Horror might be a genre path that only a few have walked on and lived to tell the tale, but for die-hard fans of horror movies, we have compiled a list involves some of the most popular horror and thriller films and the actors who are caught in the terror and mayhem. We choose to look at men because one, "World War Z" stars the renowned Brad Pitt, who is, incidentally, a male, and two, because women being victimised in horror movies are too mainstream.

Brad Pitt

Reign of horror: "World War Z" and "Se7en".

"World War Z" and "Se7en" don't necessarily construe themselves as horror films, they do, however, have elements and themes of horror. They also have more than enough scenes of Brad Pitt looking frightened and vulnerable.

The world that Pitt's character is stuck in for "World War Z" has been infested with zombies and it looks like he has to face them, which is obviously horrifying, to make the world safe again. In "Se7en", Brad Pitt was terrorized by a serial killer played by Kevin Spacey, and learning what was in the infamous "box". The scene was so horrifying that the contents of the box were not shown, but we all know what it was.

Ethan Hawke

Reign of horror: "The Purge" and "Sinister".

"The Purge" has still a long way to go until it is released in Malaysia or Singapore, but the horror and thriller film is already ruling the U.S. box office. Ethan Hawke plays the lead alongside "Game Of Thrones" star Lena Headey as a couple whose family is terrorised by murderers wearing doll-face masks during "the Purge", an annual 12-hour time period during which people can vent their negative emotions because all crime (including murder) is legal and emergency services are suspended.

Ethan Hawke is pursued again, this time by supernatural forces in "Sinister", where he plays a true-crime writer who finds several home movies with disturbing content that puts his family in danger. Having starred in these two films that quickly gained cult followings, Ethan Hawke is suddenly reborn in the movie industry from that kid in "Dead Poets Society" to an actor with a horror film fan following.

Eli Roth

Reign of horror: "Aftershock", "Hostel" and "Cabin Fever".

Despite vomiting after watching Ridley Scott's "Alien" at the age of eight, Eli Roth decided that his true calling was to get involved with producing and directing gory and horror films. He got the idea for "Cabin Fever" when he contracted a flesh-eating disease, and a year before he made the fan favourite "Hostel", which made Quentin Tarantino call him the 'future of horror'.

He also tried his hand at acting every now and then, and he played the infamous Bear Jew in Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds". He also recently starred in the horror flick "Aftershock", which he had also produced. The film takes place in Chile, where a group of travellers who are in an underground nightclub is hit by a massive earthquake, leaving them trapped below. The disaster leads to the collapse of societal norms, including murder, rape, looting, destruction of property, and other anarchic activities. There is also the looming threat of a tsunami after the earthquake.

Anthony Perkins

Reign of horror: The "Psycho" trilogy.

"Psycho" had two other sequels following Alfred Hitchcock's classic, but the original one was definitely the most well received, and earned Anthony Perkins the title of having played one of greatest movie characters of all time. Later, Anthony Perkins would discover that although he tried to venture into different genres of films like romance and even musicals, he could not shake off being typecast as a neurotic, psychotic or arrested adolescent, most notably in "The Fool Killer" (1965), "WUSA" (1970), the cult-fave "Pretty Poison" (1968) and "Mahogany" (1975).

Patrick Wilson

Reign of horror: "Insidious" and "The Conjuring".

Patrick Wilson is the type of actor who was in "Prometheus" and "The A-Team", but you don't even notice that he was in them. But after starring in "Young Adult" and headlining Malaysian-born director James Wan's "Insidious", he catapulted to stardom as the man whose face is able to channel abject terror and desperation. I mean, imagine Charlize Theron trying to break up his marriage and then going nuts when she finds out that he has no intention of leaving his wife to rekindle their high school romance in "Young Adult" and then haunted by a shadowy woman in "Insidious". In fact, he is so good at being frightened that he was nominated for the Scream Award for Best Horror Actor.

With "Insidious: Chapter 2" coming out this year, we are definitely excited to see more of him in his element. He will also star alongside Vega Farmiga in another horror film, titled "The Conjuring", coming out 1 August.

Jack Nicholson

Reign of horror: "The Shining" and "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest".

Judging by Jack Nicholson's facial expressions alone, you could already tell that he was meant for great things when it came to the horror genre. He inspired us all with his own version of the Joker in Tim Burton's "Batman", but it was his portrayal of Jack Torrance in "The Shining" that got us all hooked.

His rabid scenes were iconic and the scene where he stuck his head through the door and yelled "Heeeere's Johnny!" wasn't even in the script but it became one of the movie's icons. His role in another classic, "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" wasn't as horrific as the Stephen King masterpiece, but with the help of Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched, the film managed to frighten most who have watched it.

Liev Schreiber

Reign of horror: "The Omen" and the "Scream" franchise.

While he does have an extensive list of films he has been in, he is still known for the "Scream" franchise as Cotton Weary, which helped him gain more opportunities in film. He is also known for being Naomi Watts's husband and playing Sabretooth in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine".

But one of his ventures in horror, which was "The Omen" in 2006, definitely gave him more of a name in the film industry in general. The film, which is a remake of the 1976 classic about a son of an American official being a devil's incarnate, did not gain much popularity but it did gain fans and in turn gave Schreiber a name in horror films.