13 Reasons Why You Should Watch Olivia Wilde Horror Movies

Like many others, the first time Olivia Wilde caught my attention was when I saw – a few years too late – the masterpiece series “House.” At the beginning of the fourth season, after Dr. House’s team disbands, he looks at new diagnostic team members. Wilde was there, in the form of Remi Hadley, better known by her nickname “13” (according to her number in House’s entertaining selection process, a number we generally love as horror fans). Beyond the fact that the character itself was interesting and pretty deep, with the discovery that she suffers from the terrible and incurable Huntington’s disease and her complex relationships with women and a black colleague, Wilde managed to stand out with her acting skills and, of course, her breathtaking appearance.

As is my habit, at some point, I tried to find out where I knew her from, and mainly: what horror films Olivia Wilde had made in the past and would make, whether as an actress or as a director, a role in which she showed quite a bit of talent as well. As you will see immediately, although it is difficult to claim that Wilde is a horror icon or an actress who has made too many scary films, as part of the cast or behind the camera, she has a few memorable roles as we will introduce you in this review of Olivie Wilde horror movies. Most importantly, she’s here to stay, so this list will likely continue and be updated in the coming years.

Who Is Olivia Wilde?

Olivia Wilde, or her full name Olivia Jane Cockburn, was born in New York a little over 41 years ago to parents who worked in journalism (her mother, Leslie Cockburn, was also one of the producers of the news magazine program “60 Minutes”). Despite her parents’ professions, which Wilde says made her “very critical and analytical,” she dreamed of being an actress since the age of two (!).

After graduating from high school and the Phillips Academy in Massachusetts in 2002, she studied acting at a school in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. Already in high school, she changed her last name to “Wilde” as a tribute to Oscar Wilde and to mark that her family included several journalists and writers who used a pen name.

Wilde gradually emerged on the small and big screen in the following years. Her first role was in the television series “Skin,” in which she participated in six episodes. She played a small role in the excellent comedy “The Girl Next Door” (2004), about a high school student (Emile Hirsch) who discovers that his hot neighbor (Elisha Cuthbert, who in those years seemed to be heading towards being a horror actress and superstar) is a porn actress. Wilde played a minor role there, of a popular high school student who gets an offer from the evil producer, a role that gave her a name and a few lines, but nothing more.

Olivia Wilde’s real breakthrough was a supporting role in the successful teen drama “The O.C.,” where she played Alex Kelly for 13 episodes during the second season. Alex Kelly was a bisexual who dated Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) and Marissa Cooper (Misha Burton, another enormous promise that has since made many failed horror films). Wilde did want to play Marissa Cooper and was auditioned for the role, but she ultimately lost out to Burton. Luckily, she made a positive enough impression to get a supporting role in the series.

After her initial breakthrough, we saw her in supporting roles in several films: “Alpha Dog” (2006), as the girlfriend of drug dealer Johnny Truelove (again, Emile Hirsch), in a role that also included nudity; “Bickford Shmeckler’s Cool Ideas” (2006), which showed impressive comedic abilities; “The Next Three Days” (2010), as one of the friends who helps a college professor (Russell Crowe) prove that his wife (Elizabeth Banks) was wrongfully accused of murder by a pawn and others. At the same time, that role on “House” came along for about 80 episodes from seasons 4-7 and a little bit of season 8, which had already made her a much better-known name in the industry.

Olivia Wilde Is Starting To Break The Box Office

In Walt Disney’s 2010 “Tron: Legacy,” a sequel to the 1982 science fiction classic “Tron,” Olivia Wilde has already appeared on some of the film’s posters as the actress from “House.” The film was produced on a budget of about $170 million and grossed approximately $400 million, an imposing amount – especially because the reviews it received were mixed. In the role of a skilled “algorithmic isomorphic” warrior in the film’s digital world, Wilde attracted much attention.

