Every Nicolas Cage Horror Movie, Ranked

Nicolas Cage has appeared in several horror movies throughout his impressive career, but which were duds and which are worth a watch? Cage recently returned to screens with Prisoners of the Ghostland and Pig, two very different genre efforts that nonetheless earned the actor impressive (if occasionally bemused) reviews. Throughout his career, Cage’s eclectic taste in projects has veered from the laughably bad to the inspired, and his performances have received an equally mixed reception.

Few genres are as divisive as horror, so it will come as no surprise to discover that Cage has a storied history starring in creepy movies. Like Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Cage has appeared in numerous horror movies of varying quality throughout his filmography, with many of these outings arriving in the last few years. Of course, much like the rest of his oeuvre, Cage’s horror efforts range from the sublime to the truly ridiculous – and sometimes a combination of the two.

Cage’s first horror was 1988’s Vampire’s Kiss, an offbeat, blackly comic hybrid of horror and satire from The Moonstone filmmaker Robert Bierman. The actor didn’t revisit the genre until 2006’s critically reviled remake The Wicker Man after which he spent another decade steering clear from the scarier side of moviemaking. As if to make up for lost time, Cage then went pulled a Kevin Bacon, starring in numerous horror movies in short order. From Mom and Dad to 2018’s trippy indie Mandy, he’s already made a real impression on genre fans. So, with so many horrors to his name, which of Cage’s spookier outings are worth seeking out?

8. The Wicker Man (2006)

Directed by playwright Neil LaBute, The Wicker Man might be one of the least scary horror movies in the history of the genre. Like 1973’s original, a British folk horror that remains a defining text of the sub-genre, 2006’s iteration of The Wicker Man sees Cage’s hero visit a remote island where the local Neo-pagans are up to something strange and he fall’s victim to their creepy machinations. Unlike the original – and the many folk horrors it inspired like Midsommar – what follows is unintentionally hilarious and melodramatic chaos. Cage is hilarious in a role that sees him dress like a bear, knock out various locals and steal a bicycle at gunpoint, but even this level of inspired lunacy can’t get around the fact this dud is theoretically supposed to be scary.

7. Pay The Ghost (2015)

Directed by Last Exit To Brooklyn’s Uli Edel, Pay The Ghost had the potential to be a solid scare-fest. Cage plays a father desperate to find the child he lost during a Halloween parade. His search sees him gradually dragged down into a strange world of alternate universes, with the titular spooks uncovering the truth about his disappearing offspring. However, this muddled effort borrows too much from James Wan’s Insidious series and is too content with its low energy pacing to get anyone invested. Meanwhile, an autopilot Cage fails to provide either the bug-eyed lunacy or authentically solid acting he typically brings to his roles.

6. Grindhouse (2007)

The ambitious experiment Grindhouse was not the triumph audiences had hoped for, but the playful double-bill experience was never more of a success than when a slew of legendary horror directors helmed trailers for fake horror films of the ’70s. Cage has a momentary cameo as Fu Manchu in Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS, a two-minute outing that captured the genre’s spirit better than much of Grindhouse. Director Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s underrated outing is still overlong, but for the few minutes that Zombie, Eli Roth, and Edgar Wright take over proceedings, it’s very entertaining indeed.

5. Willy’s Wonderland (2021)

Released in 2021, Willy’s Wonderland is a low-energy outing that trades almost entirely on goodwill toward its star. The premise of Cage’s stoic antihero beating up possessed killer animatronics at the titular tourist attraction is enough to keep this slight Five Nights At Freddy’s copycat ticking over, but eventually, the lack of character development or stakes does grate on even the most forgiving horror fanatic. That said, this horror-comedy still has moments of inspiration and a dark, Tales From the Crypt-style sense of humor that keeps it from being a slog despite the barely-there supporting cast.

4. Mom And Dad (2017)

From half of the Crank directorial team Neveldine/Taylor, Mom and Dad is a darkly comic action-thriller with a great premise. A fast-spreading disease turns everyone on earth into unhinged maniacal murderers—provided they are parents. Cage has a blast as an infected dad attempting to hunt down his innocent kids, and the film mines a lot of dark laughs out of the inherently silly premise. Surprisingly gory and unsparing at times, this is easily one of the actor’s finest forays into the genre and features stellar work from the always underrated Selma Blair as Cage’s partner in crime/titular co-parent.

3. Color Out Of Space (2019)

Lovecraftian and cosmic horror is infamously tricky to translate to film, with most Lovecraft adaptations failing to get across the dread of the source material. Luckily, 2019’s The Color Out Of Space is mostly a triumph, a slow-moving and unsettling retelling of the Lovecraft short story that gradually works up to a terrifying, mind-bending climax. For the most part, this horror tale keeps things contained, with the eponymous color emerging on a family farm and gradually causing all manner of physical and psychological damage to Cage’s farmer and his unassuming – and deeply unlucky – family. This atmospheric build-up does pay off, however, as once things get gruesome, this underrated horror movie does not let up until the final frames.

2. Mandy (2018)

Directed by visionary Beyond the Black Rainbow helmer Panos Cosmatos, Mandy is a revenge movie that warps the seedy subgenre beyond recognition by mixing elements of the conventional revenge thriller with the colorful, hallucinatory horror of Alejandro Jodorowsky. The plot is threadbare; Cage’s reserved logger Red is held hostage and forced to watch as a gang of Satanic bikers immolate his titular girlfriend, after which he descends into an animalistic rage and violently annihilates the gang. However, the movie’s slick style and visual splendor, along with the sheer brutality of the action, make this psychedelic tribute to the original Mad Max a delirious and dark trip into Hell, and a vision worth witnessing even if it is an oddball outing.

1. Vampire’s Kiss (1988)

Reviled by critics, 1988’s black comedy/supernatural horror/satire Vampire’s Kiss is a tough film to categorize and all the more of an unheralded genre great as a result. In arguably his most over-the-top form, Cage stars as a coke-fueled yuppie who believes he is turning into a vampire in a story that is part Bright Lights Big City, part Vampire In Brooklyn and all razor-sharp satire of the apathetic ‘80s. As Cage’s character deteriorates, his depravity escalates and this early antecedent of American Psycho turns a satirical laser on the worst excesses of the Reaganomics era. Like Cage’s performance, the film is loud, uneven and not for everyone, but it’s also essential viewing for fans of the actor and anyone interested in horror’s utility as a satirical storytelling device. The strongest Nicolas Cage horror movie so far, Vampire’s Kiss remains an underrated cult classic.

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Cathal Gunning
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Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.

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