The Horror Genre
The diversity of the horror genre has never been more apparent than the output seen in 2024. This year, we’ve seen a devious and bloody concoction of body horror, psychological torment, evil crime stories, and the return of everyone’s favorite clown and that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. Despite the variety, the common thread binding these subgenres is killer performances from a talented cast of actors elevating their respective films to higher degrees.
10: David Jonsson – Alien: Romulus
Much has been said about the decision to deepfake the late Ian Holm into the latest xenomorph nightmare in space and I certainly don’t believe it to be a necessary addition to the otherwise solid Romulus. But spending my time bemoaning the inclusion of an uncanny digital face reminiscent of a realistic SpongeBob closeup does nothing but besmirch and taint the great work provided by the living actors in Alien: Romulus. In particular, nobody should be sleeping on David Jonsson.
Jonsson’s fantastic work doesn’t stop with his likability either. Effectively switching gears as his programming alters, Jonsson’s performance becomes a complicated combination of emotionless soldier and loyal ally that he sells with ease. And as much as nostalgia bait makes me cringe, his recreation of Ripley’s most iconic line was a gargantuan task that he pulls off with fiery gusto. Whatever the future holds for the Alien franchise, I hope there’s room for David Jonsson in it.
9: Laurie Pavy – MadS
The one-shot in films and shows has occasionally felt like too much of a gimmick in the modern era. Coordinating seamless and sweeping camera movement and blocking are sound technical achievements, but if they don’t serve the story or vice versa, then what’s the point? Director David Moreau avoids this pitfall with his single-take zombie film MadS, depicting a trio of paranoid and toxic friends experiencing a bad trip with a growing zombie outbreak. Seeing just how fast shit hits the fan is the kind of visceral terror you only see in films like Train to Busan and 28 Days Later.
The one-take allure of MadS is practically one-and-one with Pavy undergoing a zombie transformation in real time. We often only get glimpses of a person’s decay into a flesh-muncher, but Anais withering away in front of our eyes is made all the more gut-wrenching by her seemingly denying the reality of her situation. Even when mostly gone, shades of her former self peek out thanks to Pavy’s expertly crafted acting, constantly switching between scared woman and twitchy zombie-in-progress. If there’s any one reason to watch MadS, it’s the frightening work Laurie Pavy puts into her craft.
8: Curry Barker – Milk & Serial
When exactly is the breaking point of content brain? How long can you keep the bit going before it starts to bleed over into reality? Filmmaker and YouTuber Curry Barker attempts to answer such a post-YouTube question with his 3-figure budget found footage horror-comedy Milk & Serial. Starring Barker himself, the unlikely YouTube hit puts content brain and shameless prank videos under a grainy microscope when a couple of prank YouTubers end up going too far during a series of prank-offs between the two.
Barker’s unsettling work bleeds through in every facet of his acting. The disturbing smile he flashes the camera while talking to the audience, the slimy way he manipulates his friends, the way he can barely hide who he truly is to them and us watching. Barker feels like the personification of the uncanny valley every second he’s onscreen and when he’s playing a heightened version of your average content farm YouTuber, it’s concerningly appropriate and fitting. Easily one of the ickiest performances of the year, horror and beyond.
7: Nell Tiger Free – The First Omen
I feel as though horror audiences (including myself) were genuinely sideswiped by the surprisingly high critical reception to The First Omen. A horror prequel that seemingly nobody asked for was surely a recipe for disaster. What more can you squeeze out of a franchise and through the shameless formula of needless origin story nonsense. Yet here we are at the end of the year glazing The First Omen as an effective possession horror and a spectacular vehicle for Nell Tiger Free.
Even before the bonkers final act, seeing Free devolve further into fear for both herself and the girl she vows to protect is more frightening than the usual possession tropes present in the film. She sells the hopelessness of fighting an uphill battle against an entire organization and that is before the third act sees her and her physical body become entwined into the demonic conspiracy. Of course, most people will point to the car crash scene as Tiger Free’s acting reel moment (which it definitely is), but her work in the film as a whole is a magnificent exercise in misery and paranoia.
6: Hugh Grant – Heretic
It’s baffling to me that anyone who is only familiar with Hugh Grant’s work post-2012 may not truly realize how insane it is for him to be front and center of an outright horror-thriller. He has worked in the genre before, but anybody who grew up on films in the 2000s likely remembers Grant as the go-to charming comedy actor relying on his wit and good looks to engage audiences. It wasn’t until the 2010s and onward when Grant gradually shifted towards more character actor roles and his starring role in Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’s religious horror film Heretic is only the latest example of his versatility
Much of his strongest work in the film is him slowly unveiling his intentions to the girls while rigidly, but calmly forcing them to confront their beliefs and the religion they’re attached to. A debate he often starts with innocuous questions related to fast food and board games too. Grant is a blast to watch as he constantly flips the switch on the girls and even as the film becomes more overtly horror over the runtime, he never once feels out of place in a film that simply wouldn’t be the same without his charmingly sardonic performance.
