Rebecca Ferguson has appeared in quite a few horror movies over the years; here's how they rank. Rebecca Ferguson is arguably best known as Ilsa Faust and will reprise the role for the next installment of Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible franchise, The actor spent plenty of time plying her trade before stardom came calling, and has been working since 2004 when she made her debut with Drowning Ghost.
Since then, Ferguson has strayed far from the horror genre, appearing in everything from action movies to period dramas. However, she has never fully abandoned her genre roots and still crops up in horror outings from time to time. Unfortunately for the star, this does not always lead to stellar reviews from critics.
All told, Ferguson has appeared in four horror movies throughout her screen career to date. After Drowning Ghost, it would be 13 years before Ferguson came back with 2017’s one-two punch of Life and The Snowman. Two years later, she starred in director Mike Flanagan’s darker Shining sequel Dr. Sleep as the villainous Rose the Hat, her most recent horror role. So, how do the movies compare, and which is Ferguson’s best—and worst—horror movie?
4. The Snowman (2017)
Coming in last is 2017’s The Snowman, a cobbled-together effort so chaotic and slipshod it barely qualifies as a finished film. Rebecca Ferguson co-stars alongside Michael Fassbender’s Harry Hole in this unintentionally funny psychological horror wherein the villain marks his victims with the titular trademark. Thanks to the absurdly rushed editing, The Snowman almost works well as a “so bad it’s good” horror, but the legitimately incomprehensible story and drab visuals sap a lot of fun from this effort.
3. Drowning Ghost (2004)
There’s not a lot wrong with 2004’s Drowning Ghost, although the thin slasher doesn’t display much of the promise director Mikael Hafstrom’s later Stephen King adaptation 1408 offered. Ultimately little more than an uneven Halloween rip-off, this Swedish effort sees Ferguson make her movie debut as one of many unmemorable students pursued by a masked madman at a secluded lake house. Although hard to hate, Drowning Ghost is mostly notable only as a stepping stone its star and helmer both used to move toward bigger, better things.
2. Doctor Sleep (2019)
Mike Flanagan’s directorial career has been defined by highs and lows, with his sublime The Haunting of Hill House being followed up by the disappointing The Haunting of Bly Manor. Similarly, his string of small-scale successes (Oculus, Gerald’s Game) came to an unfortunate end when Dr. Sleep proved a box office flop. A belated follow-up to The Shining, this uneven effort made good use of stars Rebecca Ferguson and Ewan McGregor and features a few memorably nasty moments. However, Dr. Sleep can’t quite cast off the shadow cast by both King’s original novel and Kubrick’s masterful movie adaptation, resulting in a sequel that proves too indebted to its predecessor to make a true mark on its own.
1. Life (2017)
2017’s Life sees Jake Gyllenhaal, Ferguson, and a doomed crew of veteran astronauts make a classic sci-fi movie mistake when they allow an alien life form aboard their vessel. Soon all hell breaks loose in one of the more memorably bleak Alien rip-offs in recent history. One early exit is sure to shock even veteran horror fans and Life remains impressively unpredictable through to its twisted ending, besting even the superior prequel Alien: Covenant to become one of the most impressive and underrated sci-fi horror efforts of the last decade. Rebecca Ferguson’s best horror movie so far, Life is also solid proof that even the most familiar conceits can still be effective if given a sharp reinvention.