Have you seen Robert Englund, Tony Todd, or Kane Hodder in a movie lately?  Perhaps a better question would be, have you seen a direct to DVD movie recently without them?

We are now a few years into the Media Age, and in this era, we have produced celebrities at an unprecedented rate.  For the first time ever, we have people who are actually famous for simply being famous.  The horror world has not been spared this ridiculous excess of celebrity. 

Go to your local horror convention, and you will find some familiar faces (and not so familiar) peddling their signed photos for 20 bucks a pop to genre fans.  That’s right, $20 for signing their name on their photograph.  You might think they might have to be iconic actors to garner that sort of wage.  In fact, simply being seen in a faous film is enough, as people are charging money for their autographs, just because they were a featured extra in a film, or had the pleasure of wearing a Tom Savini make-up appliance for a 3 second shot.

I am not going to condemn the people for selling the autographs or the people who buy them.  The point is to illustrate the perceived value of recognition in the media age.  If someone is recognizable, they have perceived value, both at conventions, and in films.

This gets me to the meat of the article, the “Stunt Cast”.  Stunt casting is putting a person in a movie for the sole purpose of garnering attention for the project.  It is a way for movie producers to trade in on some of that aforementioned celebrity value.  There are various ways to execute a stunt cast, but the two most common are the cameo/bit part and the “what the fuck are they doing in the movie”-role.

The cameo/bit part is pretty obvious.  We see that all the time now in direct-to-DVD horror.  Bill Mosely walks through a movie or Tony Tood hams in up as a reverend for a couple minutes on screen.  The intent here is to give a low-budget film credibility with horror fans.  You know, if it gets that celebrity’s seal of approval, it must be good.  It also helps get the word out to genre fans, as someone like Robert Englund appearing in a horror fil, will get all the horror websites clamoring for coverage.  Many of these guys also hit the convention circuit, so again, the film gets more free publicity.

The other form of stunt casting, the “what the fuck are they doing in the movie”-role (WTF-role), is designed to appeal to the mainstream.  The producers are trying to whip up curiousity about a film that might otherwise not get covered by certain media outlets.  Two recent examples of WTF-roles are Fergie in “Planet Terror” and Paris Hilton in both House of Wax and Repo!: The Genetic Opera.  Casting those two assured the film producers that the film would get mainstream media coverage by Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly.

Paris Hilton is an especially appealing stunt cast because she is so frequently in the tabloids.  Producers hope that every time her vacant stare is seen on the internet or in a magazine, their film is mentioned along with it.

How one views stunt casting is really all about perspective. On one hand, it can really take the viewer out of a film when some random celebrity pops up in the middle of a movie.  The need for that celebrity to have a meaningful line or moment, can also feel very contrived.  On the other hand, in most of the films where stunt casting is done, it is done as part of the financing process. Because the executive producers know the names have value, they are more likely to greenlight a film that has star names attached to it.  Or, it could be the difference between that release getting a $3 million budget and a $10 million budget.

Like any trend, it eventually gets old.  Hopefully the stunt casting trend has hit its apex, and we will see more casting based on who is right for the part, rather than who has the biggest name.  If this is just the beginning, prepare for many more horror films that have opening credit sequences that look more like an episode of ‘The Love Boat’ rather than an old-school horror movie.