The Only Horror Movie Costner Has Ever Starred In Is Now Free to Watch

Kevin Costner has done westerns, sports dramas, political thrillers, even post-apocalyptic mailman epics. But horror? He only tried that once—and it went about as well as you'd expect from a man whose film career keeps getting outpaced by his accountant.

The movie is The New Daughter, a 2009 supernatural thriller from [Rec] screenwriter-turned-director Luis Berdejo. It came and went with such little impact that most people forgot it existed. Now, it's resurfaced because it's suddenly free to stream (currently on Tubi in the U.S.)—and because it still stands as Costner's first and only attempt at horror. One he probably doesn't like being reminded of.

Costner took the gig during a low point in his career, in the late 2000s, when years of risky self-financed projects had finally caught up with him. By that point, he'd sunk millions into passion projects with little to no return.

Here's the running tally:

• Dances with Wolves (1990): Financed partially by Costner; won 7 Oscars and grossed over $424 million worldwide.
• Waterworld (1995): Budget reportedly ballooned to $175 million; flopped in theaters but eventually made money through TV rights and home video.
• The Postman (1997): Costner directed, produced, and starred; cost $80 million, made $20.8 million worldwide, and swept the Razzies.
• Swing Vote (2008) and Black or White (2014): Privately financed by Costner. Neither came close to recouping costs.
• Horizon: An American Saga (2024–?): The four-part western epic Costner is co-financing. Only Part One has been released; Part Two is now delayed indefinitely.

So, when The New Daughter came along, he took it—possibly just to stay visible. Directed by a first-timer and running on fumes creatively, the film feels like a checklist of horror clichés: spooky old house, troubled kids, mysterious noises, buried secrets. Costner's performance barely qualifies as conscious.

Director Luis Berdejo was thrilled to land the star, saying in an interview with Screen Anarchy:

"I just told him that I would be nervous for two or three days but that I was the happiest man on earth for sharing that experience with him. And I wanted to torture him as much as I could."

Mission accomplished, apparently—though not quite in the way Berdejo meant. Costner looks like he'd rather be anywhere else, delivering what might be the most bored performance of his career.

The film was quietly dumped straight to video in the U.S. It made just $588,000 globally, didn't get a theatrical release domestically, and was swiftly forgotten. No cult following, no rediscovery. Just a footnote in the filmography of an A-lister who clearly had no business doing horror in the first place.