11 Big Name Actors Who Ruined Good Horror Movies

Oh, no, not the Cage! Not the Cage!

If there's a guiding rule for contemporary versions of horror classics, it might be the better the original, the worse the remake. And this is a rule the lesser-known director Neil LaBute took to heart when crafting his thoroughly Americanised take on folk horror classic The Wicker Man.

Like much of the noughties, 2006 will not go down in history as a great year for filmmaking, but it will be remembered as the beginning of the end of Nicolas Cage's days as a bankable Hollywood star. Applying his interpretive "nouveau shamanic" acting style to the part of police officer Edward Malus, Cage flails, screams and mugs his way through The Wicker Man. And this may have been forgivable, had the role not been intended as the audience surrogate, allowing viewers a way into the terrifying world of the occult.

What ought to have been sinister, frightening and as tense as a fat cat's belt buckle was instead reduced to pure, meme-able comedy in Cage's hands. But then, it doesn't seem to have bothered him. Cage has gone on to bounce back and reinvent himself in the years since, attached as he has been of late to some niche horror flicks and well-judged indies. The same can't be said of LaBute, but let that be a lesson to anyone thinking of tampering with a British horror masterpiece again.