Superhero actors often make their bones in similar action or comedy movies, if not just other comic book adaptations. But the genre has grown to such a size, and incorporated such a high number of talented actors, that you can find your favorite heroes in some unusually horrific situations. You just need to know where to look and, preferably, what you’ll find when you get there. (Unless you’re the kind of person who likes to roll the dice with their horror movies.)
Here’s ten horror movies starring actors who double-up as members of the Avengers in the MCU, ranked from the least scary to the most.
Repentance
Starring Anthony Mackie (A.K.A. The Falcon), Phillipe Caland’s psychological horror movie sees a life coach, played by Mackie, taking up the job of one-on-one therapy sessions with Forest Whitaker’s deeply troubled renovator. When it becomes apparent that Whitaker’s character suffers from a psychological haunting that may border on the spiritual, and that Mackie’s coach has many demons of his own, their relationship takes a dark turn.
Though mostly more on the thriller side of horror, Repentance does stray into the torture area of things once the situation fully deteriorates. It’s a movie that possesses a lot of the hallmarks of Bad Movie Syndrome but it’s undeniably bolstered by the performances of Mackie, Whitaker and – surprisingly enough – comedian Mike Epps on solid dramatic form.
Priest
Starring Paul Bettany (A.K.A. Vision), Priest is a big screen adaptation of the Korean comic of the same name by Hyung Min-woo. It follows Bettany’s titular Priest (a practically superhuman vampire hunter living in a post-apocalyptic world where his services are no longer needed) on his quest to rescue his niece from a vampire plot.
Priest, like the comic it’s based on, is really a mishmash of a number of genres from martial arts action to Westerns. Its horror elements go hand-in-hand with the undead monsters at the heart of its story, falling more on the action-horror side of the equation. Fans of the Blade movies will be familiar with it.
Gothika
Starring Robert Downey Jr. (A.K.A. Iron Man), Gothika is the Hollywood debut of acclaimed French director and actor Mathieu Kassovitz. It follows Halle Berry’s psychiatrist as she awakes to a nightmare scenario where she’s institutionalized in her own hospital after apparently murdering her loving husband. Downey Jr. plays a colleague trying to get to the bottom of things in this unusual thriller/chiller.
Gothika's horror, while supernatural in many instances, is mostly psychological but the movie has its fair share of gore in certain scenes. It fits more neatly under the category of 'disturbing' than it does 'frightening', with its central mystery playing comfortably to the conventions of the ghost genre.
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
Starring Paul Rudd (A.K.A. Ant-Man) in his movie debut as Tommy Doyle, a young character from John Carpenter’s original Halloween movie, The Curse of Michael Myers is the last of a kind of trilogy of Halloween sequels before the series began continually rebooting itself.
Its production troubles resulted in two very different versions of the movie existing for public consumption, each with pros and cons. You could call the original theatrical version scarier, as it adds some much more graphic kills, but the so-called Producer’s Cut has the benefit of making a little more sense.
Silent House
Starring Elizabeth Olsen (A.K.A. Scarlet Witch), Silent House is another psychological horror movie but presented in a very unique way. The movie, like the original Uruguayan movie La Casa Muda from which it’s adapted, is presented as one continuous take. Meaning there are no visible cuts as it follows its main character, played by Olsen, in real time.
It follows Olsen’s character’s nerve-racking journey through an old family home as instances of trauma from her past begin to manifest around her in a ghostly fashion. It’s overall style and presentation will seem familiar to lovers of modern horror video games.
The Cabin in the Woods
Drew Goddard’s hugely entertaining monster mash horror comedy doesn’t skimp on either the frights or the laughs. As the title suggests, it riffs on the conventions of the supernatural slasher genre, with a just pre-career-explosion Chris Hemsworth (A.K.A. Thor) perfectly cast as the stock jock. But The Cabin in the Woods evolves into an examination of the horror genre itself, eventually folding in every type of phobia and thing that goes bump in the night that you can think of.
Things get progressively wilder and wilder as the movie progresses, leading to a parade of highly creative kills in a blood-soaked finale.
The Midnight Meat Train
Based on a short story from Hellraiser and Candyman creator Clive Barker, The Midnight Meat Train stars Bradley Cooper (A.K.A. Rocket Raccoon) as a photographer who falls down a deep and dark rabbit hole of grisly murder when he seeks more shocking photo opportunities on the subway system at night.
The Midnight Meat Train is a movie that starts out pretty dark but there’s not much that can prepare you for how just how horrifically weird things get. Gory, macabre, and not necessarily a movie you should watch if you want to look at Bradley Cooper the same way ever again.
28 Weeks Later
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s sequel to Danny Boyle’s game-changing, rejuvenating, surprise zombie hit 28 Days Later surprised audiences in its own ways. To get a truly original-feeling genre movie of that type was shocking enough the first time it happened. But to get a sequel that amped up the scale and the action and the threat, while keeping the emotional intensity at an incredibly high standard, was something that beat phenomenal odds.
Jeremy Renner (A.K.A. Hawkeye) plays a US military sniper overseeing the rebuilding of London after the zombie apocalypse of the first movie. When things go bad again, a chain of shocking, visceral, events plays out as he attempts to protect a group of survivors.
Oculus
Starring Karen Gillan (A.K.A. Nebula), Oculus was a landmark moment for both director Mike Flanagan (adapting the movie from an earlier short film of his own) and Gillan on their journeys into the spotlight. The movie’s classical American horror story, about a haunted mirror standing in as a traditional metaphor for the horror of losing one’s grip on reality, established Flanagan as a filmmaker able to weave complex character-based horror stories with real staying power.
Effective in its build-up, but never afraid to take the terror to dark and delirious places, Oculus is a movie that accomplishes a lot with relatively little and showcases exactly why Flanagan would go on to be trusted with several Stephen King adaptations.
Under the Skin
Scarlett Johansson (A.K.A. Black Widow) plays an alien Siren on the streets of Scotland, hunting for prey to seduce and lure back to her lair to be slowly digested, in Jonathan Glazer’s one-of-a-kind sci-fi nightmare.
Johansson’s unflinching performance sees her interact with a number of non-professional actors in key sequences throughout the movie, often on the street with hidden cameras, and it intensifies the otherworldly feeling flowing through Under the Skin. Whether it be the tone of the scenes, or Mica Levi’s haunting music, Under the Skin is all but guaranteed to mess with your brain in one way or another.