During a panel at New York Comic Con 2020, Vince Vaughn revealed to virtual viewers his favorite horror movie is Evil Dead. Vaughn’s early career was mostly marked by comedies, starting with his breakout performance as sultan of cool “Double Down” Trent in the low-budget hit Swingers. Following a decade dominated by “Frat Pack” comedies like Old School, Dodgeball, and Wedding Crashers, he began moving in different genre directions, leading intense action thrillers like Brawl in Cell Block 99 and 2018’s Dragged Across Concrete.
Vince Vaughn has also dabbled in the horror genre here and there. In 1998, he starred as the iconic serial killer and hotel proprietor Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. Though Van Sant’s experiment was a critical and commercial flop, the film certainly illuminated Vaughn’s curiosity for horror early on in his career. Now he’s circling back to the genre with the new slasher movie Freaky. Pitched as “Freaky Friday the 13th,” the film concerns a serial killer who accidentally switches bodies with his teenage target and must find a way to reverse it.
Vaughn participated in a New York Comic Con panel promoting the new film, and when asked what his favorite horror movie is, his response was — wait for it — The Evil Dead. He humorously recounted the first time he watched Sam Raimi’s 1981 classic, and how he couldn’t even make it past the 30-minute mark. Read the excerpt of Vaughn’s story below:
I remember I dared myself to watch it in my house by myself when my parents weren’t home, and I turned off all the lights in the basement. I only lasted about 30 minutes. I was terrified. And I went to run to go turn on the light, and I ran into a pole that was in my basement and fell down.
Although he couldn’t stomach the movie as a kid, Vaughn went on to praise the movie’s technical aspects, including how the camera never actually lets viewers see the creature itself. Those kinds of choices and how the film is shot, he continued, are why it continues to resonate with him as his favorite horror movie. Contemporary audiences and critics certainly agree: praise has been heaped on Raimi’s wide-angle shots and ability to suggest an invisible evil presence, which, in addition to Bruce Campbell’s star-making performance, has made the film one of the most influential cult movies in history.
A common aspect among several celebrities’ favorite horror flicks seems to be an evil force that can take on any form. Rob Lowe has gone on the record saying John Carpenter’s The Thing (about an alien parasite that possesses other life forms) and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (about a demon that possesses a 12-year-old girl) rank among his favorites. Seth Rogen has also called The Evil Dead and The Thing two of his personal favorites. With the spooky season now in full swing, celebrities revealing their top horror picks could be an effective way to stoke interest in older classics among younger audiences.
Key Release Dates
Freaky
Release Date:2020-11-13
