great performances in horror by justin lockwood

Horror as a genre isn’t associated with acting.  People remember the camera work, music, and special effects more than the performances, and in many cases the acting doesn’t really matter if the whole package is effective enough.  But there have been some great performances that have been integral to good horror movies, and have made the films infinitely creepier.  To wit:

Anthony Perkins, Psycho—I can’t write much that hasn’t been written already, but suffice it to say Perkins’ dark, awkward, and sympathetic portrayal of Norman Bates was the real reason Alfred Hitchcock’s film proved so unsettling, apart from the famous shower murder.

Ruth Gordon, Rosemary’s Baby—Horror often succeeds by magnifying mundane discomforts.  In this case, the movie itself amplifies maternal fears and Gordon, who won an Academy Award, exemplifies both the pitfalls of overly friendly neighbors and young people’s general discomfort with the elderly.  Of course, in this case, Rosemary’s totally right about Minnie Castevet being the neighbor from Hell; Gordon’s old Jewish lady delivery of “He chose you, honey!” is chilling.

Piper Laurie, Carrie—Laurie earned an Oscar nod for her role as Margaret White, the maniacally God fearing mother of telekinetic Carrie in the Brian De Palma classic. She took what could have been a ridiculous character and imbued her extremity with passion and verisimilitude.  And most importantly for a horror film, she was scary as all hell.

Donald Pleasence, Halloween—Michael Myers himself was a blank “Shape” the audience could project their deepest fears onto; it was legendary character actor Pleasence who sold the character’s pure evil and provided John Carpenter’s classic with its anguished, beating heart.  His Dr. Loomis is a man haunted, obsessed, and ultimately powerless to stop his most dangerous patient from unleashing his fury on a sleepy small town.  Pleasence appeared in four subsequent sequels and was the best thing going in most of them.

Jack Nicholson, The Shining—Stephen King’s well-known disdain for the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of his novel centered on his feeling that Nicholson’s Jack Torrance was insane from the beginning.  He’s right, but it hardly matters.  Nicholson’s crazed, vicious performance hits all the right creepy notes, and he somehow manages to be utterly over the top without it ever being too much.  The crazed look on his face as he stares vacantly out a window is more horrifying than any of the onscreen ghosts or waves of blood.

Christian Bale, American Psycho—Before he was Batman, Bale was unforgettable as Bateman, the superficial, demented Wall Street serial killer whose misogyny and drive to conformity lead to grotesque acts of depravity.  Bale gets everything right, from the character’s creepy “look at me” posturing during the sex video to his cold cruelty to his comic horror when approached by another man.  The climactic phone call confession to his attorney is a powerhouse performance.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween: H20—And back to the Halloween series: Curtis was pitch perfect as the young, naïve babysitter in the first film, but in the postmodern sequel she really had a role to sink her teeth into.  Curtis was instrumental in engineering her return to the franchise, which explains why the focus is so nuanced and character-driven for a slasher film.  So what if the ridiculous Halloween: Resurrection killed her off to make way for Busta Rhymes?  H20 stands as a sharp, even insightful love letter to Curtis’ many fans.

-Justin Lockwood

"you're a born loser"

Paul Newman was such a great actor!  That was my main takeaway from watching The Hustler--Robert Rossen's black & white, bleak cue ball yarn from 1961.  Newman plays "Fast Eddie" Felson, a small-time pool hall hustler who travels cross-country to play legendary "Minnesota Fats" (Jackie Gleason, slick and sly, perfectly capturing some dark undertones).  After initially losing to "Fats," Eddie meets with Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie), a lonesome alcoholic with a polio-afflicted limp.  Trying to score some money with hopes to challenge "Fats" again, Eddie gets more than he bargained for when he goes to the Kentucky Derby to play a wealthy Louisville socialite Findley (Murray Hamilton).

Perhaps because I'd (unwisely) seen Martin Scorsese's flashy sequel The Color of Money beforehand, The Hustler isn't the brisk, suspenseful film I thought it would be.  Instead, Rossen's film is doleful (with its intermittent melancholy, oboe-laced score by Kenyon Hopkins), tracing the continuous struggles (the wins are never sweet) of Eddie and his dour, unsatisfying but burning relationship with Sarah. The actors in the picture in parts big and small, are all poignant.  Piper Laurie, with her limp and big sad eyes, is such a fascinating actress and very much immersed in her character here. I like that she's not a typical Hollywood beauty of the era. There's one scene where she's on the floor, drunkenly hunt-pecking a story out on a typewriter, that's quite odd and unforgettable.  The love affair between her and Eddie makes sense--it doesn't seem to be a passion out of lust or physical attraction (those sensual promo shots and the one on the film's poster are misleading) but a woeful companionship of understanding each other's similar demons.  I can't imagine The Hustler without Paul Newman, who once again shows his range as an actor.  His performances from the 1960s are among the best work of any actor in film history and here he shows both dramatic rage and laconic desperation.  Adapted from a 1959 novel by Walter Tevis, this is a film about winners and losers and the way they win and lose with quiet contemptuousness.  It's sometimes difficult to discern the honesty of the movie's characters, particularly professional gambler Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) who sets Eddie up with some of the matches.  I think the pool game scenes were likely harder to shoot than they appear.  The flick was cut by legendary editor Dede Allen whose slightly offbeat rhythmic sense was ahead of its time for American pics here and would later earn her acclaim for iconic 70s movies like Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon.  Eugen Schüfftan won an Academy Award for his cinematography.  The choice to shoot it in soft black & white gives it jazzy elegance but also lends a beat to its sad heart.  ***


-Jeffery Berg