The 15 Most Unlikely Horror Movie Stars

Ukulele-playing novelty singer Tiny Tim became a sweet, wholesome cult icon of the '60s with his falsetto rendition of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," so it's shocking to see him headlining a slasher movie as a nutty clown named Marvelous Mervo. If you thought he was creepy in his "normal" incarnation, you should see him singing "Jack and Jill" in full clown makeup. (Bonus: he also sings the movie's theme song, "Marvelous Mervo.") The film, about a killer stalking a small town, paints Mervo as the likely culprit -- seeing as how he spends all his time singing and dressing as a clown -- but that's why God invented red herrings.

Puritanical '50s pop star-turned-preacher Pat Boone actually starred in a horror movie in the '60s -- albeit a lighthearted horror-comedy with (natch) a musical number thrown in. The Horror of It All is a British film that marks the low point in the career of Terence Fisher, who'd helmed landmark Hammer films like Horror of Dracula, Revenge of Frankenstein, The Mummy and Curse of the Werewolf. It stars Boone as an American travelling to a remote English estate to ask his British girlfriend's parents for her hand in marriage. He soon discovers, however, that her family is certifiably insane -- like a sanitized precursor to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre -- and one of them is trying to bump off the others in order to inherit the family fortune.

The same year that she began her 12-year run as senior citizen sleuth Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote, Angela Lansbury had a supporting role in The Company of Wolves, a surreal British werewolf tale from Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) that puts a dark spin on the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Seeing as how she plays Red's grandmother, Lansbury doesn't fare too well. The veteran actress had actually previously acted in two horror/suspense films in the '40s -- Gaslight (1945) and The Picuture of Dorian Gray (1946) -- both earning her Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress.

John Rocker's short baseball career was known as much for his off-field homophobic and xenophobic rants as his on-field performance, but few realize that in 2002, as he sought to revive his struggling career, he was featured in the low-budget comedic slasher movie The Greenskeeper as -- you guessed it -- a homicidal golf course greenskeeper. Playing perhaps the second most prominent greenskeeper role in cinematic history (trailing only Caddyshack's Carl Spackler), Rocker thankfully spends most of the movie wearing a mosquito net over his face as he dispatches of people with tools of his trade (hedge trimmers, sprinkler head, one of those golf hole puncher thingees and so forth).

Renowned choreographer, dubious singer, perennially confused American Idol judge and all-around perky gal Paula Abdul turned briefly to acting as her succesful singing career began to wane in the late '90s. Her first starring role came in this pedestrian made-for-TV thriller about a woman who's stalked by a serial rapist as she's just starting a relationship with a new guy in town (Heroes' Adrian Pasdar; poor guy). Hmmm, I wonder who the rapist could be??? Some TV execs apparently made the decision that not only could Abdul's acting do the heavy lifting required to support the film, but also that her presence wouldn't trivialize and "camp-up" the otherwise serious subject matter. They were wrong.

One of dozens of spoofs that arose in the wake of The Blair Witch Project, Da Hip Hop Witch is possibly the worst of the lot. It's no wonder, then, than multi-platinum rapper Eminem tried to get his cameo removed from the so-called "film." While half of the movie has some semblance of a plot -- five suburban kids venture to the city in search of the legendary "Black Witch of the Projects" that's been terrorizing rappers -- the other half features improv monologues from rappers like Eminem, Pras, Ja Rule, Killah Priest and Mobb Deep giving testimonies of their supposed encounters with the witch. As you'd expect, the monologues are stammering messes that test the limits of how many "knowwhatimean"s and "y'knowwhatimsayin"s a human can digest.

Near the end of his run on the iconic '80s TV show Knight Rider, all-American actor David Hasselhoff starred in the unintentionally campy TV movie Terror at London Bridge. Hoff plays a cop in Lake Havasu, Arizona, where the original London Bridge has been reassembled as a tourist attraction. Trouble is, the final stone in the bridge is possessed by the spirit of Jack the Ripper, and when a woman's blood conveniently drips on it, the killer is reborn. And only Hoff can stop the bloodthirsty fiend. See Hoff ride a horse. See Hoff box bare-chested. See Hoff dance to '80s pop. See Hoff emote as he relates shooting a 14-year-old boy in the line of duty who turned out to be holding a can opener instead of a gun. What more can you ask for?

Upper-crust celebrity Zsa Zsa Gabor, famous largely for being famous (interestingly, she was once married to Conrad Hilton, great-grandfather of today's Zsa Zsa, Paris Hilton), made a cameo in, of all things, the third Nightmare on Elm Street movie. Rarely discerning about the roles she takes, she plays herself in a dream sequence in which she's interviewed by talk show host Dick Cavett. In typical Elm Street fashion, Cavett turns into Freddy Krueger and raises his claw to slash her -- and then we cut to static. Apparently, no one can see Zsa Zsa die.

One of the most intriguing by-prodcuts of Bill Clinton's presidency is the rise to fame of his half-brother, Roger Clinton, Jr., a black sheep whose run-ins with the law proved to be fodder for tabloids. In addition to plalying music, Roger tried his hand at acting during his older brother's presidency, with one of his most high-profile roles occuring in the ho-hum direct-to-video sequel Pumpkinhead II. In the film, Clinton plays (eesh) "Mayor Bubba," the mayor of a small town in which the demonic Pumpkinhead arises to exact revenge on those who killed him years before.

Comedic superstar Eddie Murphy made an ill-advised venture into horror in 1995 (one of several ill-advised ventures during his career) in this horror-comedy that was light on comedy. To his credit, Murphy was in good hands with director Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left), but nothing in the film works -- particularly Murphy's attempt to portray a seductive, intimidating vampire with a lame Caribbean accent and an inexplicable mullet.