Corey Taylor, Jared Leto, Alice Cooper and loads of other musicians have appeared in horror flicks. So how would you get on if you were stuck with them?
Unless your first reaction to spotting band members in films is “Would I get out of this alive?” then you’re doing it wrong. With Halloween upon us, this question is more pressing than ever. Ask yourself: who would you want to be stuck with, should you wake up on the other side of the screen? We did, and then binged on rock star-featuring-horror-movies to ponder if we’d make it to the credits.
Taking into account gnarliness of death, how much of a fight they actually put up when the bell tolls for them, how on top of it they are and how long they’re on screen before they cark it, as well as just how funny we find the whole thing, we’ve crunched all the factors and come up with the ultimate analysis of your chances. And if you’re going to watch these movies for yourselves, two tips: definitely watch Leprechaun In The Hood, and don’t sit next to Jared Leto…
SPOILER ALERT: There's loads of spoilers coming…
“I think the only reason I was hired to do this movie is because of the emphatic way I say ‘fuck’,” mused Corey Taylor on the set of Fear Clinic. We’d like to suggest it was also because of the truly terrifying moustache you were styling at the time. Anyway, you’ve been in a horror movie with Robert ‘Freddie Krueger’ Englund and we haven’t, so you win. Here, in this odd bit of cinema, The Great Big Mouth plays a hospital worker, which is almost a guarantee of having bad shit happen to you. He does say ‘fuck’ really nicely, though.
Chance of survival: Low, even if you will be marvelling at how well yer man swears as you slip under death’s warm blanket.
Stuck in movie-world with Jared Leto? Sorry, but You. Are. Fucked. On a good day, you have a high chance of being shot by a militia while Nicolas Cage looks on pulling That Face (Lord Of War), getting the crap beaten out of you by a suit from a car company (Fight Club), succumbing to typhus (Alexander) or being put in an electric chair by gangsters (Lonely Hearts). He’s shit in battle, being one of the first to get mown down in The Thin Red Line, and he even cops a bullet from his own mate in Panic Room. On top of everything else in Requiem For A Dream, he finishes one arm lighter than he started. He almost does better in horror films, actually surviving to the end of Urban Legend, before keeping up his brand by getting in a car crash. And while smarmy Wall Street yuppie Paul Allan’s hilarious axe in the face exit in American Psycho may be the most stylish of all his on-screen ends – and certainly with the best music to go out to in Huey Lewis And The News – it changes nothing. If you’re with Jared in a film, you’re going to die.
Chance of survival: You’re definitely dead.
Considering the trouble he’d make for you in some of his other movies, you’d be alright sticking with Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea in the 1998 remake of Psycho. That is to say, he works in a shop and doesn’t hurt nobody. He doesn’t get you fired for making illegal transactions at work like he does to Marty McFly in Back To The Future II, or torture anyone by throwing a marmot into their bath (poor, poor Lebowski). In fact, considering he leaves the shop with a sandwich to go on lunch break, you could be in for a snack as well. Double win.
Chance of survival: Actually pretty high.
If Coop isn’t the spookiest dude in the room, then what’s the point? And what’s creepier than being a dream-invading child-murderer who couldn’t be fully got rid of by killing him in a fire? That’s right: being his abusive adoptive dad. Weirdly, Alice without his make-up, guillotine, sword and electric chair is actually a more unsettling proposition than usual, so his turn as a teenaged, pre-burning-up Freddy Krueger’s old man in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is a doozy. Like onstage, he does whip out a whip. Unlike onstage, watching him use it to discipline his son isn’t actually that much of a laugh.
Chance of survival: Reasonably high, although you wouldn’t exactly enjoy yourself.
Yeah, when you wake up in a car with your skin glued to the driver’s seat, with the wheels spinning off the ground at high speed, you’re not in for a good day. As ever in the Saw series, this is at least a highly-creative way of being evil to your victim and his hapless mate who gets run over when things kick in. But… hang on… we’ve seen the old “car speeds off and causes trouble for a lad” trope before in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Admittedly, that just ends with a smashed Ferrari and a future bollocking from an angry dad, but still…
Chance of survival: Unlike with the strangely helpful druggie Chester played in Crank, here you’re not gonna do well.
