From running for his life to escape hulking slasher villains to battling extraterrestrial creatures, surviving ravenous vampires, and evading the law – Josh Hartnett really has done it all. After making his acting debut in none other than the Halloween franchise, the actor has been a staple in genre cinema with roles in some of the most iconic flicks horror has to offer.
Despite his stratospheric success across Hollywood, Hartnett has always returned to the world of genre films, most recently appearing in the action thriller Fight or Flight, featured in Spring Screams presented by Regal and FANGORIA.
Hartnett appears as Lucas Reyes, a mercenary who takes on the job of securing a high-value asset known only as “The Ghost,” which is being transported on an international flight. Soon, however, he realizes the plane is filled with assassins tasked with killing both Reyes and The Ghost, forcing them to work together. As we gear up for the various ways Hartnett is going to kick ass on an airplane with burly henchmen coming at him from all angles, we take a look back at some of his best genre roles, from dark, brooding thrillers, to bloody TV series.
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Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Hartnett first dipped his toe into the world of genre cinema with the Halloween film, H20: 20 Years Later. As the title suggests, the seventh film in the franchise is set 20 years after Michael Myers' escape from Smith's Grove Sanitarium and his Haddonfield killing spree in pursuit of his long-lost sister Laurie Strode (Jamie-Lee Curtis).
Michael is presumed dead following an explosion at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, but of course, he's still on the rampage and Laurie is his prime target. The iconic final girl, now living under the pseudonym Keri Tate, is a headmistress at a private boarding school and lives with her son, John, played by Hartnett. Their lives are thrown into disarray when Michael tracks them both down, threatening to destroy Laurie's peaceful life.
Despite its painfully formulaic slasher narrative, Hartnett delivers a strong performance in his film debut as John, who has his whole life turned upside down when he learns the truth about his mother's past life. Its a role that kickstarted his career, and while it may not be the strongest, without it we wouldn't have some of his most iconic performances.
The Faculty
Following the success of From Dusk Till Dawn, Robert Rodriguez released gooey body horror The Faculty in 1998, hitting cinema screens months after Halloween H20. The Faculty is set at Herrington High School in Ohio, where an unusual creature is taking over the bodies of the staff, putting the students in mortal danger.
It begins by introducing students from different walks of life – Casey Connor (Elijah Wood) the school photographer; Delilah Profitt (Jordana Brewster) the school newspaper editor; Stan Rosado (Shawn Hatosy), Delilah's boyfriend and star football player; Zeke Tyler (Hartnett) the school rebel, Stokely Mitchell (Clea DuVall) the misfit, and Marybeth Hutchinson (Laura Harris) the new transfer student.
When Casey finds a strange creature on the football field and takes it to science teacher Mr. Furlong (Jon Stewart), the students soon find themselves fighting for their lives against an otherworldly threat.
Even as part of such a stacked cast, Hartnett stands out as the bad boy with a heart of gold whose intimate knowledge of chemistry (ahem) saves the lives of his nearest and dearest.
Despite parodying every bully boy character in coming-of-age cinema, Hartnett manages to inject a real heart into Zeke, making him a believable and lovable character despite his trope-laden behavior. With a reboot of the '90s film heading our way, we hope to see Hartnett return to the project in some way.
30 Days Of Night
We don't get our next slice of genre cinema from Hartnett until 2007, but it's well worth the wait. It's no exaggeration to crown 30 Days of Night one of the best vampire films of all time with a truly spine-chilling concept, vicious monsters, and edge-of-your-seat survival narrative you won't soon forget.
Hartnett stars as Sheriff Eben Oleson, who lives in the small town of Barrow, Alaska, which experiences a solid month of darkness every winter. Many residents move south for winter, but some townspeople stay behind to brace for the tough conditions. However, they come to regret their decision when a band of hungry vampires descends on Barrow to take advantage of the dark conditions, feeding on the small band of survivors led by Eben and his wife Stella (Melissa George).
Hartnett's performance is a masterclass in drama as Eben fights tirelessly against his own exhaustion, hunger, and fear to keep his loved ones safe.
His sacrifice in the film's final act to save his town is made all the more impactful by Hartnett's attention to detail in bringing the character to life and his onscreen chemistry with George as Stella. He is a force to be reckoned with, but he's no match for the vampires, which are some of the most terrifying in horror cinema.
