I know I’m a few days early, but Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!! I was going through my drafts and I realized I had a completed draft from when I used to write for PopHorror. So, I felt today was the perfect day to share part 2 of my favorite father moments in horror films! Whether the dads were the good guys or the bad guys, these are the moments involving these fathers that stuck with me the most. I hope you enjoy and let me know your favorite father moments! (SPOILER ALERT!!!)

Who Am I Here? – The Stepfather

Jerry Blake (Terry O’Quinn) was your average family man. But he wasn’t perfect husband and stepfather he claimed to be, and if anyone tried to disrupt his perfect family life, he would make them pay. When he realized his latest attempt at the perfect family, he quit his job and started to begin a new life in another town and find a new family to wedge himself into. When his latest wife, Susan (Shelley Hack), found out he quit his job and confronted him about it, he accidentally blurted out the wrong name. Confused, he tried to remember what name he picked for this particular family, then he immediately gave up his charade and attacked Susan. The scene is both eerie and iconic. You really need to know the kind of person you’re marrying.

Goodbye, Gage – Pet Sematary

Devoted father and husband Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) moved his family to a quaint little Maine town. Not far from his home was a path that led to a pet cemetery… and beyond that was a burial site that had the power to resurrect the dead. After learning the secrets of the burial site, he ended up losing his son, Gage (Miko Hughes), in a tragic accident. Unable to accept his loss, Louis buried him at that site to bring him back. However, Gage came back and killed those close to him, and Louis learned the hard way that sometimes dead is better. In their heartbreaking final confrontation, Louis was forced to kill his son again. Losing a child is never easy to deal with, and Louis wasn’t ready to let go of his little boy. That moment breaks my heart every time I see it.

Happy Father’s Day – Freddy’s Dead: The Final Friday

When a new Elm Street film is added to the franchise, we always learned something new about Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). However, it’s not until the “last” film in the franchise that we all learned that Freddy was a father before he died, and his daughter was the only one who could help him escape Springwood to kill more people. But his daughter, Maggie (Lisa Zane), wasn’t about to let that happen. With the help of her friends, she brought Freddy into the real world and destroyed the father she barely knew – all while whispering, “Happy Father’s Day” before blowing him up and ending the nightmare. Freddy was a horrible person and unluckily for him, that trait wasn’t passed down to his little girl.

The Rescue – The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

An innocent and long road trip soon turned into a fight for survival when deformed cannibals attacked Doug Bukowski (Aaron Stanford) and his family. After his wife was killed and his baby girl was taken, Doug stopped at nothing to find her. He hunted the cannibals down in their deserted town, killing almost every one he came across. He put up a good fight against some of their strongest and craziest. Beaten, covered in blood, and even missing a couple of fingers, Doug still fought until his baby girl was safe in his arms. The award for Father Of The Year definitely goes to Doug!

Promise Me You Won’t Let The Monsters Get Me – The Mist

David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his son, Billy (Nathan Gamble) found themselves trapped in a supermarket and at the mercy of a strange mist that’s engulfed the town. As time went by, Billy made him promise that he wouldn’t let the creatures in the mist kill him. Unfortunately, David found himself having to keep that promise when an attempted escape failed and they were once again trapped. David ended up shooting Billy and letting himself be devoured by the creatures, only for help to arrive merely minutes after. David was a good father and he tried so hard to save his son, but he ended up preventing him from being saved in the end. It was a gut-wrenching moment that I guarantee no one saw coming.