'You might not think it from the near complete lack of love from the Academy over the decades, but horror movies have always been home to some of the most exciting and gutsy performances in film. Sure, the nymphettes and dudebros of 80s slashers weren't often throwing down the gauntlet of cinematic acting, but From the days of Hammer Horror and Universal Monsters, through the bracing nightmares of the 1970s, and so on, horror has always been a home to demanding, thrilling roles for performers. Just look at last year -- Gary Oldman took home the Best Actor gold, but I daresay Bill Skarsgard's work as Pennywise was just as transformative (and no less aided by makeup). Which is all to say: Give. Horror. Actors. Their. Due. Credit.
With that in mind, I'm looking back at the best horror movie performances of 2018, from the blockbuster hits to the art house indies. And, miracle of all miracles, some of these performances actually have an honest shot at awards consideration this year (Toni Collette has already racked up a Gotham win and a number of nominations, though apparently the HFPA was asleep at the wheel with the Golden Globe noms.)
There are all kinds of delights in the mix this year -- dark and dreary roles, physically demanding work, heartfelt, comedic; you name it, horror brought it to the table in 2018. It was also a standout year for the ladies of the genre, particularly for stories dealing with themes of motherhood. For the purposes of this list, I'm keeping the focus to film work, but it wouldn't be right to talk about the best horror performances of the year without singling out the entire casts of The Haunting of Hill House and The Terror, two extraordinary showcases for performance. Now, without further ado, let's dig in to the best and boldest horror movie performances of the year!
Toni Collette, Hereditary
If there’s any justice in this world, Toni Collette will be staring down her second Oscar nomination for her work in Hereditary; one of the most fearless and fearsome performances of the year, spanning the dark spectrum of emotion — grief, guilt, bitterness, rage, and all the other horrors of humanity that tear us apart. Collette manifests the spectacular implosion of one woman on the verge, who just keeps taking world-shaking blows until she finally collapses. It’s a role that requires the actress to go darker than ever before — darker than I daresay most Best Actress noms in the history of the category — and Collette digs for the harrowing ore burrowed within her character's broken psyche. Whether you like Hereditary or not, you have to admire the ferocity that Collette brings to the table (quite literally in the extraordinary dinner scene, which is a master class in screen acting all its own). There's no half measures in this performance and the actress rips herself open on screen to help filmmaker Ari Aster trap the audience within his sadistic nightmare. Hereditary is a beautiful, impressive film on every technical level, but it simply does not work without a performance of Collette’s caliber to tie it all together.
Jibrail Nantambu, Halloween
Nobody saw this kid coming. While all eyes were on Jamie Lee Curtis, Jibrail Nantambu strutted through David Gordon Green's Halloween and became the long-awaited sequel’s resident scene-stealer. If you ever needed an example that comedic talent is often a preternatural knack, look no further. I remember visiting the set of Halloween earlier this year, and while we were all focused on the mask and the mystery, co-producer Ryan Turek, couldn't stop singing Nantambu's praises. This is the child actor's first film -- talk about making an entrance -- and Green has said the bulk of his dialogue was improvised. Way to go, little dude.
Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place
Understandably, John Krasinski is getting the lion's share of the credit for A Quiet Place. After all, the monster movie is a big surprise coming from the comedic actor, and frankly, no one could have guessed he had such a mind for classically-composed thrills based on his first two films. But Emily Blunt’s performance as the weary but strong Evelyn is, for my money, what truly makes the film work. Credit to the casting director all around — child actors that good don’t find themselves, and hiring a hearing impaired actress as young Regan was a lovely stroke — but Blunt was asked to the heaviest lifting in the ensemble and she carries that weight like the true blue movie star that she is. Honestly, she’d merit a spot on this list from the birth scene alone — a truly breathtaking piece of performing that demands she run through a wasps nests of emotions while never letting the basic tension fall out from under the scene. That level of work is consistent throughout, from the quiet moments (her face will break your heart in the tender dance she shares with Krasinski) to the shotgun toting tough momma we meet by the film’s end. There are a lot of versions of the “Badass Mother” character in the history of the genre, but Blunt dodges every cliche along the way, delivering a character that’s all heart, and all on the sleeve too, but is still the most formidable character on screen.
Logan-Marshall Green, Upgrade
Easily one of the most underrated and under-celebrated performances of the year; Logan Marshall Green’s turn as a paraplegic man given his shot at a new life (and revenge) in Upgrade is a mix of pure bravura physical work and emotional gravity to match. Anyone who’s seen Quarry or The Invitation knows that Green outgrew the “Not Tom Hardy” jokes ages ago, but perhaps it’s an apt comparison for this year, because Hardy’s performance in Venom might be the only other time an actor threw himself at the impossibly specific and inherently ridiculous physical challenge of a role this year. As a man handing over control of his body to a computer chip, Green has to toe the line between tragedy, horror and slapstick without becoming ridiculous (something even Hardy could not accomplish) — no mean feat, but he makes it look easy with an impossibly confident performance that will make you want to sit up in your seat and cheer.
Claire Foy, Unsane
As someone who’s never seen The Crown, what an absolute pleasure it was to be introduced to the force of talent that is Claire Foy in Stephen Soderbergh’s iPhone-shot psychological horror Unsane. Foy stars as the outlandishly-named Sawyer Valenti, a young woman still recovering from the trauma of surviving a stalker; a nightmare that forced her to uproot and relocate her entire life. When she starts seeing him hidden in the crowd, Sawyer heads to the local therapist for a little mental health touch up and winds up committed to a mental hospital against her will. Foy plays Sawyer as a woman with a stainless steel spine, utterly incapable of being bowled over, but absolutely capable of fear. She’s like a lion in a cage, snapping and snarling, but with the dawning awareness that she’s been well and fully trapped. Foy also has to walk a fine line — is what she seeing real? Is she a mad woman, or simply a survivor of a mad world? While you wait to find out the answer, Foy dances on that conceptual tight wire, letting you think she might just be crazy, while also making sure you never doubt for a second how real this all is to her.