5: Alisha Weir – Abigail
Radio Silence’s follow-up to their hit horror-comedy Ready or Not and Scream 5 and 6 is something that plays to the strengths of a film collective that knows a thing or two about delivering laughs with the blood and guts. Abigail follows closely in the footsteps of Ready or Not by sticking our main cast of characters in a lavish mansion serving as their potential tomb. While Ready or Not’s central performance was Samara Weaving’s badass heroine in a bride’s dress, Abigail flips it around with the central performance of Alisha Weir’s villainous ballerina vampire.
Then the vampire shenanigans begin and Alisha Weir is fully unleashed, both in her dropping the facade and amping up her wild and feral side. Learning ballet for the role, the young musical theater actress incorporates the grace of a ballerina to clash with the various instances of her biting, jumping, and stabbing her poor victims to sadistic glee. To go from the lead role in a Matilda adaptation to the lead in a horror film where she dances a nice waltz with a headless body is crazy whiplash on its own, but something that Alisha Weir somehow makes look easy.
4: Maika Monroe – Longlegs
When the promotion for Osgood Perkins’s newest horror film Longlegs officially began, audiences were immediately captivated by the cryptic marketing and downright evil atmosphere that permeated from every teaser. Depicting Nicolas Cage as a frizzy-haired killer who always sounds like he’s on the verge of either crying or yelling is an immensely smart use of his sensibilities as an actor and it’s fair to say that the marketing is wholly made by him, combined with a great performance in the final product as well.
Always looking off as if staring at something we can never see, Monroe displays the kind of reserved cynicism one typically needs to handle a high-stress job like Harker’s. But she always reminds us of her hidden humanity in her interactions with kids and her co-workers and it’s the kind of weathered quirkiness that makes her such an engaging presence to watch in a film where Cage chews the scenery any chance he gets. It’s equally fun watching her attempt to talk to a child as it is watching her decipher a criminal’s location just by sensing it Dragonball Z-style.
Maika Monroe may not get the showy performance recognition that Cage is receiving, but her silence in Longlegs makes her role her most expressive performance to date and the best from the film itself.
3: Hunter Schafer – Cuckoo
Horror can be as physically demanding of a genre as action and thrillers, thanks in large to the wide variety of films and shows under the horror umbrella. Actors need to sell like they’ve just made a narrow escape from a seemingly inescapable hellworld and that’s exactly how Hunter Schafer looked at the end of Cuckoo. A pulpy thrill ride from the director of Luz, Cuckoo borrows from the well of Eurocentric horror, complete with a story set in a small resort town located in the Bavarian Alps.
It’s an honest joy seeing the Euphoria actress embrace her inner John McClane in such a maddening horror film, regularly having to get out of situations through clever thinking, luck, and inhuman endurance. Some may not find that believable with a teenage girl like Gretchen, but Schafer communicates the rush of adrenaline one can feel in a life-or-death situation to a tee while understanding the weird vibes of the film. Even when the film begins to flirt with creature feature tropes, Hunter Schafer grounds the story through her determination to live, her ability to absorb insane levels of pain and punishment, and a realistic teenager sass towards the unusual adults in the town. Schafer’s performance is frantic, scrappy, lived in and an undeniable highlight in this year of indescribable horrors.
2: Juliette Gariépy – Red Rooms
Each time I’ve done this year-end list for horror performances, I always have an internal debate on what exactly qualifies as something under the horror umbrella. The genre’s sheer expansive library and hybrids with other genres can stir up discourse on what is considered horror or thriller. It’s a surprisingly touchy subject, but I believe the answer is in examining how a film or show tackles transgressive topics and what the filmmaker intends the audience to feel. It’s why I ultimately feel confident in Juliette Gariépy’s unhinged beauty of a performance in Red Rooms fitting this list like a glove.
It feels like a genuine nightmare watching the otherwise beautiful face of Gariépy’s Kelly-Anne (a successful model in-universe) coated in the red glare of her computer screen while watching a child’s life end. All the more frightening by her lack of reaction. Yet that doesn’t even compare to the lows she’s willing to go towards in a scene in the courtroom involving fake braces and if you watch this scene and not think that Juliette Gariépy’s performance is arguably the scariest of the entire year, I don’t know what to tell you. It is a brilliant, deeply uncomfortable, and downright freaky performance that can and will be talked about in best-of conversations over the years.
1: Demi Moore – The Substance
Margaret Qualley is one-half of the equation that makes The Substance work as well as it does. But it’s the original that pulls everything together. For all the heightened satire present in Fargeat’s horror-comedy, the peak of the film lies within the deliberately less campy core of its leading star. Elisabeth Sparkle’s career as an Oscar-winning actress-turned fitness TV star pairs a little too well with Demi Moore, an extremely successful actress of the 90s making her monster comeback (literally!) in a film about an industry she knows far too well.
However, her steep decline as Sue feeds off of her body is where Moore’s performance enters the point of no return. Morphing from sadness to jealousy and anger, her work is suddenly completely in-tune with the world Fargeat has created and it is marvelous. A delightfully unhinged Demi Moore is the stuff dreams are made of and combined with the insane makeup work she goes under, it makes for a wonderful disaster of epic proportions. Demi Moore’s performance is bonkers, hilarious, tragic, and completely deserving of its recognition as one of the best horror performances of the decade, period.