All 8 Elijah Wood Horror Movies, Ranked

Elijah Wood may not exactly be omnipresent in the horror genre, but he has managed to appear in a surprisingly high number of horror films over the years. He is best known for his role in Peter Jackson’s film. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as Frodo Baggins and his seasons headlining the surreal supernatural comedy WilfredoElijah Wood isn’t exactly synonymous with horror films. However, if you look a little closer, Wood’s name has appeared in the credits of a surprising number of horror projects of varying quality.

Both during Elijah Wood’s career after…The Lord of the Rings and his youth years as a child actor fresh out of films like Fin, The beloved American actor has been involved in a variety of macabre or creepy situations. Most of these films are little-known, and even the most famous ones are obscure titles that only the most dedicated horror fans will have considered seeking out. That’s not to say that any of them are worth watching, though, and the best of Wood’s prowess in the horror genre showcases his ability as an actor in general.

Frodo smiling at the end of The Return of the King Related Elijah Wood reveals if he would return to The Lord of the Rings as Frodo

Elijah Wood, known for playing Frodo in The Lord of the Rings franchise, talks about whether he would return to the fantasy series.

8 The good son

1993

Elijah Wood and Macaulay Culkin smoking in The Good Son

While Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) of the Home Alone The films are rightly described as sadistic by some, they wouldn’t be until The good son Culkin went out of his way to play a pint-sized horror movie villain. Elijah Wood plays Mark Evans, a 12-year-old boy who goes to live with his cousins ​​after his mother dies, including Henry, the boy obsessed with death. It’s not long before Henry spirals out of control with his murderous behavior while Mark begins to grow closer to his own mother than he ever was.

Oddly enough, Culkin is more believable as a budding serial killer in Home Alonefailing to sell the necessary screen presence of Henry in The good son. While there is some suspense, particularly the fantastical cliff-edge scene during the climax, the film’s impossible-to-ignore cheesiness prevents it from delivering any real psychological horror. Elijah Wood does his best to carry the film, but for many reasons, it’s easily the weakest of his forays into the horror genre.

7 Open Windows

2014

Elijah Wood in Open Windows

With the advent of the digital age, a new subgenre of found footage horror was born, telling scary stories diegetically through screen recordings of video calls and web browsing in films like Hostile and host Elijah Wood showed up in this particular ring. Open Windows, a self-proclaimed Cyber ​​thriller about a seemingly normal fan who is forced to stalk and terrorize his favorite actress after being blackmailed by a mysterious hacker. An ambitious premise, but one that director Nacho Vigalondo fails to do justice to.

Once again, it’s hard to blame Elijah Wood for the failure of Open windowswhich unleashes a constant stream of exposition that overshadows any suspense it could be building with information overload. The nauseating and confusing twist on Wood’s character also comes out of nowhere, further diluting any psychological horror potential the film has. Still, at least the film has some interesting ideas and clever uses of technology to piece together a story, which is more than could be said for The good son.

The nauseatingly confusing twist about Wood’s character also comes out of nowhere.

6 lice

2014

Near

Elijah Wood’s other critical bombshell in the horror space of 2014, the failure of Lice It’s harder to justify it not having anything to do with Wood himself, considering he also served as a producer on the film. Here, Wood plays a substitute teacher at an elementary school in a town called Fort Chicken (actually) in Illinois. When a deadly zombie virus ravages the school’s students thanks to a batch of contaminated chicken nuggets, the teachers must band together in hopes of surviving.

The simple summary of Lice offers a lot to the imagination, with hordes of wild, zombified children being an incredibly original idea for a horror movie. Unfortunately, Lice has little else to offer beyond this idea, with routine performances, effortless humor, and carnage that is satisfying enough that it doesn’t quite measure up to better zombie movies, though. It’s just a shame there isn’t much more to offer. Lice Aside from its creative premise, it fails to develop into a truly engaging horror comedy.

5 Child in the night

1990

Elijah Wood in Child in the Night

A direct-to-TV horror film starring Elijah Wood at the tender age of 9. Child in the night It is by far the actor’s darkest appearance in a horror film. Here, Wood is cast as a child who witnesses his father’s gruesome murder, compartmentalizing the trauma by turning it into a fantasy starring Captain Hook. Peter Pan, The killer is faced with a makeshift weapon. Child psychologist Dr. Hollis, played by JoBeth Williams, does her best to open the boy’s mind and solve the case.