Nicolas Cage, Mandy
Mandy is one of the rarest and most precious cinematic gems: a film that's perfectly tuned to Nicolas Cage's mad, operated frequency. Amazingly, we got two of those films this year (out of the eight films Cage starred in), but if Mom and Dad was an anarchic blast of insanity that channeled Cage’s energy for yucks, Mandy a poetic blast of insanity that channels Cage’s energy for pathos. Pitted against a clan of mutant bikers and equipped with some truly spectacular weaponry, Cage’s Red spirals down a rabbit hole of grief and loneliness after the one thing he loves in this terrible world is snuffed out in front of his eyes. Cage goes full tilt; throwing back gnarly lines of coke and wielding a massive chainsaw, but his most masterful work arrives in the quiet moments between the madness; the cracks in the rage-fueled, blood-soaked veneer that show us the broken and brutalized man underneath. With Mandy, Panos Cosmatos gave Cage an opportunity to do it all — funny, frightening, and heartbreaking, his work in the film may not take home any awards (indeed, Mandy was just deemed ineligible for the Oscars), but it's absolutely one of the finest, fiercest moments in his career.
Lin Shaye, Insidious: The Last Key
Somehow, in a bit of a horror miracle, Insidious has somehow become a multi-million dollar franchise centered around a woman in her seventies. To say that is something of a rarity would be an understatement the size of the Hollywood pay gap. The fact that it happened at all is a testament to charisma and depth Shaye conjured in Elise Rainer since the very first Insidious film, but she’s never had the opportunity to dig as deep into the medium's psychology as she does in Insidious: The Last Key. The Last Key is not a great horror film (though it’s better than it got credit for with some legitimately creative set-piece writing from franchise mainstay Leigh Whannell), but it features a fantastic performance from Shaye, who hit her career stride as a septuagenarian and just keeps getting better.
Dakota Johnson, Suspiria
Understandably, Tilda Swinton is getting a lot more recognition for her work in Suspiria. After all, she’s Luca Guadagnino’s right-hand-man/woman/witch, and she takes on not one, not two, but three unique roles in the film. But Dakota Johnson’s work in the extraordinary horror remake might be the most underestimated element of what makes Guadanino’s wildly ambitious film such a transformative work of art. Transformation is at the core of what makes Johnson’s performance so special — well, that and the grueling demands of her physical work as a dancer — and she has to do it so well that the audience doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s already happened. I've been beating the "Dakota Johnson is Good Actually" drum for a long time now, but Suspiria moves her resume to another level.
Tilda Swinton, Suspiria
Of course, it’s no surprise that Tilda Swinton has a huge spotlight on her after what she pulled off in Suspiria. I mean, damn Tilda. Three roles? Pretty next level. For some people Swinton’s turn as Lutz Ebersdorf playing Dr. Josef Klemperer is a distracting gimmick, but if you can look past the prosthetic, the actress accomplishes an extraordinary transformation. Her voice, her breathing, her movement — it’s a wildly impressive piece of acting, and since Tilda isn’t imitating a famous person or historical figure (a la Gary Oldman in The Darkest Hour), the prosthetic makeover is even less distracting. And that’s just one of her performances. If Swinton does a showy bit of Captial-A Acting as Dr. Klemperer, she veers the complete opposite direction for her lovely, subtle performances as Madam Blanc. That’s two impeccable performances in one film, not to mention one bold and weird piece of casting from Guadanino (Tilda and Luca, please please please never stop working together.) And Swinton’s third performance (which I won’t spoil since the film had such a limited release), well that's just the cherry on top. Masterful work across the board. But it's Tilda Swinton, so... duh.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween
Arguably the most iconic genre actress of all time revived arguably the most iconic final girl role of all time when Jamie Lee Curtis returned as Laurie Strode in David Gordon Green’s Halloween. Let’s just say there was a whole lot of hype to live up to. Fortunately, Curtis brought the goods — just like always — and delivered her most interesting performance as the character to date. Ratted by PTSD and locked in her agoraphobia, Cutis’ strode is all grown up with the lasting scars of her encounter with Mike Myers embedded deep in her psyche. But Curtis approached the character with such grit and empathy, Strode never seems weak or nutty (even when she is), she seems like an extremely realistic survivor.
Madeline Brewer, Cam
Madeline Brewer has been an exciting performer in the genre sphere since she popped up on the immensely disappointing Hemlock Grove series (remember the breast-feeding man-bat thing? Nah, I didn’t either until literally right now.) Since then, she’s been a scene-stealer in The Handmaid’s Tale, and now Cam, the bold filmmaking debut from Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei that follows a cam girl down a mind-bending rabbit hole of identity after she logs on one day and finds that a doppelgänger has taken her place. Cam benefits from a smart script and strong visual style, but Brewwer’s performance is the real secret ingredient that makes it work. Brewer has to pull off a three-tiered performance — Alice, Alice’s alter-ego Lola, and the doppelgänger based on Lola. What’s more, the bulk of her performance is directed face-first at a camera, cam girl style, far removed from the naturalistic style of acting that dominates modern film. Brewer makes it all look effortless and natural, commanding the screen(s) through every surreal moment.