Great idea, poor execution.
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Now there are casting decisions in horror movie history that are just so obviously right
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Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Kathy Bates in Misery, or Kurt Russell in, well, just about anything
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And then there are those choices that are clearly doomed to failure. From bad remakes to heartless adaptations, it's depressingly common to read the announcement of a film's cast
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and just know from the off that it is going to fail. The less common, though, are the hirings that fall somewhere in between
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Horror movies over the years that have taken on board great actors, but it just somehow still hasn't worked out
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And that's what we're here to talk about today. As I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com
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and these are 10 horror movie casting choices that should have worked but didn't
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Number 10. Harrison Ford – What Lies Beneath Casting one of modern movies' good guy icons as a villain is a pretty neat trick
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and in 2000's What Lies Beneath, it very nearly works. Robert Zemeckis' slightly confused supernatural thriller
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stars Harrison Ford as sinister professor Norman Spencer, opposite an excellent Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife Claire
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For the first half of the movie, Ford's persona is subtly inverted to great effect
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On and off screen, the man has always come across as a benign, curmudgeonly sort
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with no time for fools but being a decent guy all the same. In What Lies Beneath, Ford brings that unknowability to the fore
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There's no real reason to believe that he's guilty of anything, but when a neighbour goes missing and later another woman disappears
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Claire can't help but fear that her husband knows something about it all
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The film unfortunately goes to pot when Ford's character swings from dark figure to full-on villain
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The idea is a good one on paper, but it just doesn't work. He's never believable as a murderous monster
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and the more the film dips into spooky ghost action, the further adrift he feels
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9. Ellen Burstyn – The Wicker Man Whether The Wicker Man needed remaking is definitely a separate debate
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and I can summarize that for you, it didn't, but the 2006 effort is a deliriously enjoyable disaster
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and key to this is the lead turn from Nick Cage in prime bad Cage mode as Sheriff Edward Malice
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Cage watched the Ed Woodward original, focused only on the final frenzied minute
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and worked at that pitch for the whole hilarious duration. Ellen Burstyn then is tasked with stepping into Christopher Lee's shoes as the mysterious
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island's leader. She takes a few cues from Lee's warm but sinister Lord Summer's Isle
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instead playing her villain with subtlety and reserved frosty menace. In most films, an actor of her caliber taking that approach would actually work fine, but
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unfortunately, not here. She just feels out of place in this festival of madness, the one stuffy
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note in a film otherwise given over to deranged, broad performances. Now, great actors like Frances
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Conroy and Molly Parker go for broke here, aware that this isn't going to end well, but Burstyn
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to her detriment keeps things professional The end result is that her relative bity sticks out like a sore thumb She probably embarrasses herself the least but feels the most out of place 8 Anthony Hopkins Bram Stoker Dracula
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Francis Ford Coppola's lush, po-faced vampire tale is a star-studded affair. Some of the casting does
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make sense here, like Winona Ryder and Richard E. Grant, and some work better than others
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like Gary Oldman, and some were just odd. Hello, Keanu Reeves. But the outlier in all of this is
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Anthony Hopkins, whose performance as Van Helsing seems somewhat phoned in. As the doctor-cum-vampire
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expert, he wears a wispy wig, does a bit of a Dutch accent, and sometimes ups the energy as he
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espouses his theories on the creatures of the night, and that's about it. It feels at times as
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though the decision was made to let Gary Oldman and Gary Oldman alone have fun for the two hours
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plus duration of this film. While he preens, mugs, and plays to the back row, Hopkins languishes in a
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role given mostly to exposition and explaining to other characters what to do next. The source
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material can definitely be blamed here to a degree. I mean, the film is mostly quite faithful
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and it was a while before Van Helsing became the heroic vampire killer that he's often pictured as
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but it feels a waste of Hopkins at arguably the peak of his powers. Having stolen Silence of the
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Lambs in a quarter of an hour, here he's just a bit dull. 7. Malcolm McDowell Halloween
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Malcolm McDowell is one of the movie business's most naturally charismatic actors
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From his breakthrough in If, Through a Clockwork Orange, and the maddeningly underrated gangster
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No. 1, the silky tone and twinkling eyes of this prolific performer always reassure you
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that you're in for a good time. What he's not, though, is a master of subtlety
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And while his turn as Dr. Samuel Lunis is most likely the highlight of Rob Zombie's
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Halloween, the tone just isn't quite right. In John Carpenter's original, which relies far more on carefully built tension than jumps and gore
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Loomis cuts a realistically unimpressive figure. He's the one sane man warning of Michael Myers' escape from the hospital
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a striding cool hero he is not. McDowell, by comparison, can't help but ooze charm and machismo
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tearing into his lines with theatrical relish. While Donald Pleasence's turn in the original was panicked and pleading
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here McDowell is blusterous and aggressive, to the point that Michael's fear factor is actually slightly diminished. He's great fun to watch
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as he always is, but Loomis is supposed to be the grounding point of the picture
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and that's not something the otherworldly McDowell can offer here. 6. Neil Patrick Harris – Gone Girl
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Sometimes there's nothing better than taking a comedian or comic actor and sticking them in a
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serious role. Examples include Rodney Dangerfield in Natural Born Killers, or the natural dramatic
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chops of Adam Sandler when he wants to bust them out from time to time. And in David Finch's domestic
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horror thriller Gone Girl, there are also two examples. Tyler Perry plays the flashy lawyer
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representing Ben Affleck Nick against accusations that he murdered his wife Amy Now Perry is a great fit for the part showbiz in front of the camera calculating behind it Neil Patrick Harris however plays Desi an old flame of Amy
