Best of the Best: Seven Essential John Lithgow Horror Movies

While Blow Out is usually listed as a neo-noir thriller, I think it resides in the horror space. John Lithgow's character, Burke, is a political operative who is all too good at serial murder and likely a template for his later roles in different films and television shows as a serial killer. Burke literally thinks nothing of strangling three other women to cover up his intent to murder Sally (Nancy Allen). Some influences on De Palma for the film Blow Out are Alfred Hitchcock and Giallo films.

In The Day After, John Lithgow has a small but haunting role as Joe Huxley, the head of the science department, broadcasting reports of radiation levels on shortwave radio. Huxley, as a man of science, knows that radiation is dangerous and likely to kill even more people, so he dedicates himself to warning whoever he can. His warnings are likely going unheard, but he still tries. His broadcast attempting to find other survivors ends the film. While not generally classed as horror, films about nuclear war are realistically the most terrifying. The Day After was so popular that it retains the title of the highest-rated television movie ever. Read more: Here's the Demon You Probably Didn't See in The Exorcist: Believer.

The segment Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, directed by George Miller and a remake of the Twilight Zone episode of the same name starring William Shatner, shows Lithgow as John Valentine, a man with a severe fear of flying. Valentine notices a creature on the wing after going to the restroom to recover from a panic attack. No one believes him because of his behavior and the extreme fear he has shown during the thunderstorm-menaced flight. Lithgow is the hero, but the extremes of terror he brings to his performance are top-notch. Read more: The Best Horror Anthology Films and Where to Watch Them.

Lithgow reunited with director Brian De Palma on Raising Cain in 1992. He plays a child psychologist, Dr. Carter Nix, who secretly has dissociative identity disorder and is a serial killer. During the film, Lithgow plays Nix, his father, and all of Nix's personalities, criminal and murderer Cain, a seven-year-old named Josh, and Margo, a protective middle-aged nanny. As you can imagine, it is a tour de force performance for Lithgow and presages films like Split, where actors are called upon to perform a similar acting feat.

John Lithgow starred in the Tales From The Crypt episode, You, Murderer, which Robert Zemeckis directed. It was the fifteenth episode of the sixth season and concerned a criminal, Lou Spinelli, who was turned into a double of Humphrey Bogart through plastic surgery. Lithgow plays the plastic surgeon, Doctor Oscar Charles. Isabella Rossellini provides the opening monologue. Spinelli is threatened by his wife when she realizes he is a criminal, and he then asks Dr. Charles to kill his wife. Hijinks and murder then ensue. Read more: Amber Benson Returns To The Buffyverse With Slayers.

Lithgow's previous experience playing cold-as-ice serial killers worked well for him when he was cast as Arthur Mitchell, aka The Trinity Killer, on the television series Dexter. He spent the entire fourth season of the series, generally acknowledged as the best season of the whole series run, playing a man who was a pious churchgoing father and deacon to everyone except his victims. His portrayal of The Trinity Killer, a cruel but oddly vulnerable killer, won both a Golden Globe and an Emmy for Lithgow and gave Michael C. Hall, who plays the lead character Dexter Morgan, a real run for his money.

The remake of Pet Sematary in 2019 featured the performance of John Lithgow taking over Jud Crandall, which was made famous by a beloved performance from Fred Gwynne. Lithgow brings his considerable skill to the film as a man who means well, but his stories lead to the death of his friend's child. Lithgow's vulnerable yet quixotic presence gives the role the distinctive edge it needs.