For more than 40 years, Kevin Bacon has made a name for himself as not only being a fantastic actor across almost all film genres, but also personifying villainous roles to perfection. With one of the most fun movie parlor games named after him (See: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or Bacon’s Law), his ability to weave throughout different film genres without ever phoning it in is a recognized testament to how important he is to the acting world. Bacon always seems to add the much-needed touch to supporting roles in huge films like Mystic River, A Few Good Men, or Apollo 13, but surprisingly, his most iconic and memorable roles appear in the genre that seemed to start his career.
Let’s take a look at Kevin Bacon’s contributions to horror!
Kevin Bacon started his career off in the horror genre, following up his fun role in Animal House with a spot in possibly the most popular slasher film of all time, Friday the 13th (1980). Bacon plays the horny Camp Crystal Lake counselor Jack Burrell and immediately breaks two of the cardinal rules of slasher flicks by having sex and smoking weed. In one of the most iconic scenes of the franchise, an arrow comes through his mattress and through his neck, leaving him to post-coitally die choking on his own blood. Bacon has since reflected on the scene as being a perfect shot, since there was only one neck and chest prosthetic, but laments that most fans that want his autograph approach him with a picture of his dead body. Fun Fact: This was the first horror scene I ever remember seeing when I was about six.
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Kevin Bacon’s next horror appearance came three years later as one of the main roles in a made-for-TV film called The Demon Murder Case (1983). This film was based on a real-life demonic possession murder case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, and featured an extremely rare horror genre appearance from Andy Griffith. One of the only ways to check out this film is on YouTube, and it’s worth the watch!
Fast-forward seven years after Footloose and White Water Summer and you come to my favorite Kevin Bacon horror film, Tremors (1990). Tremors is universally respected as one of the best creature features of all time and has stunningly realistic and groundbreaking practical effects from Alec Gillis (Starship Troopers, Jumanji), a protégé of the legendary Stan Winston. Bacon plays the lovable cowboy Valentine McKee, one of the film’s heroes, along with Fred Ward as they fend off prehistoric murder worms. Although Bacon never returned for any of the six sequels to Tremors, he did shoot a reboot pilot in 2018, which he absolutely loved, but it was canceled before release by SYFY.
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The same year, Bacon joined an incredible cast to work on Joel Schumacher’s Flatliners, a psychological horror film about medical students pushing the limits of the unknown, with experiments to have near-death experiences and find out what lies beyond the land of the living. Although the critic reactions to the film were mixed, it did have some really amazing effects for 1990, and received an Oscar nomination for them.
Bacon then took some time off from horror for almost ten years, focusing mostly on crime/thrillers. He returned to the genre in 1999 with a David Koepp horror-fan favorite based on a Richard Matheson novel, Stir of Echoes. This film kicked off a barrage of supernatural mystery/ghost films that would pump out in the next few years, like The Sixth Sense, The Others, and The Devil’s Backbone. It also kicked off a resurgence in folks listening to “Paint it Black” by The Rolling Stones.
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The next year in 2000, Bacon portrayed one of his creepiest villain roles, as Dr. Sebastian Caine in Paul Verhoeven’s re-imagining of The Invisible Man, Hollow Man. Dr. Caine becomes obsessed with expediting his experiments on creating an invisibility serum and goes full mad scientist when he unsafely takes the serum himself. The power of invisibility immediately goes to his head, and things get super weird and uncomfortable. Honestly, it’s one of Bacon’s most nefarious portrayals.
After taking another break, Bacon hooked up with James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring) to create Death Sentence, a Death Wish-style gruesome crime/thriller that had just enough gore and torture porn to shift it over into the horror genre. I’m not sure why this film was so slept on. It wasn’t amazing, but the kills were great, and we got a rare swap of Kevin Bacon being the protagonist, while John Goodman was the villain.
Bacon really shifted back into doing horror more often in 2013, when he took the lead in a popular and unsettling horror crime show called The Following. Bacon played an FBI agent tasked with recapturing a serial killer that uses other serial killers to act out his violent ideas, while creating a cult and communicating through the writings of gothic writers like Edgar Allen Poe. Although maybe not dead set in the traditional horror genre, it certainly falls right on the edge along with The Silence of the Lambs. I know that I and many other fans of the show were surprised and sad to see it cancelled after just a few seasons.
In 2016, Bacon starred in a bit of an underappreciated and interesting supernatural flick called The Darkness, directed by Australian filmmaker Greg McLean (The Belko Experiment, Rogue). This one has a few cookie-cutter moments but also has some inspiring visuals and plays off of Native American demonic folklore, something you don’t see as much in horror films anymore. Kevin Bacon continues to be active in the horror genre as he most recently teamed up with Stir of Echoes director David Koepp again in 2020, for another supernatural haunted house film, You Should Have Left.
Kevin Bacon’s horror acting has been sporadic to say the least, but he always seems to find his way back to where he started. He’s one of the few actors that puts everything he has into his roles. No matter how small the parts are, he always makes them significant and memorable. I think we can always count on him to continue returning to his roots and giving us the horror content that we love.
What’s your favorite Kevin Bacon horror film?
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