“In Time” (2011) is a science fiction thriller with a great idea – a world where our time is not only money but also life, thanks to a genetic mutation that causes people from the age of 25 to live forever unless their time, that is, money, runs out – which was only partially successful. Wilde played the mother (!) of the film’s protagonist, played by Justin Timberlake. She is responsible for one of the movie’s better and most moving scenes, in which her time runs out forever.

We have already written about Wilde’s role in “Cowboys & Aliens” (2011) in our review of alien invasion films. The reason is that the film presented a cool concept that combines a period Western and an alien movie. It has a crazy cast (Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, and others) and several great scenes, including one in which Ella Swinson, played by Wilde, comes back to life naked and reveals her mysterious powers.

Wilde has worked with the most respected directors in Hollywood, such as Spike Jonze’s masterpiece “Her” (2013), which won the Oscar for screenplay and was nominated in four other categories, where She played a small role as a blind date for a guy (Joaquin Phoenix) who is in a relationship with his AI-based virtual assistant (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), in a film that seems more relevant than ever today.

In the following years, we also saw her in Damien Chazelle’s high-quality but messy and very long “Babylon” in a supporting role as one of Brad Pitt’s wives, in the 2013 racing film “Rush” as the model and girlfriend of race car driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth), in the TV series “Vinyl” by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, and more.

Wilde’s list of roles also includes the wild comedy “The Change-Up” (2011), which included a particularly sexy scene; the average thriller “Deadfall” (2012); the successful indie comedy “Drinking Buddies” (2013), which she also served as one of its executive producers; the deranged comedy “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” (2013) alongside Steve Carell; the provocative “Third Person” (2013), in a provocative role as Liam Neeson’s lover; the Christmas comedy “Love the Coopers” (2015) – and the list goes on.

Olivia Wilde Moves Into Directing

In 2019, Wilde’s first film as a director, “Booksmart”, received excellent reviews. At the center of this teen comedy are two “nerd” friends, played by Beanie Feldstein (“Lady Bird,” “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising,” “What We Do in the Shadows”) and Kaitlyn Dever (“Dear Evan Hansen,” “No One Will Save You,” and “The Last of Us”), who, after graduating high school, decide to dedicate the last night before the ceremony to completing everything they didn’t do during their studies.

The film was moving and very funny at times. Still, it also showed the particular problematic nature of Woke, which, as this writer knows, has become a bit too much with the “Woke” culture and its derivatives: feminism, marginal characters (overweight and queer), and so on.

After “Booksmart,” Wilde was already a sought-after director among Hollywood studios. In 2022, she directed “Don’t Worry Darling,” to which we will return later.

The Wild Personal Lives Of Olivia

You’ll find Olivia Wilde on many “sexiest women” lists, and you can see why when you look at her pictures. One of the special titles she’s earned is “sexiest vegetarian celebrity” because she was once both a vegetarian and a vegan. As far as we know, today she’s a pescatarian (“plant-eating”) – someone who eats fish and seafood but not meat from land animals.

Wilde is involved in political activism on legitimate issues such as education and health in Haiti, civil liberties, global poverty, fair food, Down syndrome, and, of course, women’s rights since she is a dedicated feminist.

Olivia Wilde has had some turbulent relationships over the years. In 2003, she married Tao Ruspoli, a real Renaissance man: a musician and flamenco guitarist, documentary filmmaker, and descendant of the aristocratic Ruspoli family of Rome. The couple’s wedding ceremony, when Wilde was only 19 years old, took place in none other than a school bus (!) in front of a tiny number of guests. Wilde later explained that she chose the strange location because she wanted to keep the marriage secret, and a school bus is probably the most secret place you can find after a nuclear fallout shelter.

The marriage lasted until 2011, and the couple were moved by what Wilde defined as “gaps that cannot be bridged.” A few months later, she dated actor and comedian Jason Sudeikis (“Ted Lasso,” “We’re the Millers,” “Horrible Bosses”), but their life together was far from a romantic comedy. They got engaged in 2013 but never married despite having two children. They broke up in late 2020, seemingly maintaining a healthy and warm relationship, but darker sides may have been beneath the surface. The low point was a letter that Sudeikis delivered to Wilde in the middle of a gala event to promote the film “Don’t Worry, Darling,” when the messenger delivered the letter to a shocked Wilde during his speech.

