Horror icons
by NickWolf | created - 14 Feb 2012 | updated - 25 Dec 2016 | PublicActors, actresses, screenwriters, producers, directors... Not in order.
1. Stephen King
Writer | Maximum Overdrive
Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21, 1947, at the Maine General Hospital in Portland. His parents were Nellie Ruth (Pillsbury), who worked as a caregiver at a mental institute, and Donald Edwin King, a merchant seaman. His father was born under the surname "Pollock," but used the last name ...
Writer of great novels like "It", "Dreamcatcher", "Cujo", "The Mist", "The Shining", "Salem's Lot", screenwriter of "Cat's Eye", director of "Maximum overdrive".
2. John Carpenter
Writer | The Fog
John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky ...
Halloween, The Fog, Prince of Darkness, Vampires...
3. Wes Craven
Writer | A Nightmare on Elm Street
Wes Craven has become synonymous with genre bending and innovative horror, challenging audiences with his bold vision.
Wesley Earl Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Caroline (Miller) and Paul Eugene Craven. He had a midwestern suburban upbringing. His first feature film was The Last House on ...
A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes, Scream, The People Under the Stairs...
4. Robert Englund
Actor | A Nightmare on Elm Street
Veteran character actor Robert Englund was born in Glendale, California, to Janis (MacDonald) and John Kent Englund, an aeronautics engineer. Since 1973, Robert has appeared in over 75 feature films and starred in four TV series. He has starred alongside Oscar-winners Henry Fonda, Susan Sarandon ...
Freddy Krueger
5. Clive Barker
Writer | Nightbreed
Born in Liverpool, England, UK, Clive Barker is an English writer, director, and visual artist, best known for his works in the genres of horror and dark fantasy. His mother Joan Ruby (née Revill) was a painter and school welfare officer and his father Leonard Barker was a personnel director for an...
Hellraiser, Candyman, Book of Blood...
6. Kane Hodder
Stunts | Se7en
Kane Hodder was born on April 8, 1955 in Auburn, California. He is best known for his role as horror icon Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th: The New Blood (1988), Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), Jason Goes to Hell (1993), and Jason X (2001). He is also known for his role as...
Jason Voorhees
7. Tony Todd
Actor | Candyman
Perhaps best known for his chilling performance as "Candyman", the charismatic 6' 5" actor Tony Todd has consistently turned in compelling performances since his debut in the fantasy film Sleepwalk (1986). Born in Washington, D.C., Todd spent two years on a scholarship at the University of ...
Candyman
8. Anthony Hopkins
Actor | The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, ...
Hannibal Lecter
9. Jamie Lee Curtis
Actress | Halloween
Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading...
Laurie Strode
10. Christopher Lee
Actor | Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it ...
Dracula
11. Doug Bradley
Actor | Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
Mr. Bradley was born on September 7th 1954 in Liverpool, England. Since his school days Bradley has been close friends with Clive Barker. In the seventies Bradley and Clive Barker founded the progressive theatre group "Dog Company". While Barker worked on writing with his friend Peter Atkins (...
Pinhead
12. Linda Blair
Actress | The Exorcist
From the age of five, Linda Blair had to get used to the spotlight, first as a child model and then as an actress, when out of 600 applicants she was picked for the role of Regan, the possessed child, in The Exorcist (1973). Linda quickly rose to international fame, won the Golden Globe, and seemed...
Regan MacNeil
13. Brad Dourif
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Gaunt character actor Brad Dourif was born Bradford Claude Dourif on March 18, 1950 in Huntington, West Virginia. He is the son of Joan Mavis Felton (Bradford) and Jean Henri Dourif, a French-born art collector who owned and operated a dye factory. His father died when Dourif was three years old, ...
Chucky
14. Alexandre Aja
Director | Haute tension
Alexandre Aja was born on August 7, 1978 in Paris, France. He is a producer and director, known for High Tension (2003), The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Piranha 3D (2010). He is married to Laïla Marrakchi.
The Hills Have Eyes, Haute tension, Mirrors...
15. Bruce Campbell
Actor | Bubba Ho-Tep
In 1979 with his Detroit friends, Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, Bruce Campbell raised $350,000 for a low-budget film, The Evil Dead (1981), in which he starred and co-executive produced. Completed piecemeal over four years, the film first gained notoriety in England where it became the best-selling ...
