10 Horror Movies Actors Wanted You To Hate

Actors are a capricious bunch; one day they're desperate to please, doing anything for their adoring public's attention, next they're growing Jesus beards, reading beat poetry and gazing into the void on a global platform. And, while it can be hard to keep track of who they are on the surface of it all, their work usually provides the "in" for us to get to know them, tracking their career through highs and lows, indies and blockbusters, romances and horrors...

While horror was once seen as the refuge of the untrained and inept, relying more on ten-a-penny scares than the gravitas of a leading star, it has come a long way in the eyes of both cinema audiences and actors themselves. Some actors now go that extra mile where horror is concerned, immersing themselves in their roles and producing work that is complex, challenging and designed to bait their audiences into conflict with the film.

Granted, usually it's the director who is at war with the audience, determined as they often are to put us through the ringer and make us pay for something we loathe, but for whatever reason these 10 actors wanted nothing more than to ensure their audiences really hated the show. Let's hope it was worth it.

Darren Aronofsky's 2017 Biblical horror chamber piece mother! may not be to everyone's liking, but there is no denying its visual, visceral and emotional powers. All of these elements are rooted in Jennifer Lawrence's performance as the titular matriarch, a pregnant housewife who treads on eggshells around a tempestuous poet (Javier Bardem) while trying to bring new life into the world.

Having made her career in The Hunger Games tetralogy, Lawrence was keen to do something that would revolt viewers and bring her a more adult image. Thus, she embraced Aronofsky's claustrophobic, full-on approach to filming and plot, diving headlong into a nightmarish technical challenge, with a rigid script and a majority of shots filmed in extreme close up on Lawrence's face.

While it was no cakewalk to make, the tone of the film is suited to the subject, which sees masses of people descend upon Mother's home and tear it apart, enacting out the worst of human history in graphic fashion. Lawrence herself said that, while most of the time her hope is to make a film that everyone likes, with mother! this just wasn't a priority: "That never crossed our minds. It’s an assault. I think it’s necessary."

And for whatever reason audiences hate it (snapping baby neck, anyone?), the gambit surely paid off.