I Come With The Rain
In 2009, Hartnett appeared in the absolutely gripping psychological thriller I Come With The Rain. Directed by Tran Anh Hung, the actor appears as ex-cop Kline, now a private detective haunted by his memories of killing a serial killer in the line of duty.
A powerful pharmaceutical boss hires Kline to find his only son, Shitao (Takuya Kimura), who has mysteriously disappeared while working in the Phillippines. Soon, he finds himself caught in the crossfire between an organized crime ring and the Hong Kong police while trying to track down Shitao.
Every performance is captivating, but Hartnett truly shines as the complicated detective Kline. Its narrative sometimes meanders into convoluted, confusing territory, but it remains interesting and unique enough to stand out among its peers.
Speaking to The People's Movies at the time of the film's release, Hartnett opened up on the filming process of I Come With The Rain: “It's kind of difficult to explain what I Come with the Rain is about. It's a movie I shot in Hong Kong with Anh Hung Tran (The Scent of Green Papaya). He's amazing, a Vietnamese director. It's a visual kind of poetic piece. He's a very famous Vietnamese-French director whose films are very difficult to define in certain ways. I had a great time working with him.”
Penny Dreadful
Arguably, Hartnett's best role came with the criminally underrated horror series Penny Dreadful. Running from 2014 to 2016, the wildly popular Showtime series drew inspiration from the 19th-century sensational penny dreadful stories as well as public domain characters such as Dorian Gray, Abraham Van Helsing, Victor Frankenstein, and Dr Jekyll.
Hartnett starred in three seasons of the show as Ethan Chandler, a gunman first hired by Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) and Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) in 1891 to track down his daughter Mina Harker (Olivia Llewellyn) from a mysterious creature.
Penny Dreadful was everything a gothic horror fan could want, combining beloved characters from literature with impeccable worldbuilding and complex, rounded protagonists in a fantastical package, cancelled way before its time. Ethan's story is laced with tragedy throughout as the gunman cursed with a werewolf bite grapples with love and loss – and he's at the center of plenty of violent, bloody scenes to boot.
Black Mirror - "Beyond The Sea"
From Miley Cyrus to Jon Hamm, Will Poulter, Daniel Kaluuya, and Letitia Wright, the British dystopian horror series Black Mirror is no stranger to a celebrity cameo. Hartnett starred in season six, episode three, “Beyond The Sea,” one of the strongest installments of the overall lackluster season.
The episode follows astronauts Cliff (Aaron Paul) and David (Hartnett) who can transfer their consciousness into robot replicas of their bodies on Earth during long missions in space. When a tragedy occurs on Earth, conflict arises between colleagues when the boundaries of their personal lives blur.
“Beyond The Sea” is the standout gem of Black Mirror season six, mostly thanks to Hartnett's emotive turn as David in the episode. His devastation and grappling with grief is palpable through every narrative beat, and his onscreen chemistry with Paul makes the tension throughout the story even more nerve-shredding as its final act descends into all-out chaos.
Trap
From catching serial killers to becoming one, Hartnett treated us to his most maniacal role last year as the enigmatic Cooper in M. Night Shyamalan's Trap. The frankly bonkers thriller follows Cooper and his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) as he takes her to see pop superstar Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan) in concert.
Soon after arriving, Cooper learns that the concert is one giant trap to ensnare The Butcher, a serial killer who has been terrorizing the city. This is alarming news to Cooper, however, who is the aforementioned killer, and must pull every possible trick out of his sleeve to evade capture.
There's certainly some questionable scriptwriting in Trap, but Hartnett's duplicitous performance as the charming yet deadly Cooper is something to be marveled. It's easy to suspend disbelief and ignore some of the more ridiculous elements of the film when you're having so much fun watching Hartnett bring Cooper and his schemes to life, so much so that you'll likely find yourself cheering for the killer to come through despite, well, multiple murders.
Speaking to Collider, Hartnett explained why Trap was one of his hardest roles to date: “You have to tell people up front this guy is a villainous character, but we have to, in some way, want to see him escape to an extent, because that's the conceit of the film. That is what the film is about. It is like a ‘90s-style throwback, contained thriller where there's a character that needs to escape an uncomfortable situation or a scary situation—a death-defying situation. He's an entertaining guy, necessarily, because he's a psychopath who doesn't care about the way his interactions are going to affect anyone. He's not empathetic, so he's able to sort of exist outside of the pressure, and he's kind of actually turned on by the pressure.”