Ash Williams
16. Bill Moseley
Actor | The Devil's Rejects
William Lambert Moseley (born November 11, 1951) is an American film actor and musician who has starred in a number of cult classic horror films, including House of 1000 Corpses (2003), Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) and The Devil's Rejects (2005). His first big role was in The Texas Chainsaw ...
Otis
17. Sid Haig
Actor | House of 1000 Corpses
Tall, bald and nearly always bearded, Sid Haig provided hulking menace to many a low-budget exploitation film and high-priced action film.
Sid Haig was born Sidney Eddie Mosesian on July 14, 1939 in Fresno, California, a screaming ball of hair. His parents, Roxy (Mooradian) and Haig Mosesian, an ...
Captain Spaulding
18. Ken Foree
Actor | Dawn of the Dead
Large, likable, and muscular actor Ken Foree was born as Kentotis Alvin Foree on February 29, 1948, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Foree attended Loyola University in Chicago and studied acting at Michael Shulman's Performing Gallery in New York City. He began his career in off-Broadway theater and ...
Charlie Altamont
19. George A. Romero
Writer | Land of the Dead
George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and...
Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead...
20. Donald Pleasence
Actor | Halloween II
Balding, quietly spoken, of slight build and possessed of piercing blue eyes -- often peering out from behind round, steel-rimmed glasses -- Donald Pleasence had the essential physical attributes which make a great screen villain. In the course of his lengthy career, he relished playing the ...
Dr. Loomis
21. Alfred Hitchcock
Director | Psycho
Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and ...
The Birds, Psycho...
22. Tom Savini
Actor | From Dusk Till Dawn
Actor/SFX wizard/stuntman/director Tom Savini was born in Pittsburgh. Inspired by the film Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), a young Savini became fascinated with the magic and illusion of film. He spent his youth in his room creating characters by tirelessly practicing make-up. Later, as a combat ...
Sex Machine in From Dusk till Dawn, and great make-up artist, he worked on Friday the 13th, Night of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead...
23. Moustapha Akkad
Producer | The Message
The creativity of Moustapha Akkad came in such movies as Lion of the Desert (1980) and The Message (1976), where he directed and showed some really creative amazing view on the history of Islam. As an Arabic Muslim it was really hard for him to make it in Hollywood but no one could deny his talent ...
Halloween franchise
24. Ridley Scott
Producer | The Martian
Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom ...
Alien, Hannibal...
25. Tobe Hooper
Director | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Honored with many awards for his films and achievement in the horror genre, Tobe Hooper is truly one of the Masters of Horror (2005).
Tobe Hooper was born in Austin, Texas, to Lois Belle (Crosby) and Norman William Ray Hooper, who owned a theater in San Angelo. He spent the 1960s as a college ...
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Salem's Lot, Poltergeist...
26. Dario Argento
Writer | Profondo rosso
Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940, in Rome, Italy, the first-born son of famed Italian producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for filmmaking from his close-knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other ...
Suspiria, Phenomena, Dèmoni...
27. Lance Henriksen
Actor | Aliens
An intense, versatile actor as adept at playing clean-cut FBI agents as he is psychotic motorcycle-gang leaders, who can go from portraying soulless, murderous vampires to burned-out, world-weary homicide detectives, Lance Henriksen has starred in a variety of films that have allowed him to stretch...
Ed Harley from "Pumpkinhead"
28. Warwick Davis
Actor | Willow
English actor Warwick Davis was born in Epsom, Surrey, England, the son of Susan J. (Pain) and Ashley Davis, an insurance broker. Davis was born with the condition spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenital (SED), which caused his dwarfism. He was educated at City of London Freemen's School. When he ...
Leprechaun
29. Sigourney Weaver
Actress | Alien Resurrection
Sigourney Weaver has created a host of memorable characters, both dramatic and comic, ranging from Ripley in Alien to Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist to Gwen/Tawny in Galaxy Quest and most recently, 14-year-old Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water. With a career spanning over 50 years, Weaver has ...
Ellen Ripley from Alien franchise
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