According to rumors, Sudeikis was furious about Wilde’s relationship with her next famous partner, singer-actor Harry Styles, whom she directed in the same film. Wilde and Styles dated for almost two years, but the love story also ended in separation.

In A Relationship With A Horror Monster

Today, Wilde is reportedly in a relationship with a former basketball player and current film actor named Dane DiLiegro. Jewish DiLegro was a retired professional basketball player who played in Italy and Israel. He won the gold medal with the United States basketball team at the 18th Maccabiah Games in 2029, which is the Official Jewish Olympic Games.

What interests us more are DiLegro’s roles in cinema after finishing his basketball era and moving to acting, mainly as monsters in horror films. We saw DiLiegro as the Predator in the excellent remake of “Prey” from 2022, one of the best horror films of that year. The actor’s filmography in the horror world also includes the murderous bear Chauncey in Blumhouse’s “Imaginary,” the character of the legendary creature Bigfoot in the film “Monsters of California” (2023), the “Stork” (or rather a kind of stork-like alien creature) in a short film called Stork in the anthology film “V/H/S/Beyond” from 2024, and also the “Lead Wolf” in the mid-range film “Werewolves” with Frank Grillo and Katrina Law. On television, he played, among other things, a demon named BA’AL in the fifth episode of the first season of “American Horror Stories,” the spin-off of “American Horror Story.”

Damn, this guy deserves an article of his own. But let’s get back to Olivia Wilde because that’s what we’re here for now.

Olivia Wilde Horror Movies: The Complete List

Olivia Wilde is not yet a Scream Queen, a Final Girl, or just someone who has done a lot of horror movies. She once said that she always wanted to act in a horror movie and that as a child, she had a library of films from our favorite genre in her bedroom, but her number of horror film appearances is still minimal.

The good news is that Olivia Wilde is still young, so she has a lot of movies ahead of her – And hopefully, some more of Olivia Wilde Scary Movies.

Turistas (2006)

The first horror movie of Olivia, and one of her first appearances in cinema in general, was in the film “Turistas” by John Stockwell (“Into the Blue,” “Blue Crush,” and the TV series “Cheaters”). The film follows a group of young American backpackers who get into a bus accident in Brazil, find themselves drugged, and later fight for their lives against a network of organ traffickers, who imprison them with the goal of – well – dissecting their bodies, removing vital organs, and selling them to wealthy buyers. And a few more Brazilian dangers.

Wilde plays Bae, who sets out on a journey with her brother (Josh Duhamel, “Transformers,” “Love, Simon”), her friend (Beau Garrett, “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” “Tron: Legacy”), and fights for her life along with other travelers, in a film that also includes reasonable amounts of gore. Wilde and the cast do a satisfactory job here, even if some might say that Wilde’s swimsuit, which accompanies him for a large part of the scenes, is just as attention-grabbing as it is. The plot is interesting, with some exciting moments, even if they are far from surprising or exciting. The film received mixed to negative reviews and barely made back its budget (about $10 million), with a worldwide revenue of just under $15 million.

“Turistas” is the first American film to be shot entirely in Brazil. The director, John Stockwell, said that he was eager to direct the film from the moment he received the script, which reminded him of a terrifying experience he had in Peru: three 13-year-old boys shot him. He approached the police, who offered to let him kill them if he paid them $300.

The film sparked protests and calls for a boycott in Brazil, claiming that it portrayed the country negatively and could harm its tourism. Duhamel publicly apologized on Jay Leno’s show. Garrett praised her experience filming in Brazil, claiming that the film was not about a specific country but “the need to be aware.” Eventually, the Brazilian tourism agency stated that despite the negative image, viewers could distinguish between reality and imagination.

The Lazarus Effect (2015)

Lazarus Syndrome, also known as “autoresuscitation after failed cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” describes a condition where the heart rhythm returns to normal spontaneously after failed resuscitation attempts. The phenomenon, which has occurred dozens of times in recent decades, takes its name from the character of Lazarus, who, according to the New Testament, was brought back to life by Jesus.

