4 Horror Movie Characters Who Disappear Earlier Than You Expect

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But every now and then a horror film establishes a character as a presence, makes them the jock or the nice person or the comedic person and doesn’t kill them. They just seem to fade away at some point. It’s a rarity, but it happens, and the following four examples are the most prominent of how this sometimes comes to be.

4) Dave in The Burning

There are a few ’80s slashers that have very notable pre-fame stars. Friday the 13th had Kevin Bacon, A Nightmare on Elm Street had Johnny Depp, and so on. But it was The Burning from 1981 that had the most stacked cast. Putting aside how it was the first movie produced (and co-written) by Harvey Weinstein, it also had early roles for Holly Hunter, Short Circuit‘s Fisher Stevens, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit‘s Ned Eisenberg, and none other George Costanza himself, Jason Alexander.

Hunter’s character is basically just in the background of a few scenes (this is one crowded camp, where oddly enough the campers and counselors seem about the same age) while Eisenberg’s and Fisher’s die gruesomely in the infamous raft massacre scene. As for Alexander’s Dave, who actually has the meatiest role of them all? He just disappears once the now blood-soaked raft makes its way back to everyone else. Usually, if a slasher gives an actor twenty-plus lines, they either end up a kill or the final girl (or boy). Alexander’s Dave was neither.

Stream The Burning on Prime Video.

3) Gerald Hopkins in Gremlins

It’s odd watching Gremlins knowing that Judge Reinhold was essentially its biggest up-and-coming star save for his Fast Times at Ridgemont High co-star Phoebe Cates. The reason for it feeling odd is the fact that his role is basically a non-entity.

Reinhold plays Gerald, the ambitious and jerky coworker to Zach Galligan’s Billy. He pops up in the beginning to belittle Billy for bringing his dog to their bank workplace, he shows up at the bar to once more do the same (and gloat), and we see him one last time walking past their boss. As it turns out, there was supposed to be more of Gerald, ultimately ending up with them terrorizing him in the bank’s vault. But there were too many characters in this lovely small town, so Gerald got the axe in act one of this highly rewatchable horror-comedy classic.

Stream Gremlins on Hulu.

2) Nick Van Owen in The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Granted, Vince Vaughn’s Nick Van Owen is in most of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. However, he gets so much focus (and even a big hero moment) that it’s a little weird he’s gone from the narrative as soon as they leave the island.

We don’t see him once after the movie gets back to shore. He doesn’t see the boat bash into the dock in San Diego, we don’t get to see him run from (or get eaten by) the T. rex. He’s just…gone. It’s almost as if the script needed someone to release the captured dinosaurs earlier in the film and didn’t really know what else to do with him.

1) Ted Bowen in Friday the 13th Part 2

There are actually two characters who disappear earlier than expected in Friday the 13th Part 2. The first is the first film’s protagonist, Alice Hardy. By this point there are plenty of horror movie characters who led one movie only to die in the next but, back in 1981, it was pretty much unheard of and unexpected.

Then there’s Stu Charno’s Ted. This is the one character who was actually saved by booze in a slasher movie. Before most of the carnage, about half of the counselor trainees go into town to indulge, leaving the other half to get picked off. Ted is one of the ones who indulges, and he indulges too much, so protagonists Ginny and Paul leave him out to do his thing, making him promise to return once the bar closes. Were Ted responsible, returning to Packanack Lodge with his friends, he probably would have been speared.

Stream Friday the 13th Part 2 on Hoopla.