From Horror to Oscar: 10 Scary Movies from This Year's Nominees (2010)
In honor of Sunday's Academy Awards, we've singled out past contributions to horror by some current Oscar nominees. Forget the pretension of what the Academy considers to be worthy. Providing the audience with a straightforward scare is an honest day's work - which may be why horror gets treated like the sweaty manual laborer by cinema's upper class. The flicks listed below are the real deal - providing genuine, no-frills thrills without any pretension. Congrats to these ten talented peeps who haven't been afraid to get down and dirty in our often overlooked genre.
Who: Nicole Kidman
Nominated for: Actress in a Leading Role, Rabbit Hole
Scared Us In: The Others
Then: Kidman played a woman who has lost her young children, and is blinded to her role in this tragedy.
Now: Kidman plays a woman who has lost her young child because he was hit by a car, which wasn’t her fault, but she is blinded by feelings of guilt, anyway.
Spot The Difference: The Academy loves mothers who mourn their deceased children, so long as there aren’t seances or Ouija boards involved.
Who: Michelle Williams
Nominated for: Actress in a Leading Role, Blue Valentine
Scared Us In: Halloween H2O
Then: Williams played a young girl who struggles against a man in a mask who is trying to kill her with a machete.
Now: Williams plays a young wife who struggles against the husband trying to kill her hopes and dreams via subtle emotional manipulation.
Spot The Difference: The Academy pretty consistently finds literal death by machete to be overkill.
Who: Jeff Bridges
Nominated for: Actor in a Leading Role, True Grit
Scared Us In: The Vanishing
Then: Bridges played a loner who (spoiler alert) buries other humans alive, and becomes entangled with a determined and vengeful man whose girlfriend was killed by this nutjob.
Now: Bridges plays a loner who buries his feelings for other humans, until he becomes entangled with a vengeful and determined young girl whose father was killed by some other nutjob.
Spot The Difference: If the Coens are involved, loners are guaranteed to strike dramatic gold - and take it home in statue form.
Who: Jesse Eisenberg
Nominated for: Actor in a Leading Role, The Social Network
Scared Us In: Zombieland
Then: Eisenberg played a wisecracking twenty-something battling masses of flesh-eating zombies.
Now: Eisenberg plays a wisecracking twenty-something who transforms the masses into status-updating zombies.
Spot The Difference: The Academy only appreciates metaphorical zombie-ism.
Who: Jeremy Renner
Nominated for: Actor in a Leading Role, The Town
Scared Us In: Dahmer
Then: Renner played the psychotic Jeffrey Dahmer, who took young men hostage - and then ate them.
Now: Renner plays a psychotic bank robber who takes a bank employee hostage. He doesn't eat her, though.
Spot The Difference: The Academy is fine with kidnappers who rape and kill, so long as they don't also snack on their victims. Sir Anthony Hopkins' performance in Silence of the Lambs being the exception, of course.
Who: Geoffrey Rush
Nominated for: Actor in a Supporting Role, The King's Speech
Scared Us In: The House on Haunted Hill
Then: Rush played an eccentric theme park mogul whose unorthodox ways put some party guests through the ringer as he challenges the revelers to escape a haunted house.
Now: Rush plays an eccentric and unorthodox speech therapist whose unorthodox ways put a monarch through the ringer as he challenges the king to escape his own upper crust British reserve.
Spot The Difference: This House remake was a bit over the top, and Rush serves up plenty of ham (and cheese) within it, but at least he was willing to have some fun. This giddy gorefest is plenty entertaining for the most basic of reasons.
Who: Helena Bonham Carter
Nominated for: Actress in a Supporting Role, The King's Speech
Scared Us In: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Then: Bonham Carter played a devoted wife determined to help her husband overcome his obsession with re-animation.
Now: Bonham Carter plays a devoted wife determined to help her husband overcome a speech impediment.
Spot The Difference: The Academy thinks it's wry and amusing when a film features an impetuous upstart who attempts to breathe some life into the upper crust. They find it less wry and amusing when film features an impetuous upstart who attempts to breathe some life into dead people.
Who: John Hawkes
Nominated for: Actor in A Supporting Role, Winter's Bone
Scared Us In: Identity
Then: Hawkes played the jittery manager of a creepy motel in which the guests die, one by one.
Now: Hawkes plays a jittery redneck within a creepy clan in which snitches die, one by one. OK, it's just the one snitch, but still.
Spot The Difference: It's OK to chop bodies up with a chainsaw so long as it happens against a backdrop of poverty, drug addiction and nuanced character arcs.
Who: Darren Aronofsky
Nominated for: Directing, Black Swan
Scared Us With His Script For: Below
Then: A submarine crew wrestled with the dark underbelly of the human psyche.
Now: A ballerina wrestles with the dark underbelly of the human psyche.
Spot The Difference: Movies about tortured artists are high-brow. Movies about tortured sub crews are apparently not, unless they are made in German.
Who: Danny Boyle
Nominated for: Directing, 127 Hours
Scared Us With: 28 Days Later
Then: Man vs. Zombies
Now: Man vs. Boulder
Spot The Difference: The Academy considers a rock to be a more dignified adversary.