This syndrome is the basis of the horror film “The Lazarus Effect,” directed by David Gelb, which featured a great cast: not only Olivia Wilde but also Mark Duplass (the creepy guy from the excellent “Creep” films, “Jeff, Who Lives at Home”), Evan Peters (the star of “American Horror Story,” “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”), Sarah Bulger (“The Moth Diaries”, “Descendent” and the crazy babysitter film “Emelie“) and the acclaimed singer-actor and writer Donald Glover.

The film revolves around a group of medical students who try to find a way to bring the dead back to life, this time with the help of a special serum called “Lazarus.” At first, their experiment is on animals, but after the dean closes the door on them, they carry it out underground. Zoe (Wilde) goes through an experiment in the world of the dead and returns from it. However, if you’ve seen these kinds of movies before, you can probably conclude that she doesn’t come back the same, but as an entity that starts killing guys one by one, which says something about the limits of science and the fact that we can’t cheat death.

“The Lazarus Effect” received lukewarm reviews. Still, its box office performance was pretty good: a reasonable profit of more than $38 million worldwide. It becomes even more impressive when you remember the film’s budget was $3 million.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Even if you’ve seen “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” you might have missed Olivia Wilde. The fourth film in the franchise, essentially a sequel to the first two films, featured a complex plot spanning three generations, centered around children who use the knowledge and equipment of the original Ghostbusters to fight evil and save the world. The film, which received generally positive reviews and grossed more than $204 million, featured an impressive cast and many guest appearances, including original Ghostbusters (Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, as well as female lead Annie Potts), Sigourney Weaver, and more.

So, how does this movie feature in the articles about Olivia Wilde scary movies? If you dig deep into her filmography, as we do in these kinds of articles, you’ll find that “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” is listed among her credits. Dig deeper, and her role is minor: in fact, she wasn’t officially credited, sharing the role with two others.

Wilde played Gozer the Gozerian, an ancient demon or something like that, a shape-shifting Sumerian god of destruction who enters our world through a supernaturally charged rooftop temple, or something like that. Wilde plays Gozer in physical form, while another actress provides her voice, and another actress provides her computer-animated character.

Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

“Don’t Worry Darling” is a psychological thriller directed and written by Wilde, in which she also played a supporting role as the best friend of the main character (Florence Pugh, “Midsommar,” “Little Women,” “Black Widow”).

The plot takes place in the 1950s in an ideal town called Victory, where the families of the “Victory Project” workers live – a secret and mysterious project. Alice and her husband, Jack (singer Harry Styles), seem like the perfect family, but cracks eventually appear. Alice investigates the mystery behind the ideal town and the project that unites her friends and discovers a tapestry of lies, betrayals, and twists. Here, too, some of the themes are in the spirit of the Woke and its various derivatives, such as feminism, female oppression, and the illusion of the perfect life.

The film received much attention for its content and the drama behind the scenes. The romantic relationship between Wilde and Harry Styles began during filming, making the film an official star in the gossip columns. Despite the controversies, the film proved Wilde’s ability to create sophisticated and visually impressive cinema, with the proper guidance of actors, and established her position as a director with a unique voice in American cinema. The film also highlighted Wilde’s interest in feminist issues and the exploration of power and gender, topics that have occupied her since the beginning of her career, for better or worse. On the other hand, quite a few critics noted that the plot has flaws in construction and pacing and that Wilde seemed to prioritize form over content here.

“Don’t Worry Darling” is not a classic horror film, but it is understandable why it appears in our review and why some critics defined it as one of the scariest films of the year.

Okay, so it’s not certain that Olivia Wilde is truly a horror idol in the making. Still, if you look at the long list of films she’s starred in, directed, or produced, you can see a fine representation of our genre, which will likely grow in the coming years. Add to that her looks, turbulent personal life, and social agendas, some legitimate and some annoying, and it’s hard to ignore Olivia Wilde’s wild side.

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