00:00Horror films have been serving up scares at an increasing rate of knots for the past half century,
00:05as the genre has transitioned from something frowned upon by polite society
00:09to something your bougie university lecturer might recommend.
00:13But where would they be without the actors who have fought, screamed and sliced their way through them?
00:19More importantly though, where would the actors be without these films?
00:23In some cases, nowhere at all, because horror movies aren't always just terrifying for the viewers.
00:29Sometimes they scare off their actors for good.
00:32Well, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:35here with horror movies that made actors quit forever.
00:39Ellen Sandwise in The Evil Dead and Dark Fields.
00:43Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead kicked off the most unlikely of horror film franchises back in 1981.
00:49A group of teens, including Ash and his sister Cheryl,
00:53journey out to a remote cabin for a good time away from everyday stresses of society.
00:58Once there, they find The Book of the Dead and a cavalcade of malevolent spirits
01:03intent on abusing their hosts until everyone has bitten the dust.
01:07Sandwise had an uncomfortable time on the film,
01:10shooting in the cold, getting bashed around during production,
01:13and not realising quite what she had participated in when it came to the infamous tree rape scene,
01:18until she saw it in the cinema.
01:20As a result, Sandwise retreated from acting altogether,
01:24until she was tempted back by the horror film Satan's Playground in 2006.
01:28But this return was short-lived,
01:30and the critical and commercial failure of Dark Fields,
01:33an ill-judged David Carradine B movie,
01:36put paid to her film career once and for all.
01:38The one saving grace of all of this was Sandwise's return to the Evil Dead universe
01:43for two episodes of Ash vs. Evil Dead,
01:46effectively ending her career where it began,
01:48Shelley Duvall in The Shining.
01:51The craftsmanship in the 1980 flick is evident in everything.
01:55The bold camerawork that ratchets up the tension at every turn,
01:58the rich set design for the creepy corridors of the Overlook Hotel,
02:01the effects for the spirits of patrons past,
02:04and of course the outstanding acting of winter caretaker Jack Torrance,
02:08and his wife Wendy and their son Danny by Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd.
02:14Unlike the rest of the cast though, a lot of Duvall's acting wasn't put on.
02:18Few on-set stories have permeated the pop culture canon
02:21quite like Kubrick's treatment of his female lead in The Shining.
02:25But in case you haven't heard, he terrorised her on set,
02:28keeping her isolated, provoking her into real tears
02:32and insisting on hundreds of takes to get what he wanted from her performance.
02:36Duvall's film life petered out after this,
02:39as she retreated from starring roles and began to look more towards television,
02:42where she could produce and retain creative control.
02:45Though she officially retired in 2002,
02:49her big screen appearances in the two decades prior
02:51were sadly limited to tertiary roles, cameos and walk-on parts.
02:56Gregory Peck was an actor well-known as one of the faces of classic Hollywood cinema,
03:04most often starring as the handsome, charismatic and heroic lead.
03:07Not so in the horrifying The Boys from Brazil,
03:11adapted by Franklin J. Schaffner from Ira Levin's novel of the same name.
03:16Interested in flexing his acting muscles,
03:18Peck took on the role of a fictionalised version of infamous Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele,
03:23who has created 94 clones of Hitler with the intention of resurrecting the Third Reich.
03:29And while Peck is all but unrecognisable in the role,
03:32critics didn't take kindly to it.
03:34Though critical appraisal of his part has changed in the intervening years,
03:38this blow at the time meant such plans were left dead in the water.
03:42Peck only took five more roles in the rest of his career,
03:46against 50 or so in the years prior,
03:48all of which were the kind of parts he was known for in the years before The Boys from Brazil.
03:52Carrie Henn in Aliens.
03:55One of the elements which sets Aliens apart from the other films
03:58is Ripley's relationship with Newt.
04:01This emotional tether keeps the action grounded, relatable and tense,
04:05and by the film's conclusion,
04:07Ripley, Newt and Hicks survive the ordeal as something of a makeshift family unit,
04:12entering stasis for a return journey to Earth.
04:14But in one of the biggest betrayals in film history,
04:17Newt dies off camera in the opening of David Fincher's Alien Cubed,
04:21as the survivors of Aliens crash to the surface of Fiorina 161.
04:26Rather than a narrative trick designed to hit us where it hurts,
04:30this turn of events is the result of Henn quitting acting after Aliens.
