Every now and again, the worlds of sport and cinema collide. Movies can be about sport, sports stars can make cameos in movies and, in some cases, sports stars actually turn to acting as a career once their days of competing are over.
It's not very often, however, that you see sports stars in horror movies.
We're not talking about professional wrestlers, who are entertainers more than they are sportsmen - loads of those guys have appeared in horrors. We're not talking about people who may have competed at a decent level, but are far more famous for being actors. No, we're talking about athletes who established themselves at the top level of their sport for years and are still more famous for being sportsmen to this day - so you won't find the likes of Jason Statham (diving) here, for instance.
On that note, here's a Halloween special for you: this is five sports stars who have appeared in horror movies.
Vinnie Jones (Midnight Meat Train)
While Vinnie Jones has been an actor for some time now (his first appearance in a movie was way back in 1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), he is still undoubtedly most famous (especially in the United Kingdom) for being one of the filthiest footballers in recent memory - and the man who grabbed Gazza by his meat and two veg.
Jones is now approaching 100 movie credits and, given his reputation as a nasty footballer, some of them have inevitably been in horror movies - the most well-known of which is undoubtedly 2008's The Midnight Meat Train.
It was based on Clive Barker's 1984 short story of the same name and followed a photographer - played by Bradley Cooper - as he attempted to track down a serial killer known as the "Subway Butcher".
The Subway Butcher turned out to be an actual butcher called Mahogany - played by Jones - who, as it turned out, had to feed a group of subterranean creatures, by providing them with dead bodies, in order to prevent them from attacking subway riders during the day.
As ridiculous as it sounds, Midnight Meat Train was actually pretty good and is undoubtedly the best adaptation of Clive Barker's work since the original installment in the Hellraiser series.
Mike Tyson (Scary Movie franchise)
Another sportsman who has appeared in the Scary Movie franchise is none other than the baddest man on the planet, Iron Mike Tyson.
Tyson is, of course, an ex-professional boxer who is still the youngest man to ever win a world heavyweight title, following his TKO victory against Trevor Berbick in November, 1986, when he was just 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old.
He has appeared in two installments of the Scary Movie franchise - 2006's Scary Movie 4 (which the aforementioned Shaquille O'Neal also appeared in) and 2013's Scary Movie 5 - and he played a different character in each movie.
In Scary Movie 4, Tyson played a very masculine female boxer fighting against Anna Faris' character in a flashback scene. His character bit off the referee's ear, before biting off enough members of the crowd's ears to create a pile of them.
In Scary Movie 5, he appeared as himself in a scene with Christian Grey, who was played by Jerry O'Connell. He complained to Grey about neck pain before punching him in the face, which Grey seemed to enjoy.
Both movies were terrible and anyone who's seen Tyson's most famous cameo in The Hangover can imagine what his performances were like.
Tito Ortiz (The Crow: Wicked Prayer)
Tito Ortiz is a retired mixed martial artist who specialised in wrestling, boxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Along with the likes of Chuck Liddell, Tank Abbott and Randy Couture, he is considered to be one of the pioneers of the multi-discipline full-contact combat sport.
He has dabbled in the world of acting, mostly in cameo form, but he had a fairly major role in 2005's supernatural horror movie The Crow: Wicked Prayer, which was based on The Crow comic books.
Ortiz played Famine - a "half-breed" fry cook who was one of the henchmen of the movie's main villain, Luc "Death" Crash AKA Lucifer, who was played by David Boreanaz.
The movie is largely considered to be one of the worst ever made. It holds an approval rating of 0% on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, which says everything you need to know about it.
Ortiz also had a cameo as a bouncer in the 2008 comedy horror Zombie Strippers, alongside his then-partner, former adult film star Jenna Jameson. Even though it was pretty terrible, it was a hell of a lot better than The Crow: Wicked Prayer!
Tony Hawk (Sharknado 5: Global Swarming)
Tony Hawk - otherwise known as The Birdman - is, by far and away, the most famous professional skateboarder of all time, as well as one of the most successful and influential pioneers of the modern incarnation of the extreme sport.
Hawk completed the first documented 900 (a 2½-revolution aerial spin) and has gone on to be equally as famous for his licensed video game titles.
He has also tried his hand at acting on a number of occasions - the most recent of which was 2017's horror comedy Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, which is the latest instalment in the bizarrely popular Sharknado film series released by the Syfy television channel.
Hawk played a weapons specialist who was also a skateboarder - so, like most of the other sports stars-turned-actors in this piece, it's safe to say he wasn't really testing himself!
The fifth installment in the Sharknado series is actually the best of the bunch, but that's not saying much - and it's not as though Hawk's appearance in the movie added an awful lot to it either.
Do you know of any other examples of sports stars appearing in horror movies? Let us know in the comments!
Shaquille O'Neal (Scary Movie 4)
Shaquille O'Neal is, of course, one of the most famous basketball players of all time - in fact, he's arguably second only to Michael Jordan in that regard - and he's a brand unto himself. It was inevitable, therefore, that he would try his hand at acting.
As it turns out - and rather unsurprisingly - he's really not very good at it (his portrayal of the titular John Henry Irons in 1997's Steel is quite possibly the worst superhero portrayal of all time) and his roles have mostly been limited to cameos.
One such cameo came in 2006's horror comedy Scary Movie 4 which is, of course, a part of the popular Scary Movie franchise that parodies the horror genre.
O'Neal appeared as himself, alongside American television personality Dr Phil, in a scene that parodied the Saw franchise. The pair were locked in a room and were expected to cut off their own feet to escape the chains attached to their ankles, but Dr. Phil cut off his right foot, which wasn't the one that was attached to the chain at all.
Scary Movie 4 wasn't great and O'Neal's extreme overacting didn't help matters in the slightest.
