8 Horror Movies That Made Actors QUIT Acting

Horror films have been serving up scares at an increasing rate of knots for the past half century

as the genre has transitioned from something frowned upon by polite society

to something your bougie university lecturer might recommend. But where would they be without the actors who have fought, screamed and sliced their way through them

More importantly though, where would the actors be without these films? In some cases, nowhere at all

Because horror movies aren't always just terrifying for the viewers. Sometimes they scare off their actors for good

Well, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with horror movies that made actors quit forever

Ellen Sandwise in The Evil Dead and Dark Fields. Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead kicked off the most unlikely of horror film franchises back in 1981

A group of teens, including Ash and his sister Cheryl, journey out to a remote cabin for a good time away from everyday stresses of society

Once there, they find the Book of the Dead and a cavalcade of malevolent spirits

intent on abusing their hosts until everyone has bitten the dust. Sandwise had an uncomfortable time on the film

shooting in the cold, getting bashed around during production and not realising quite what she had participated in

when it came to the infamous tree rape scene, until she saw it in the cinema

As a result, Sandwise retreated from acting altogether until she was tempted back by the horror film Satan's Playground in 2006

But this return was short-lived and the critical and commercial failure of Dark Fields

an ill-judged David Carradine B movie, put paid to her film career once and for all

The one saving grace of all of this was Sandwise's return to the Evil Dead universe

for two episodes of Ash vs. Evil Dead, effectively ending her career where it began

Shelley Duvall in The Shining. The craftsmanship in the 1980 flick is evident in everything

The bold camera work that ratchets up the tension at every turn, the rich set design for the creepy corridors of the Overlook Hotel, the effects for the

spirits of patrons past and of course the outstanding acting of winter caretaker Jack Torrance and his wife Wendy and their son Danny by Jack Nicholson Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd Unlike the rest of the cast though a lot of Duvall acting wasn put on

Few on-set stories have permeated the pop culture canon quite like Kubrick's treatment of his female lead in The Shining

But in case you haven't heard, he terrorised her on set, keeping her isolated, provoking her into real tears

and insisting on hundreds of takes to get what he wanted from her performance

Duval's film life petered out after this, as she retreated from starring roles and began to look more towards television

where she could produce and retain creative control. Though she officially retired in 2002

her big screen appearances in the two decades prior were sadly limited to tertiary roles, cameos and walk-on parts

Gregory Peck in The Boys from Brazil Gregory Peck was an actor well-known as one of the faces of classic Hollywood cinema

most often starring as the handsome, charismatic and heroic lead. Not so in the horrifying The Boys from Brazil

adapted by Franklin J. Schaffner from Ira Levin's novel of the same name

Interested in flexing his acting muscles, Peck took on the role of a fictionalised version of infamous Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele

who has created 94 clones of Hitler with the intention of resurrecting the Third Reich

And while Peck is all but unrecognisable in the role, critics didn't take kindly to it

Though critical appraisal of his part has changed in the intervening years

this blow at the time meant such plans were left dead in the water. Peck only took five more roles in the rest of his career, against 50 or so in the years prior

all of which were the kind of parts he was known for in the years before The Boys from Brazil

Carrie Henn in Aliens One of the elements which sets Aliens apart from the other films

is Ripley's relationship with Newt. This emotional tether keeps the action grounded, relatable and tense

and by the film's conclusion, Ripley, Newt and Hicks survive the ordeal

as something of a makeshift family unit, entering stasis for a return journey to Earth

But in one of the biggest betrayals in film history Newt dies off in the opening of David Fincher Alien Cubed as the survivors of aliens crash to the surface of Fiorina 161

Rather than a narrative trick designed to hit us where it hurts, this turn of events is the result of Hen quitting acting after aliens

Global fame is a lot to handle for a child, and she wanted a normal life with real friends

rather than relying on those who were only interested in her fame. Thus, she banked her money and never looked back

Ariana Richards in Jurassic Park and Battle Dogs Though she starred in a number of films prior to Jurassic Park

Ariana Richards made her name in Steven Spielberg's terrifying 1993 dinosaur flick

Starring as Lex Murphy, granddaughter of dino resurrectionist Dr John Hammond, Richards was instrumental in most of the film's key scenes

Following the film's release, though, Richards took a step back from the acting world

with only a cameo in Jurassic Park's 1997 sequel. Unfortunately, the success of the franchise didn't help her career

and she wasn't offered the kind of roles that might have made her into the next big young star

On top of this, Richards wanted to pursue a life and career outside of the acting world

and dedicated herself to her education, her family life and starting a career as an artist

However, while dinosaurs may have taken the most significant bite out of Richards' appetite for acting

It was the Battle Dogs that finished her off. In a misguided attempt to return to her former career, Richards took a role in 2013's TV horror Battle Dogs

which by all accounts is a terrible, terrible film. Not that anybody actually saw it

This failure seemingly also killed off potential for her being in the Jurassic World series, and Richards quit for good

Sandra Peabody in Last House on the Left. Wes Craven's first feature film, The Last House on the Left

is a low-budget exploitation horror that trades on the trope of being a true story

Unfortunately for the audiences, that true story is one of rape and revenge

in which teenage girls Marie and Phyllis run into a gang of fugitives who subject them to a living hell

It remains a hugely controversial film to this day and many of the actors and crew involved have disavowed it in the years since not least of all Peabody She not only disliked the exploitative end product but had a terrible time on set suffering misogyny and harassment

from other cast members, including David Hess, who thought method acting as a sadistic serial

killer was a good idea. Though Peabody did a couple more films after this, her experience on Last House left its

Mark, sowing the seeds for her swift departure from the acting world, with her final part

as Bird in Teenage Hitchhikers coming just three years later in 1975, Danny Lloyd in

The Shining. It seems the curse of The Shining seeped out into the real world as not only did a massive

fire break out during production, destroying several sound stages, but two of its actors

quit the game for good. Danny Lloyd played Danny Torrance in the film, the six-year-old boy with the gift of The

Shining, who only just manages to escape the twin evils of the Overlook Hotel and his alcoholic

father, thanks to his hard-done-by-mother and an ice-cold maze. Lloyd initially tried and failed

to get other roles in Hollywood, but only did one TV movie after The Shining, and that was it

Joining Shelley Duvall in calling it a day not long after this performance, Lloyd stuck with

his studies, got his degree, and went on to become a biology professor. Heather Donoghue in The Blair

Witch Project. The low-budget indie horror that popularized the found footage genre

The Blair Witch Project shows the journey of three young film students as they attempt to

film a documentary about the so-called local legend, The Blair Witch. Losing themselves in

the woods, things get turned up to 11, and soon the three are facing a fight for their sanity

and their lives. Donoghue was at the forefront of all of this, her teary, snotty close-up shots

becoming not only the defining image of the film, but a much-parodied pop culture moment

Once audiences had been assured that the actors were indeed actors and that all of them were safe and well, Donoghue got the lion's share of media attention

Exciting as this undoubtedly was, it failed to translate into new project capital, and a series of director video and TV films led her to quit the business and, um, start growing marijuana