Daybreakers
ActorWillem Dafoehas been in nine horror movies throughout his vocation , and his donation to the genre start the gamut from acclaim to contempt , inviting a ranking from bad to best . The screen veteran has pass years equilibrate artsy main projects with more mainstream fare . Appearing in everything from Lars von Trier films to Sam Raimi superhero blockbusters , Dafoe has managed to balance the approachable and the experimental in a way that few actors can pull off .
This has never stopped Willem Dafoe from taking risks in his option of undertaking . From the twistyhistorical epicThe Northmanto appearances in installments of the MCU and the DCEU , he has kept his career track depart by signing on to star in a various range of roles . The actor ’s fearless attitude is never more obvious than when viewer look at his horror pedigree .
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Where many actors try out a handful of horror role early in their career before pivoting to more “ sizable ” projects , Willem Dafoe has never shy away from the darker , unusual side of music genre movie theater despite his status as a successful leading man . While the four - clip Oscar - nominee could prioritise worthy drama given his fame and eclat , Dafoe has instead seem in a vampire movie , a trio of bizarre prowess - repugnance cinema , an anime adaptation , a gothic mystery , a sci - fibody revulsion from genre legend David Cronenberg , and a glum satirical black comedy / psychological chiller . Of course , not all of these risks have paid off . Here is a ranking of all of Willem Dafoe ’s horror movies in order from worst to good .
Anamorph (2008)
Anamorphis an challenging but at long last underwhelming dark psychological repugnance movie intended to cash in on theSawfranchise ’s success . The twisty story of Willem Dafoe ’s detective seek to work out why a guinea pig feel so familiar is n’t as gratuitously gory as its competitor . Alas , the overlong and tortuous plot ofAnamorphalso is n’t peculiarly interesting , making it the actor ’s least essential revulsion outing .
Daybreakers (2009)
Daybreakershad the potentiality to be not bad . Set in an alternate future tense where vampires are the predominant metal money , the challenging sci - fi horror tells a tortuous story of a larger-than-life lamia attempting to find oneself a cure for his sort while Willem Dafoe ’s " cured " lamia direct a human opposition . While not as neutered astheTwilightsaga ’s harmless vampires , the bloodsuckers ofDaybreakersare clearly unthreatening . This proves problematic when they are the moving picture ’s main character since the vampires ofDaybreakersaren’t likeable enough to root for nor are they scary enough to dread , leave this fussy Willem Dafoe repulsion motion picture stranded in an unfortunate in-between earth .
Death Note (2017)
There is a lot to like about this adaptation from Netflix . The bloodshed is astonishingly copious and delivered with glee , star Nat Wolff and his love pastime , Margaret Qualley , are both likable and piquant , LaKeith Stanfield is as reliable as ever , and Willem Dafoe steals the show as the revulsion movie ’s camp ( sort of ) villain . However , Death Notewas still a devastating dashing hopes for lover of the original manga and Zanzibar copal , and even fans of the earlier live - action picture show version due to the many changes made from the source material .
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Antichrist (2009)
Lars von Trier ’s horrordramaAntichristis not for the faint of fondness , but the picture make that fact admirably clear right away by spread out its military action by intercutting between the end of a little child and a graphic sex scene . thing only get darker from there as Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg ’s mourning duet take an ill - advise slip to the distant woods to make through their grief . Viewers should expect extreme torso horror from this experimental effort , but for those who do n’t beware incredibly graphic imagery , Antichristis an undeniably striking , brace , and atypically sincere firearm of filmmaking from the divisive von Trier .
Nightmare Alley (2021)
Guillermo del Toro ’s many repugnance moviesrun the gamut from do - of - age fantasy to ghost stories to vampire action flicks , but none are quite as brutish asNightmare Alley . Ostensibly a detective thriller , its plot take a turn for the suitably nightmarish about an hour in and never turn back . Willem Dafoe is as creepy as ever in this unremittingly non-white tale , but he is only as unsettling as Cate Blanchett , Bradley Cooper , and the rest of the ensemble mold ’s virtuously equivocal monsters .
eXistenZ (1999)
To be fair to the trippyeXistenZ , in which Willem Dafoe has a low role , it is not as perfect as David Cronenberg ’s most extreme soundbox revulsion movies . However , the tale of a secret plan developer hound by terrorist in what might release out to be an elaborate practical world biz is probably the film producer ’s most mind - melting effort . While not asgraphically violent asCrimes of the Future , eXistenZsaw Cronenberg reckon with the futuristic nuclear fusion of man and machine first and , for all of its date moments , it stay a prescient spell of creepy-crawly sci - fi satire .
The Lighthouse (2019)
Before Robert Eggers was break a giving budget and a larger canvas forThe Northman , the filmmaker proved he was n’t a one - moving picture curiosity with 2018 ’s claustrophobic repulsion movieThe Lighthouse . With a seemingly uncomplicated story of a duo of pharos operators ( Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson ) who slowly succumb to lyssa in their remote abode , this hallucinatory nightmare ends up being far more than that sum-up imply . The Lighthouseis blackly comedic , astonishingly scary , and an interesting enquiry of male relationships , but it is also notable for featuring another one ofRobert Pattinson ’s unearthly idiom .
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Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
The challenging meta - horror movieShadow of the Vampiresees Willem Dafoe encounter a fictionalized , and vampiric , translation of real - lifeNosferatustar Max Shreck . At once a full stop piece about the making of the revulsion classic and a stark , imaginative vampire horror of its own , Shadow of the Vampireis the variety of projection that could easily get lost in its own self - satisfied cleverness . However , the 2000 psychological repulsion is instead a rich , compelling treatise on identity , artifice , and picture palace that also boasts one of Willem Dafoe ’s most underrated performances in the actor ’s tenacious life history .
American Psycho (2000)
American Psychois a rare case of a purportedly un - filmable book becoming a stunningly successful movie . The Bret Easton Ellis adaptation keeps almost all the seed novel ’s gore offscreen , focusing on the minutia of the titular stockbroker / serial killer ’s everyday existence . American Psycho ’s gonzo endingmay take a few viewings to decipher , but for looker who want a razor - sharp dissection of the Reaganomics geological era and the moral putrefaction at its core , Mary Harron ’s movie is hard to beat . Witty , creepy , and utterly unique in its tone , American Psychois a classical adaptation as well as supporting starWillem Dafoe ’s strongest revulsion movies .
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