Top 10 Deadliest Jobs According to Horror Films

As summer starts to feel like a distant memory, the nights begin to draw in and the leaves on the trees change colour, there’s no denying that the autumnal season is well and truly upon us.

And with the drop in temperature comes the annual festivities of Halloween – a period which originated from the ancient Celtic festival Samhain and is said to have traditionally been celebrated to ward off ghosts and honour saints of the past.

As Halloween approaches, instantprint enters one of its busiest periods and this got us thinking about other industries that see a boost in customers at Halloween. With last year’s box office releases Halloween and The Nun released in time for Halloween grossing over £498,969,120.89 in 2018 we made the obvious link to the booming horror film industry.

To celebrate our diverse host of new customers across a variety of industries and with 2019 shaping up to be big year for horror films in the box-office, we delved further to examine the 10 deadliest professions when it comes to horror films – on both sides of the good/evil axis:

Dangerous professions

If you’re in a horror movie and you find yourself in one of these jobs, you’d better watch your back…      

Student

Ok, so it’s not technically a profession, but the studious types are often portrayed as vulnerable victims – none more so than in Scream, where a group of high school kids swap their stationery for a panicked bid to avoid the clutches of a mysterious killer running around town in a ghost mask.

Journalist

As a reporter, your job is to get to the heart of the story and reveal the truth to the public. However, in The Ring, Naomi Watts’ character may have wished she hadn’t bothered, after an investigation leads her to discover a video tape that causes people to die seven days after they’ve watched it. Probably best to stick to writing flowery feature pieces from the safety of the office in future…

Priest

There’s no end to the number of horror movies that have seen terrified families call on a member of the clergy to help rid them of some supernatural being – with decidedly mixed results. It certainly did not end well in The Amityville Horror for Father Delaney, who suffers violent sickness, blisters and a car accident before going blind and, perhaps understandably, losing his faith.

Security guard

Tasked with keeping key characters or valuable treasures safe, the security guard is (unfortunately for them) the first line of defence and therefore often the first to bite the dust. You just know as soon as they appear on screen, checking out that mysterious noise, that they’re living on borrowed time.

Teacher/counsellor

There are few professions more altruistic than that of a teacher or counsellor but try telling that to the characters in Friday the 13^th. In trying to re-open an old abandoned summer camp, they are instead murdered by a rampaging killer.

Killer professions

If you’re curled up watching a scary film this Halloween and one of these appears on screen, be wary…

Clown

Lots of people are terrified of clowns and there is little wonder after It, which hit our screens in 2017 as a remake of Stephen King’s famous novel. Traditionally thought of as cheerful, good-natured entertainer of children, It’s main character - Pennywise the clown - lends an entirely new and evil twist to the profession.

Investment banker

Sometimes portrayed as brash, arrogant characters who are among the first to get their comeuppance in horror films, American Psycho flipped the script when it comes to investment bankers. Christian Bale plays Patrick Bateman, who gets so infuriated by a colleague’s superior business card that it sets him off on a murdering spree.

Writer

The life of a writer can be a lonely one, and that is in stark evidence in The Shining. While looking after a remote hotel in the mountains, off-season, Jack Nicholson’s character – an aspiring writer – slowly loses his mind, kills the head chef and threatens his wife and young son, lending a chilling tone to the phrase ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’.

Scientists

Often, their creations turn on them – with grizzly results – but in The Cabin in the Woods, it’s the scientists who release the evil on others, controlling a posse of crazed zombies to attack a group of students who have retreated to a remote shack in the woods. Sometimes, being smart does not have positive consequences.

Hotelier

Although Jack Nicholson wasn’t a full-time hotelier in The Shining, there’s clearly something about running a guesthouse that brings out the worst in people. Take Psycho and the character of Norman Bates who, having murdered his own mother, takes on her spirit as an alternate personality and subsequently kills again in the famous shower stabbing scene.

If that doesn’t get you in the mood for Halloween, we don’t know what will!