More of a psychological thriller than a horror movie. Child in the night It still has enough scares and a slow build-up of terror to qualify for the title as far as Elijah Wood’s filmography goes. The plot contains some early and notable critiques of the financial greed that crept into the previous decade, but the narrative of Child in the night It doesn’t do enough to significantly differentiate itself from a standard murder mystery film. However, Wood is quite good even at such a young age, making this film at least a notable time capsule of her future acting prowess.

4 maniac

2012

Maniac 2012 Elijah Wood

It’s rare that Elijah Wood gets to be the bad guy in a movie, let alone among his modest entourage of horror films. Fortunately, the 2012 film Maniac It allows Wood to stand on the wrong side of blood and guts for once, playing a disturbed murderous villain with a penchant for stealing his victims’ scalps and gluing them to mannequins. When the killer falls genuinely in love with a beautiful photographer, it becomes a mad struggle to contain his dark impulses for the sake of his new romance.

A predictable, but disturbing film. Maniac is able to revel in clever gore, impressive sound design and commendable cinematography, enough to more than justify a good-faith viewing. Elijah Wood is excellent as the tortured serial killer, so it’s a shame he doesn’t get to visit more despicable characters more often. Even if Maniac He’s occasionally a little too artsy and a little full of himself, his ego at least an interesting place to be, decorated by disturbing mannequins and the remains of countless victims.

3 The Faculty

1998

Zeke (Josh Hartnett) holds pens with Casey (Elijah Woods) in the background at The Faculty

Bridging the gap between Elijah Wood’s younger years and his… The Lord of the Rings was, The Faculty is a quietly perfect sci-fi horror film that evokes the great B-movies of the 1950s. The film is set in a high school in rural Ohio under siege by alien invaders, capable of parasitizing and controlling human bodies to carry out their sinister work before evolving into terrifying cephalopod-like forms. Elijah Wood joins the cast as Casey, the curious school newspaper photographer who first discovers the strange alien life forms.

Like much of Wood’s horror filmography, The Faculty It may not be the most original story in the world, as it strays far from the clear nuances of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. However, as a deliberately vulgar sci-fi caper about a hormonal high school taken over by creepy aliens, it’s more than satisfactory, hitting all the right notes of comedy, horror, and romantic drama one might expect from such a setting. With creative alien designs, a steady soundtrack, and a breezy pace in the final cut, The Faculty It’s an enjoyable, if not brilliant, horror adventure.

2 Come with daddy

2019

Come with daddy

As the years have passed, Elijah Wood seems to have become more and more comfortable in the realm of horror, eventually creating hilarious black comedies like Come with dad. As its title might indicate, the film stars Elijah Wood, a sheltered musician who flees his wealthy lifestyle to join his estranged father at a remote cabin in the Pacific Northwest. Before long, a series of increasingly strange and dangerous encounters with strange men gradually reveal the truth about his father’s absence in his life.

It’s hard to imagine anyone capable of creating a narrative as wild and unexpected as… Come with daddywhose twists and turns make for an unforgettable experience. The gore is also quite memorable, with standout moments like the barbecue fork scene or Norval’s final death in the film resonating with gory and disgusting creativity. Wood also gives one of her best horror performances yet, playing a rather unique type of character who doesn’t get enough screen time in mainstream horror films. Come with daddysilk.

1 The Toxic Avenger

2023

Near

Although it is technically a superhero movie, just like the first one… The Toxic AvengerElijah Wood’s 2023 remake doesn’t shy away from the series’ inherently horror-themed approach. Like the original, the remake revolves around a stereotypical weakling who falls into a vat of toxic waste — an accident that would turn him into a powerful superhero in any other comic book-themed story — only to transform him into a hideous monster. Peter Dinklage knocks it out of the ballpark with one of his best roles yet as Winston Gooze, aka the Toxic Avenger.

Peter Dinklage knocks it out of the park with one of his best roles as Winston Gooze, aka the Toxic Avenger.

From 2023 The Toxic Avenger The 2023 reboot, which is set to release in 2023, is notable for its special effects work, from the gruesome, over-the-top kills to the gruesome appearance of the Toxic Avenger himself. Elijah Wood is also unrecognizable in his heavy prosthetics and makeup as the hilarious Fritz Garbinger, and he leaves no bit of the set unchewed in his show-stealing scenes. With the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of any Toxic Avenger film, the 2023 reboot of the deliberately ridiculous franchise is by far Elijah Wood’s strongest outing in a horror movie.