amazes me the range of movies Patrick Wilson stars in.