Horror Actressing: Greta Gerwig in "The House of the Devil"
Tuesday, August 4, 2020 at 2:00PM by Jason Adams
When I wrote up last week's entry in our "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series, about the latest greatest entry in what I dubbed the "Horror Movie Funny Friend Hall of Fame," I didn't intend to make a series-within-series out of it... even though I did name-check several other favorite performances that fit within this kind of role, up to and including today's entry. I didn't intend it but why fight it when today is the great Greta Gerwig's birthday, and her work in Ti West's 2009 low-key Satanic Panic shocker The House of the Devil is one of its finest examples...
To recap last week I wrote about the ways that the "Funny Best Friend" role is tweaked for Horror Movies, where they're almost always used at cross-purposes -- on the one hand their humor creates a sort of hand-wavy distraction from the impending threat, cutting the tension until the tension cuts back. But on the other hand the "Funny Best Friend" is also there to tell the main character that there is a threat in the first place -- they know shit's gone off track and they warn us about it, but problem is they know too fast, and so we (the audience and the lead character) laugh at them. "You're paranoid!" "Everything will be fine!" "Oh, you." And when it turns out they were right the rest of the movie becomes about that betrayal -- we should've listened to her, dammit!
In 2009 Greta Gerwig was right on the cusp of transitioning from the "Mumblecore" genre of lo-fi character studies she'd been starring in on to the steamroller of bigger and bigger stardom -- her breakout role in Noah Baumbach's Greenberg would come the very next year -- and I think you can pinpoint that switch right here, to Ti West's film, which owes its biggest and most memorable scare to her. Say the words "Are you not the babysitter?" to any seasoned horror fan and watch them wince quick and pained -- it's fun!
In The House of the Devil Greta Gerwig plays Megan, sweet smart sassy Megan, the best friend to Samantha (Jocelin Donahue). Samantha needs cash quick to get out of a shitty living situation, and so she answers a sketchy campus ad for a babysitter out in the middle of nowhere -- only her best friend Megan is there to try and slap some sense into her, and try she does. And the first half an hour of The House of the Devil, which spends a good chunk of its time laying out this friendship, is pure bliss.
It's probably kind of weird how often I reference the pizza shop scene in this movie, which is real simple -- just these two actresses hanging out and chatting, and about pizza mostly! -- but it's become the Platonic Ideal for me in "the right way to make us care about your characters in a Horror Movie." Donahue and Gerwig have mad chemistry with one another and by the time these couple of minutes have passed you're invested, truly invested, in what is ahead for them. Horror Movies live or die on whether we care if the characters live or die, and this is a master-class in making us give a shit.
Also a special shout-out to Gerwig's comic aptitude with a piece of hard candy that comes a little later -- speaking of a performer's sleight of hand, getting our attention involved with one side-show so we miss what we should really be minding, she and Ti West turn our introduction to the titular Scary Satan Mansion into a mini-showcase for Megan once again putting things into her mouth when she shouldn't. I always find myself laughing so hard at her sneaking some sort of ancient Werther's from the old man that I forget, oh right, this movie is literally called The House of the Devil, I should be paying attention and probably not laughing right now and ohhh shit it's too late.
Reader Comments (5)
Her prescence is so vibrant and vivid that her fate was a huge blow,fine film too and your picking a great choice here,star potential before they are a star.
That is an effective and scary movie
Yeah, that pizza scene is stellar. This is one of the few movies from the '00s that legitimately captures a retro style, and that scene is so down-to-earth and naturalistic, it almost feels plucked from some unknown mid-'70s comedy no one's heard about.
THAT scare is gangbusters. Still in the Top 10 of the decade for me. Brutal.
This movie is more about the wind-up than the explosion and turns out the explosion was not up to the fantastic wind-up, but it's still a great little sleeper which had me genuinely on edge. Gerwig is wonderful in her small but pivotal role. I have had a gay-boy crush on her ever since.
Love The House of the Devil. Yes, that pizza scene is a standout. That kind of scene rarely happens in modern horror. It reminds me of Laurie Strode and her friend walking home from school in the original Halloween or the girls gassing each other up before the drag race in Carnival of Souls. If you care about the characters, it's even scarier when bad things start to happen.