Let me start by saying this about horror actors and fans: I come from no position of authority on acting. I’m not a casting director, not a producer, not an insider. I’m a film school flunk out… the worst kind of cinema reject.
If an actor read this, at best they’d flip me off, and at worst, they’d scroll past and forget I existed.
“Horror who?”
“Dork? Oh, how quaint.”
But here’s the truth: without people like you and me, [without us], those movies don’t exist.
We’re the ones buying the tickets, streaming their performances, filling conventions, and arguing online about sequels that shouldn’t exist but somehow do. We’re the audience. The fans. The repeat offenders who keep the blood flowing in this industry.
If we didn’t feed our eyes and minds with their work, there’d be no work to do.
So who owes who here? Should we be grateful for them, or them for us?
Honestly, I don’t know.
Not all actors are egotists, and not all egotists are actors. Fans can be just as selfish, just as needy, just as self important as the people they worship. Because in the end, we’re the same species.
We all want to be loved, respected, noticed. We all perform our craft: they act, we watch.
Two sides of the same blood splattered coin.
The Horror Actor’s Dilemma
When it comes to horror, I don’t think an actor has to be a fan of the genre to deliver a great performance. But I do think ignoring the genre shows a lack of respect.
If you’re going to scream, bleed, and crawl through dark hallways for two hours, at least understand the foundation you’re standing on. You don’t have to worship the genre, but you should get it.
And that goes double for directors.
On Post Mortem with Mick Garris, Ari Aster said he doesn’t see himself as a “horror guy.” He said most horror movies don’t really do it for him—they just don’t hold his interest. And that’s fine, I guess. Everyone’s got their lane. But when you’re making horror movies that blow up the box office and get studied like sacred text, maybe own the title. He talks about In the Bedroom and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover as his biggest inspirations, which says a lot. He’s got great taste in movies at the very least.
The “Too Nice” Problem
You know what Ari Aster’s problem is? He’s too nice. I’m not kidding, it’s awful. Here he is, potentially claiming to be better than the rest of us genre fans, and he still does it politely. You know why? Because “real” filmmakers and most of the snobs that come out of film school still look down on horror. It’s an old reflex. To them, horror is a pit stop on the way to something “important.”
That’s why it’s okay for someone like Aster to borrow the stage, use the genre as a platform to tell his story, then walk away without ever wearing the label. And I’m not saying he’s one of those horror snobs, but it feels that way. To a lot of fans, our genre has become a convenient means to justify the ends of a “serious” film.
Flip the script for a second: imagine Eli Roth making a straight faced drama that used Citizen Kane as its structural blueprint. He’d get crucified, or laughed out of town. But when someone from the prestige side dips into horror, suddenly it’s elevated.
Give me a break.
Horror Is Performance… On Both Sides
At the end of the day, horror is performance.
Actors bleed for the camera. Fans bleed for the love of it.
We all play our parts in the same twisted show. One can’t exist without the other, and pretending otherwise is the biggest lie in Hollywood.
We all want to matter in this genre. We all want to be the final girl, the one who survives long enough to be remembered.
So yeah, maybe I’m not a filmmaker or a critic. Maybe I’m just a quaint, old, Horror Dork.
But I’m one of the reasons horror keeps living, breathing, and screaming… Just like you.