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to whom she flees having framed her husband. Harris unfortunately flounders in the small but
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pivotal role, never quite sure how to play the character. Desi is simultaneously a shark and a
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shucker, a rich, controlling man to keep Amy in his life, but who will ultimately be played by her
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The immensely likable actor can't quite tap into the darkness that the script demands here
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We're meant to get the idea that Amy might have finally tripped up, returning to a man who's sinister, if not downright dangerous
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but instead he's a slightly toned-down version of his sitcom persona. 5. Anne Hathaway, The Witches
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Of all of the old-school horrors that one could choose to remake, The Witches actually isn't a bad shout
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The original bristles with genuine menace, but a modern spin on Roald Dahl's gleefully cruel fairy tale could actually be worthwhile
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Unfortunately, Robert Zemeckis' 2020 effort really wasn't it. While Anne Hathaway tries gamely in the role of the Grand High Witch
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and is by no means the film's biggest problem, she's stranded in a role that doesn't really fit in a film that's never really going to work
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The original film felt claustrophobic and tense, and by contrast, Zemeckis' work is almost a psychedelic affair, colourful and zany
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Now that would be fine, I mean it's a kid's film after all, but some of the special effects are genuinely horrible
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most notably Hathaway's stretched haunting mouth. His star to this end doesn't know whether to stick or twist, and while Angelica Huston's
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sorceress purred with casual vitriol, Hathaway is forced to go for broke
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delivering a performance in turn too jolly that it's almost rabid. 4. Morgan Freeman, Dreamcatcher
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It takes a lot to make an actor of Morgan Freeman's calibre look undignified
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but Lawrence Kostan's ultimately doomed adaptation of one of Stephen King's messiest and most sprawling
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novels certainly manages it. Dreamcatchers is the story of four friends with
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telepathic powers. On a hunting trip, they managed to stumble into a military-controlled zone
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with the forest on lockdown following an alien appearance. Into all of this confusion stomps
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Morgan Freeman as Colonel Curtis. The viewer might breathe a sigh of relief. The grown-ups
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have arrived finally. Surely good old Morgan Freeman will make all of this add up. But unfortunately
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no such luck. Freeman is strangely miscast as a zealous anti-alien wildman
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complete with truly bizarre eyebrows. He tries to cruise through on star power alone
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but his heart's just not in it by any means, and it's hard to blame him. Dreamcatchers slowly
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transforms from something singularly weird to a more run-of-the-mill aliens versus human fare
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and all Freeman can do is just sit back and watch. 3. Vince Vaughn – Psycho
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Gus Van Sant is a proper director's actor, capable of getting career-best performances
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out of the likes of Keanu Reeves, Matt Damon, and many, many more. Casting the rising Vince
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Vaughn in the pivotal role of his experimental Psycho remake seemed like it could actually be a winner for all concerned For reasons of presumably sheer curiosity Van Sant decided to reproduce Hitchcock masterpiece shot by shot The cast had some
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ringers, from William H. Macy to Julianne Moore, but the key part of all of this was of course
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Norman Bates. With his lanky, all-American frame and cheery face, Vaughn could have excelled as
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the unassuming hotelier with the core of darkness. But alas, it wasn't to be. While Anthony Perkins
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Bates slowly exhibits his inner turmoil through ticks and subtle line readings
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Vaughn seems to flip a switch between nice boy and axe murderer modes. He's stilted and quite
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nervous here, as though he's not quite sure what he's doing, which really is a question worth asking
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of one of the most intriguing but ultimately pointless movies in Hollywood history
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2. Bill Paxton – Frailty This taut tale of religious fervour turned to violence was the sole feature directorial effort
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of the late Bill Paxton, and behind the lens the actor does little wrong. He delivers a pacey tale
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on a small budget with a terrific twist that reshapes everything the viewer has just seen
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His misstep, unfortunately, is the role that he gave himself. Here, Paxton plays Mr. Meeks
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a single father who suffers a mental breakdown, leading him to believe that he's the hand of God
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sent to rid the world of demons, demons who happen to look and act like, and purport to be
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regular humans. At his best, just the aliens and one false move, Paxton is a force of nature actor
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With varying degrees of likability, he'd found a niche playing blabbermouth characters who tended to come to a rather sticky end
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And here he's tasked with a lot of brooding, a lot of religious chat, some killing, and not much else
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It doesn't help that the script is remarkably functional, moving from plot point to plot point without putting much meat on the character's bones
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By no means is Paxton bad in the role, it just doesn't really suit him
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And with his dual jobs, there's no one to steer him in the right direction. 1. Jackie Earl Haley
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A Nightmare on Elm Street Now, horror loves a remake, but there are few franchises more difficult to tackle than A Nightmare on Elm Street
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That comes down to one thing, the Freddy Krueger factor. Robert Englund's winking, nodding performance as the dream-stalking monster carried any number of rather duff films
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and that is a big red and green jumper to fill. Jackie Earl Haley was, in theory, a fantastic choice
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His stock had never been higher off the back of Little Children and especially Watchmen
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wherein he stole the show as Rorschach, a character few performances could have even
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brought to life to begin with. He seemed a great fit for the razor-fingered murderer
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and would perhaps take the film in a more serious direction, but Hayley was unable to
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escape the shadow of his predecessor, and ultimately the less quip Heavy Kruger only
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helped to sink a film that was actually doomed from the start. What's more, the CGI-enhanced
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Freddy just kind of looks off. The aim was to make him look more like a burn victim
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and that definitely succeeded, but Kruger is supposed to be a boogeyman, a creature of nightmares
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Binding him to reality inevitably reduced the fun that Hayley could have had in this role
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or that we could have had watching this movie


