We don't know what will be scarier this weekend at the box office: the final chapter of the
Harry Potter series or trying to get a ticket to see it.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I is said to be the darkest adventure yet for the young wizard and his Hogwarts friends, but many of the film's supporting players have had frightening success outside of the franchise by getting in touch with their dark sides. If you like the scary
Potter vibe, you'll want to conjure up the films below on disc.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Alan Rickman plays the new headmaster of Hogwarts in the latest
Harry Potter, but in Tim Burton's Gothic musical
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street he plays the fly in Johnny Depp's ointment. Rickman plays the wicked Judge Turpin—a man who raped Sweeney Todd's wife, which drove her insane and left her a street beggar. Turpin then raised Sweeney's daughter as his ward, keeping her locked away for most of her young life. See Turpin get a shave he'll never forget on either DVD or Blu-ray.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Helena Bonham Carter reprises her villainous role as Bellatrix Lestrange in
Deathly Hallows, but she has never been more of a fright than as Elizabeth Frankenstein in Kenneth Branagh's 1994 version of Mary Shelley's classic tale. Elizabeth is killed by the Frankenstein monster (Robert De Niro) only to be resurrected by her heartsick husband (Branagh). When the disfigured Bride catches a look at herself in the mirror, she sets herself and Frankenstein's castle on fire. This frightful
Frankenstein is available on both DVD and Blu-ray.
Red Dragon: Ralph Fiennes plays Lord Voldemort—the leader of the Death Eaters who is trying to kill the young wizard—in the
Harry Potter series. As much as you love to hate him in
Deathly Hallows, Fiennes went to a darker place as Francis Dolarhyde—the Tooth Fairy killer in
Red Dragon. Dolarhyde believes that by killing families and helping them transform he can fully become the "Dragon" he wants to be. This involves placing shards of mirrors in his victims' eyes, chomping on the women's corpses with false teeth based on his grandmother's snaggle-toothed set and other unspeakable horrors that make Lord Voldemort seem like Santa Claus. This prequel to
The Silence of the Lambs is available on both DVD and Blu-ray.
Sleepy Hollow: Miranda Richardson plays Rita Skeeter, a reporter for the
Daily Prophet and a correspondent for
Witch Weekly in the Harry Potter series. In Tim Burton's interpretation of
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Richardson plays a witch of a different sort. Her Lady Mary Van Tassel is the evil sorceress who controls the Headless Horseman and sends the Hessian on his bloody missions to lop off some heads. Richardson also plays Mary's twin sister—the black-eyed Crone—who is the lady of your nightmares. She can keep you awake on either DVD or Blu-ray.