Reviews by Kyle Ellis

Played by: Jamie Kennedy

Film(s): [Link removed - login to see], [Link removed - login to see]

Given that he's been astonishingly unlikeable in virtually everything else he's done, it's a huge surprise that Jamie Kennedy's cine-literate Randy is so adorable in the first two Scream movies. Maybe it's because film fans so readily identify with him, just one more reason why Craven's decision to kill him (in broad daylight) takes Scream 2 to the next level. If Randy - or, essentially, the audience - is dead, then nobody's safe.

Played by: Carla Gugino

Film: Gerald’s Game

In survival horror movies, characters go through the wringer – and Jessie is no stranger to trials and tribulations. For one, she’s handcuffed to a bed with no hope of unlocking them. Secondly, she’s taunted by the spectre of her husband Gerald who just died of a heart attack, as well as her own inner demons, an entire childhood of repressed trauma, and a hungry dog who sounds like Cujo. And that’s before the Moonlight Man comes into play. And when she – spoiler alert – rips all the skin from her hand, right down to the bone, in order to escape? That takes guts.

Played by: Finn Wolfhard, Bill Hader

Film(s): It (2017), It Chapter Two (2019)

The members of the Losers’ Club are all loveable – but it’s Trashmouth who steals the show. In the kids timeline, Wolfhard delivers stellar brash insults as the wisecracking wonder, hiding his vulnerability behind the biggest of mouths, and he gets the final act’s greatest rallying cry: “Now, I’m going to have to kill this fucking clown!” It’s a mantle effortlessly picked up by Hader in the second film, who obviously aces the comedy – but the revelation in Chapter Two is the emotional heart of Richie being exposed. He suffers real loss, and Hader makes you feel every ounce of it.

Played by: Danny Lloyd, Ewan McGregor

Film(s): The Shining (1980), Doctor Sleep (2019)

'Redrum... redrum'. Danny Lloyd has one film, and one film only (he also has a TV movie shot in 1982, but as that spoils the narrative let's ignore it), on his CV, but what a film, and what a performance. True, as Danny Torrance, the young boy blessed / cursed with the Shining in a hotel filled with ghosts that see him as a psychic Twinkie, Lloyd isn't called upon to do much more than ride a tricycle very fast and look afraid. But he does that like a champ, clamping his fingers over his eyes, mouth wide in terror. Wonder if Kubrick made him do each take 99 times?

Played by: Betsy Palmer

Film(s): [Link removed - login to see]

It's always been a mystery why the Friday The 13th series never resurrected Betsy Palmer's psychotic camp counsellor. Yes, she may have had her head lopped off at the end of the original movie, but she's so much more interesting than her son, Jason, and deserves to be remembered as more than just a trick question at the beginning of Scream.

Played by: Jessica Rothe

Film(s): Happy Death Day (2017), Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

Odd arboreal name and all, Tree is one of the most game slasher queens in recent memory – a college student who goes from victim to detective when she’s trapped in a timeloop that always ends with her being murdered by a baby-masked killer, forced to decipher the culprit in order to move beyond her doomed birthday. Rothe commits brilliantly – and cranks up the comedy in the Back To The Future Part II-inspired sequel, through suicide montages, multiple alternate-timelines, and unmasking another mystery murderer.

Played by: Jason Miller

Film(s): [Link removed - login to see]

Jason Miller's Damien Karras is a priest racked by guilt, fear, doubt, and memories (or are they visions?) of his dead mother, descending into what looks like the Chicago subway and which therefore might as well be Hell. So he's the perfect person to take on the wily demon, Pazuzu. Miller is fantastic as a weeping wound of a man whose belief is slowly restored by exposure to the most awful proof that God does, in fact, exist. He returned as a form of Karras for the surprisingly excellent Exorcist III.

Played by: Milly Shapiro

Film(s): Hereditary (2018)

Grief hits us all in different ways, and Charlie Graham is merely doing her best to get by when her grandmother passes away. She wanders and stares, she worries, she tries to get noticed and bad things, inevitably, happen. Oh, and she cuts the heads off birds. As you do. Shapiro manages to be terrifying without saying a word, or with the mere cluck of a tongue. And when that scene comes, her role takes on a whole new kind of emotional terror. Scariest of all: she’s now a major TikTok star.

Played by: James McAvoy

Film(s): Split (2016), Glass (2019)

Technically, 24 places on this list could be filled by McAvoy in Shyamalan’s Unbreakable spin-offs – his multiple personalities ranging from the silly (lispy kid Hedwig) to the sinister (kidnapper Dennis) to the downright savage (The Beast). It’s a bravura performance, with McAvoy managing to provide such distinct turns for each role – and providing physical hulking menace when his supernaturally-strong inner predator is unleashed.

Appearance: [Link removed - login to see] (2001)

Creator: Richard Kelly

Performer: Jake Gyllenhaal

Defining moment: Telling motivational speaker Jim (Patrick Swayze), "I think you're the fucking Antichrist!"

**Fascinating fact:**Donnie watches_The Evil Dead_on a double bill with_The Last Temptation Of Christ_because Kelly couldn't track down the rights-holders of his first-choice film, C.H.U.D.

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