From J.Lo to Diego Boneta: 13 Latin Music Stars Who’ve Made Us Scream In Horror Films & TV Shows

Latinos love a good scare. And we’re not just talking about folk tales involving La Llorona, the chupacabra, or that ghost your abuela swears she saw one night. Latinos are consistently some of the biggest supporters of horror at the box office.

The genre has also seen its share of Latino actors, some of whom come from the music world. With Halloween around the corner, here’s a look at those double threats who have dabbled in horror on the big screen and small.

Jennifer Lopez

J.Lo double-dipped in the horror genre early in her career. She played a documentary director who faces off with deadly giant snakes in 1997’s Anaconda, and a therapist who literally enters the mind of a serial killer in 2000’s The Cell. Lopez didn’t return for the lesser-known sequels, which, in retrospect, was the smart move.

Daddy Yankee

You know “Gasolina,” the club-banger Yankee released in 2004, but you’re probably not as familiar with the vampire flick he appeared in that very same year. In the low-budget 2004 Puerto Rican film Vampiros, Yankee played a physically-abusive machista who is dating the protagonist’s ex-girlfriend. They couldn’t have cast him as a suave vamp?

Selena Gomez

If you’re going to get murdered in a horror movie, you want it to be memorable. And we’d say Gomez’s grizzly death in the 2019 zombie horror comedy The Dead Don’t Die — which saw Adam Driver chop off her head and hold it up — is pretty memorable. Next up for Gomez is the significantly less morbid Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, in which she provides the voice of Dracula’s daughter.

Chayanne

Is Chayanne a vampire? You could make a strong argument. The 53-year-old pop star has been in the music industry for what feels like forever and has barely aged. So it makes sense that he was cast as the lead in the Spanish-language mini-series Gabriel, Amor Inmortal. Chayanne played a goateed vampire in search of redemption and he also sang the 2008 show’s theme song.

Lele Pons

The social media star-turned-singer kicked off season two of the MTV series Scream in 2016, appearing in the fictional Murderville film shown in the opening scene. You can probably already guess how Pons’s cameo ends. The movie is called Murderville, after all.

Greeicy

Before her music career took off with pop hits such as “Amante” and “Mas Fuerte,” Greeicy starred as reluctant vampire Daisy O’Brian in the 2013 Colombian novela Chica Vampiro. The show about a teen vamp living a double-life proved to be so popular across the pond that it led to a European tour, which featured Greeicy and her co-stars performing songs from the show.

Ruben Blades

Blades is that rare, established music star who has an equally respectable career in acting. While Blades has played dozens of roles, he currently shines as Daniel Salazar in AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead, where he’s lasted seven seasons into the zombie apocalypse.

Diego Boneta

The star of Netflix’s Luis Miguel: The Series, based on real-life Mexican singer Luis Miguel, will star in the upcoming HBO Max mini-series Brujo, based on real-life serial killer Adolfo Constanzo. It won’t be the first time Boneta has played a serial killer. The sometimes singer has gotten his hands dirty on occasion in a career that has included the horror flicks City of Dead Men, Monster Hunter, Monster Party, and Summer Camp, and the FOX slasher TV series Scream Queens.

Fat Joe

During the 8 Mile spoof scene in Scary Movie 3, a farmer takes the stage for a freestyle rap battle, only to find out his opponent is no amateur, but instead “Lean Back” rapper Fat Joe. Joey Crack plays himself in the 2003 horror-comedy and does what he does best during his cameo: Rap.

Malu Trevejo

Here’s the little that we know about Trevejo’s upcoming film Wolf Mountain, which will mark the Instagram star and “Luna Llena” singer’s acting debut…. there’s something mysterious lurking in the woods. And Tobin Bell — who creeped us out for years as Jigsaw in the Saw movies — is involved in some capacity.

Pedro Fernandez

You could say Fernandez had a horror phase. The Mexican singer and actor was cranking out horror flicks left and right in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He squared off with a possessed doll in the polarizing Vacaciones de Terror films, got stalked by a masked psycho in the slasher Trampa Infernal, and went searching for treasure in a cursed mine in Panico En la Montaña — all within a three-year span.

Juliana O’Neal and Milka La Mas Dura

The cast of 2012’s La Casa Del Kilometro 5 feels more appropriate for a musical than a horror film. The low-budget Dominican film — which revolves around a radio station contest set in a haunted house — co-stars “La Reina del Mambo” Juliana O’Neal as a journalist, and rapper Milka La Mas Dura as Satan-worshipper. Also part of the cast was urbano producer and artist Jhon Distrito.