While the Rogue One.
From Ewan McGregor’s sequel to The Shining to Christopher Lee’s legendary history of Hammer Horror classics, the actors of Star Wars have appeared in a few straightforward horror films outside a galaxy far, far away.
Harrison Ford - What Lies Beneath (2000)
After tackling time travel in What Lies Beneath.
Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford, stars alongside Michelle Pfeiffer as a married couple who realize their house is haunted. The beauty of Zemeckis’ movie is that the ghosts in the house are just a metaphor for the fractures in the couple’s marriage.
Ewan McGregor - Doctor Sleep (2019)
As if the pressure of Doctor Sleep also serves as a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s widely acclaimed movie version of The Shining.
Against all odds, the 2019 horror gem manages to succeed on both counts, meeting King and Kubrick’s opposing visions of the Torrance tragedy halfway. Ewan McGregor plays an adult Danny Torrance contending with a cult targeting kids who have “the shining.”
Peter Cushing & Christopher Lee - The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957)
Peter Cushing, known to Star Wars fans as Grand Moff Tarkin, and Christopher Lee, known to Star Wars fans as Count Dooku, were both legends of horror cinema long before they went to a galaxy far, far away. One of the many Hammer Horror classics that co-starred Cushing and Lee was 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein, part of the studio’s British reinvention of the Universal Monsters series.
Directed by Terence Fisher, one of Hammer’s go-to filmmakers, The Curse of Frankenstein stars the brooding Cushing as Victor Frankenstein and the towering Lee as “the Creature.” With bright-red blood, this movie is widely regarded to be the first mainstream horror film with true depictions of gore.
Carrie Fisher - The ‘Burbs (1989)
Joe Dante’s The ‘Burbs is a hilarious satire of eccentric suburbanites through the lens of horror-comedy. Tom Hanks stars as a workaholic husband and father who spends his week off at home.
He might be noticing murders and paranormal activity in his neighborhood – or he could just be dangerously bored. Carrie Fisher gives a great ing turn as Hanks’ wife.
Alec Guinness - Mute Witness (1995)
Alec Guinness, best known as Ben Kenobi, gave a subversively sinister performance in 1995’s Mute Witness as “The Reaper,” the unscrupulous financier of the snuff ring. The movie follows an American makeup artist working on a gruesome slasher film in Moscow. After witnessing a murder on the set of a snuff film, she’s targeted by The Reaper’s nefarious henchmen.
Mute Witness is a grisly, twisty crime story akin to the Coen brothers’ debut feature Halloween.
Joel Edgerton - It Comes At Night (2017)
The younger version of Uncle Owen, Joel Edgerton, gave a breathtaking performance in Trey Edward Shults’ “elevated horror” gem It Comes at Night. He plays a husband and father trying to keep his family safe during the outbreak of a mysterious plague. When another family shows up looking for shelter, he’s not sure if they can be trusted.
This movie has the themes of a zombie movie – mistrust, social collapse, survival instincts, etc. – but without the standard flesh-eating. What the audience doesn’t see is much scarier than what they do see.
Natalie Portman - Black Swan (2010)
Darren Aronofsky swept the Oscars with his harrowing psychological thriller The Wrestler, Aronofsky tackled the epitome of high art: ballet.
Five years after her final performance as Pé Amidala, Natalie Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her powerful performance as a disturbed ballerina being haunted by a doppelganger in Black Swan.
Laura Dern - Blue Velvet (1986)
Laura Dern ed the Star Wars universe in the role of Vice iral Holdo in The Last Jedi. Throughout her decades-long career, Dern has worked with such acclaimed filmmakers as Steven Spielberg, Greta Gerwig, Peter Bogdanovich – and, on several occasions, David Lynch.
She played the ing role of Sandy in Blue Velvet, the haunting pinnacle of Lynch’s surreal vision of Americana. Sandy represents the safe, secure suburbia that Jeffrey leaves behind when he’s drawn into the underworld ruled by Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth, one of the most sadistic and horrifying villains in movie history.
Christopher Lee & Peter Cushing - Dracula (1958)
A year after revamping Universal’s Dracula.
1958’s Dracula is a sumptuous vision of gothic horror and one of the most visually engaging adaptations of the Bram Stoker classic. This was the first of many Hammer Horror films starring Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as his arch-nemesis, Van Helsing.
Max Von Sydow - The Exorcist (1973)
Easily the greatest and most iconic horror movie featuring a Star Wars actor is William Friedkin’s The Force Awakens as Lor San Tekka, a fearless Jakku resident who stands up to Kylo Ren, he starred in The Exorcist as Father Lankester Merrin.
The movie follows a concerned mother hiring two priests to exorcize the demon from her 12-year-old daughter. The hype surrounding the movie’s sheer sense of terror made it a cultural phenomenon and, at the time, the highest-grossing horror movie ever made.
