The qualitatively questionable image of horror movies within the film world keeps many top actors from ever taking a role in the genre. Still, some of the best actors ever decided to join the cast of a horror film. Below are five examples of titles where this has worked out favorably.

Five Horror Movies starring an Oscar Winner

Angel Heart (1987) – Robert DeNiro

Harry Angel is a private investigator hired by Louis Cyphre to track down the iconic singer Johnny Favorite. However, anyone who asks Angel questions about Johnny Favorite seems to suffer a tragic fate. Eventually, the path leads Angel to New Orleans, where he discovers that Favorite has been involved with the black arts. When the whereabouts and true identity of Favourite become clear, Angel discovers that he wasn’t hired just like that.

Directed by Alan Parker, with Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) – Brad Pitt

It has been less than a year since a plantation owner named Louis lost his wife during childbirth. Both his wife and child died, and now he has lost his will to live. A vampire named Lestat loves Louis and offers him the chance to become a creature of the night: a vampire. Louis accepts, and Lestat sucks Louis’ mortal blood and then replaces it with his, making Louis a vampire. Louis must learn from Lestat how the vampire works.

Directed by Neil Jordan, with Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Kirsten Dunst.

I’ve seen this film as a kid, and I should really rewatch this one.

The Shining – Jack Nicholson

Novelist Jack Torrance takes a job as the winter caretaker of the isolated, old, huge and beautiful Overlook Hotel. Jack brings his wife Wendy and his son Danny and they move in. It soon becomes clear that Danny has a mysterious power known as “The Shining”.

Danny meets Hallorann, the cook of the hotel on their first day arriving at Overlook, who warns him about the hotel and the sinister room 237. As the days go by, Danny gets visions, while Jack slowly goes crazy. So crazy that Danny and Wendy become convinced that Jack is going to do something to them.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, with Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd.

Dracula (1992) – Anthony Hopkins

The young lawyer Jonathan Harker is assigned to a gloomy village in the fog of Eastern Europe. He is captured and imprisoned by the undead vampire named Dracula, who travels to London in search of his fiancée Mina Murray. In Britain, Dracula begins a reign of seduction and terror, making the life of Mina’s best friend, Lucy Westenra, hell. Lucy’s friends come together to chase Dracula away.

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, with Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins.

Frailty (2001) – Matthew McConaughey

FBI agent Wesley Doyle is startled by the statements of young Fenton Meiks in which he tells how his father’s delusions forced him and his brother Adam to be complicit in murder. But when Doyle agrees to look at the hidden graves of the made victims, it becomes clear that everything is different than he had expected beforehand.

Directed by Bill Paxton, with Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey and Powers Boothe.

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