The Horrors of William Shatner

Many of the Star Trek cast have appeared in horror movies, but none of them have been in more than William Shatner.

That's what you get for flying coah

Shatner’s first foray into horror was in a Twilight Zone episode.  “Nightmare at 20,000 feet”  has become a classic and was even remade in the 1983 Twilight Zone movie.  

His next horror role was not nearly as sucessful.  Incubus released in 1966 was doomed mostly because it was subtitled in English and spoken entirely in Esperanto.   Add in the fact it wasn’t a particularly good movie and it vanished quickly.  

1975’s The Devil’s Rain also starred John Travolta, Tom Skerritt and Ernest Borgnine as the devil.  The biggest marketing gimmick for the film was that Anton LaVey was a technical advisor.  LaVey was the high priest of the Church of Satan at the time.  The film was a staple on late night TV for years and  really deserves a good Blu-Ray release.  

Kingdom of the Spiders is another Creature Feature classic.  Filmed way before CGI the cast had to deal with thousands of real tarantulas.  This is a movie that can really creep out arachnophobes. 

 

Despite all of his horror film roles there was one thing in 1978 that cemented his place in horror history.  Tommy Lee Wallace used a cheap Captain Kirk mask and altered it into the now classic Myers mask.