As well as doing the music for 2002 vampire flick Queen Of The Damned, Korn man Jonathan Davis pops up as a ticket tout outside ancient bloodsucker Lestat’s gig. He doesn’t kill anyone, nor does he come a cropper himself, but still, we’ve read enough of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles – on which the movie is based – to know that it’s not a good idea to be taking the piss out of these people. And we imagine touting itself is not without its own set of occupational hazards – vampires or not. More of a getting-your-head-kicked-in threat than any supernatural danger, so on balance, just a bit of a shit night out.
Chance of survival: Depends how well you can handle yourself in a potential fight against a goth over ticket prices.
Where does a franchise go after you’ve sent the titular Leprechaun into orbit, in the classic Leprechaun 4: In Space? The Hood, obviously. And, indeed, straight to video. The fifth chapter in the eternally hilarious Leprechaun franchise finds The Leprechaun, played by Warwick-actual-Davis, accidentally being set free from an amulet by Ice-T, and causing mayhem for motherfuckers. Among other shenanigans, there’s a bit where The Leprechaun is given weed to try to diminish his powers, and a frankly ridiculous strip club mistaken identity scene. Being a very, very hard man, you’d normally be alright if you’re with Ice in a movie. But then, you haven’t reckoned with a shit-talking Leprechaun, have you?
Chance of survival: Normally a solid horse to back. Sadly, you didn’t pick a winner this time.
It’s worth having The Offspring in 1999 splatter comedy Idle Hands for their performance of the Ramones’ I Wanna Be Sedated at a high school dance alone. The story of a possessed hand that goes around murdering people would be unintelligible without it. But smart directors know the best thing about getting big names in on your horror flick is offing them in the first minutes of screen time, like when Scream was sold on starring Drew Barrymore. That was a cosy five minutes. Anyway, as the band try to make it to the end of their second song (one of their own), the hand pulls the top of Dexter’s head off, exposing his brain, which makes it the sternest music critic since that horse who kicked Dappy from N-Dubz.
Chance of survival: He doesn’t even try to save himself. You’re dead.
Like Ice-T, Henry Rollins is a very hard man who you wouldn’t make fun of to his face. And in his long filmography of largely playing very hard men who you wouldn’t make fun of to their face, Hank is a fairly sure thing for keeping you alive (although Al Pacino makes light work of him in Heat). But this is not gangster time, this is Halloween, so we must turn to how he fares in Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, and He Never Died. In the former, he’s a very hard (you know the description by now) marine who hosts an apocalyptic reality show featuring cannibals. He does alright until he ultimately doesn’t, but he dies a hero’s death. You are fucked if you got paired up with him in He Never Died, though. Spoiler alert: he’s actually biblical bad boy Cain. Being the first murderer in history (of your own brother as well) is not dirt that washes off easily. Especially not here.
Chance of survival: Depends if he’s playing a tough jarhead or fratricidal immortal.
Most films with Jon Bon Jovi in them are shit. Remember U-571? Young Guns II? Truly diabolical. Surprisingly, rock’s most perfect set of teeth is actually not bad when he turns his acting hand to horror. True, his not-entirely-believable dorky teacher Mr. Walker gets shot in a case of mistaken identity/catch 22 stuff in Cry Wolf, but as a vampire hunter in John Carpenter-produced straight-to-video horror-western Vampires: Los Muertos? An unexpected 'Fuck yeah'. For one thing, he survives ’til the end of the movie, which is always a bonus. For another, even he is under no illusion that this isn’t The Godfather, and plays it with a surprising degree of bants.
Chance of survival: In school, low. In Mexico, put your feet up and let him take care of it.
Here we go: Dani Filth as the leading man in Cradle Of Filth’s own horror flick Cradle Of Fear. We expected a few laffs and a bit of Carry On Screaming eyebrow waggling for this, instead we got a revenge movie with a similar streak of nastiness to A Serbian Film and everyone’s favourite ‘it’s horrible so it’s going in’ Sunday afternoon classic, The Human Centipede 2. With something of a gore-is-more approach to cinema, it’s violent to a truly silly degree, but that’s the whole point. As such, Dani’s nameless character is just one threat to your wellbeing, although he’s by far the most dangerous. He’s not your mate – you’re basically signing up to meet an unnecessarily vicious demise.
Chance of survival: If you’re in this film, you’re for the chop. Sorry.
