10 Worst Recastings In Horror Movie History

These new faces simply weren't as good as the old ones.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Freddy Krueger Robert Englund Jackie Earle Haley
New Line Cinema/Warner Bros.

The casting of a character is one of the most important details of any movie, especially in horror. Fans of the genre tend to get strongly attached to certain portrayals, and if casting directors get it right, they've almost guaranteed themselves a place in Hollywood history.

Sadly, even if they get it spot on the first time, there's always the chance that someone could come along and ruin this hard work down the line.

Sometimes, characters need to be recast, it's one of the unfortunate inevitabilities of life in the movies. An actor might step away from a franchise for personal reasons, get fired for professional reasons , or an old movie might get remade many years later. For whatever reason, the following ten performers stepped into somebody else's shoes and found them to be way too big.

Some of these actors didn't do anything especially bad, they just weren't who audiences were used to and, sometimes, that's all it takes to sink a film. On other occasions though, the actors should never have been allowed near these parts, but everybody found that out way too late.

10. Stephan Smith Collins - Hellraiser: Revelations

A Nightmare on Elm Street Freddy Krueger Robert Englund Jackie Earle Haley
Dimension

In The Hellbound Heart, the Clive Barker novel on which the Hellraiser series is based, the lead villain didn’t actually have a name. It’s only when the first movie was getting made that the crew came up with his famous nickname based on his unusual appearance. 

This was the birth of Pinhead. 

The pale-faced living voodoo doll has been the anchor of the franchise since day one, thanks in no small part to the amazing work of original actor, Doug Bradley, who is a master at bringing demonic creatures to life. 

Bradley played the character for the first eight Hellraiser movies - there really are that many, and then some! - and whilst the quality of the overall films was sketchy at best, he was always a bright light. That brightness was snuffed out in 2011, though, when the Pinhead mantle was passed on to Stephan Smith Collins for a new movie, subtitled Revelations.

To be fair to Collins, Bradley was initially offered the role but declined because he felt like the material wasn't strong enough and the shooting schedule was too small. That left the casting team in a tight spot, but they still could have done better.

Contributor
Contributor

Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.