Horror Actress Lysette Anthony Raped by Harvey Weinstein

British actress Lysette Anthony has announced that she too was raped by producer Harvey Weinstein.

According to the Daily Mail [October 14, 2017]:

British actress Lysette Anthony has told police that Harvey Weinstein raped her, the Sunday Times reported, becoming the fifth woman to level such accusations against the disgraced Hollywood mogul.

The 54-year-old actress, who currently appears in British soap Hollyoaks, told Metropolitan Police last week that she had originally met Weinstein in New York, and agreed to meet him later at his rented house in London, according to the paper.

"The next thing I knew he was half undressed and he grabbed me. It was the last thing I expected and I fled," she told the Times.

Anthony, who appeared in Woody Allen's 1992 film "Husbands and Wives", said that Weinstein then began stalking her, turning up unannounced at her house.

"He pushed me inside and rammed me against the coat rack," she said of the attack in the 1980s. "He was trying to kiss me and shove inside me. Finally I just gave up."

Weinstein has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex.

Anthony first came to my attention when she played Angeliqué Bouchard in the short-lived 1991 Dark Shadows remake. While Anthony is not especially known as a scream queen, her extensive body of work (she has 89 acting credits on IMDB) does include many horror films and TV shows.

My favorite horror work by Anthony is Trilogy of Terror II (1996), in which she played the lead role in all three tales of that horror anthology sequel. This was in the tradition of Karen Black playing the lead in all three of the original Trilogy of Terror's stories.

The original is justly considered a horror classic and Black's performance was a tough act to follow. But while the remake is little remembered, Anthony's performance was a worthy successor to Black's. Especially in "Bobby" (the middle story), wherein Anthony plays a mother who turns to witchcraft in an attempt to resurrect her dead son. By all means, watch it.

Horror is a tight-knit community, composed of passionate fans. Although all of Weinstein's victims should be supported, reading about Anthony felt personal, as though "one of our own" was attacked. Let's hope Anthony and the other women find peace and justice.

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For more information about acting in horror films, see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.