Jack Nicholson's performance as Jack Torrance in The Shining is legendary, but it's not his only cinematic brush with the horror genre. When it comes to actors that tend to exude a sense of "cool," there are few in the league of Nicholson. Sure, he sometimes switches things up and plays crazy, but even then he's often charismatic and appealing, such as his rendition of The Joker in Tim Burton's Batman. Nicholson's unique voice and sly grin helped him carve out a very unique identity for himself among the Hollywood A-list.
Over the course of his over 50-year screen career, which sadly seems to have halted as of 2010, Nicholson starred in some of the most iconic films ever made, regardless of genre. Outside of Batman, and of course The Shining, Nicholson wowed audiences in movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Terms of Endearment, As Good As It Gets, A Few Good Men, and The Departed, just to name a few of his most well-regarded credits.
When it comes to horror, nothing else Nicholson did within the genre can really compete with Jack Torrance, one of the most recognizable characters in the history of horror movies. Still, it's not the only time the Oscar-winner has crossed paths with the realm of big screen frights.
Jack Nicholson's Horror Movie Roles (That Aren't The Shining)
Younger people are less likely to be aware of this, but two decades before The Shining, one of Jack Nicholson's first film roles came in 1960's original Little Shop of Horrors. Nicholson played the masochistic dental patient, a role filled in the more well-known 1986 musical version by Bill Murray. Nicholson worked a lot with legendary B-movie director/producer Roger Corman in his early years as an actor, appearing as the son of Peter Lorre's wizard character in 1963's The Raven, and playing lead protagonist in The Terror, also released in 1963. Skipping ahead to after The Shining, Nicholson, now a huge star, played Daryl Van Horne, implied to be Satan himself, in the fantasy comedy with horror elements, The Witches of Eastwick, alongside the trio of Cher, Michelle Pfieffer, and Susan Sarandon.
In 1994, Nicholson reunited with Pfieffer for his second-biggest horror role to date, playing lead Will Randall in director Mike Nichols' Wolf. Randall is an aging publishing executive who gets his job taken away by a young hotshot he helped show the ropes. After being bitten by a wolf, Nicholson gets faster, stronger, and tougher, and feels like a new man. That's of course because he's now a werewolf. Finally, in 1996, Nicholson reunited with director Tim Burton for alien invasion comedy Mars Attacks!, playing none other than the president of the united states. While not a straight horror film by any means, Mars Attacks! is still a fun time that most horror fans would also appreciate.