04:34Global fame is a lot to handle for a child,
04:37and she wanted a normal life with real friends
04:39rather than relying on those who were only interested in her fame.
04:43Thus, she banked her money and never looked back.
04:45Arianna Richards in Jurassic Park and Battle Dogs
04:49Though she starred in a number of films prior to Jurassic Park,
04:54Arianna Richards made her name in Steven Spielberg's terrifying 1993 dinosaur flick.
04:59Starring as Lex Murphy,
05:01granddaughter of dino resurrectionist Dr John Hammond,
05:04Richards was instrumental in most of the film's key scenes.
05:08Following the film's release, though,
05:10Richards took a step back from the acting world,
05:12with only a cameo in Jurassic Park's 1997 sequel.
05:16Unfortunately, the success of the franchise didn't help her career,
05:20and she wasn't offered the kind of roles
05:21that might have made her into the next big young star.
05:24On top of this, Richards wanted to pursue a life and career
05:27outside of the acting world,
05:29and dedicated herself to her education,
05:31her family life, and starting a career as an artist.
05:35However, while dinosaurs may have taken the most significant bite
05:38out of Richards' appetite for acting,
05:40it was the Battle Dogs that finished her off.
05:43In a misguided attempt to return to her former career,
05:46Richards took a role in 2013's TV horror Battle Dogs,
05:50which by all accounts is a terrible, terrible film.
05:53Not that anybody actually saw it.
05:55This failure seemingly also killed off potential
05:58for her being in the Jurassic World series,
06:00and Richards quit for good.
06:02Sandra Peabody in Last House on the Left
06:05Wes Craven's first feature film, The Last House on the Left,
06:09is a low-budget exploitation horror
06:11that trades on the trope of being a true story.
06:14Unfortunately for the audiences,
06:16that true story is one of rape and revenge,
06:18in which teenage girls Marie and Phyllis
06:20run into a gang of fugitives who subject them to a living hell.
06:24It remains a hugely controversial film to this day,
06:27and many of the actors and crew involved
06:29have disavowed it in the years since,
06:31not least of all Peabody.
06:33She not only disliked the exploitative end-product,
06:36but had a terrible time on set,
06:38suffering misogyny and harassment from other cast members,
06:41including David Hess,
06:43who thought method acting as a sadistic serial killer
06:46was a good idea.
06:47Though Peabody did a couple more films after this,
06:50her experience on Last House left its mark,
06:53sowing the seeds for her swift departure from the acting world,
06:56with her final part as Bird in Teenage Hitchhikers
06:59coming just three years later in 1975,
07:02Danny Lloyd in The Shining.
07:04It seems the curse of The Shining seeped out into the real world,
07:08as not only did a massive fire break out during production,
07:11destroying several sound stages,
07:13but two of its actors quit the game for good.
07:16Danny Lloyd played Danny Torrance in the film,
07:18the six-year-old boy with the gift of The Shining,
07:21who only just manages to escape the twin evils of the Overlook Hotel
07:25and his alcoholic father,
07:26thanks to his hard-done-by-mother and an ice-cold maze.
07:30Lloyd initially tried and failed to get other roles in Hollywood,
07:34but only did one TV movie after The Shining,
07:37and that was it.
07:38Joining Shelley Duvall in calling it a day not long after this performance,
07:42Lloyd stuck with his studies,
07:44got his degree and went on to become a biology professor.
07:47Heather Donoghue in The Blair Witch Project
07:50The low-budget indie horror that popularised the found-footed genre The Blair Witch Project
07:55shows the journey of three young film students
07:57as they attempt to film a documentary about the so-called local legend The Blair Witch.
08:03Losing themselves in the woods, things get turned up to 11,
08:06and soon the three are facing a fight for their sanity and their lives.
08:10Donoghue was at the forefront of all of this,
08:12her teary, snotty close-up shots becoming not only the defining image of the film,
08:17but a much-parodied pop culture moment.
08:19Once audiences had been assured that the actors were indeed actors
08:22and that all of them were safe and well,
08:24Donoghue got the lion's share of media attention.
08:28Exciting as this undoubtedly was,
08:30it failed to translate into new project capital,
08:32and a series of director video and TV films
08:35led her to quit the business and, um,
08:38start growing marijuana.
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