Jennifer Lawrence, “Mother!”
Certainly one of the most polarizing movies of the last few years, “Mother!,” which was largely approved by critics but is one of the rare films to receive an “F” CinemaScore from audiences, it’s hard not to at least appreciate Jennifer Lawrence‘s totally fearless performance. Lawrence plays the titular, nameless mother, a woman who lives in a rambling farmhouse with her poet husband (Javier Bardem). She’s fixing up the house and he’s dealing with writer’s block and, increasingly, she begins to feel that there is something wrong with the house. Dangerous strangers arrive, a house party turns into a literal warzone, their peaceful idyll becomes a toxic environment. Writer/director Darren Aronofsky has said that the movie is an ecological metaphor (the mother is mother earth) wrapped up in a psychological horror movie, and he constructed the entire movie around a combination of three shots, all involving Lawrence’s character. So maybe more than any other performer on this list, she is this movie, while also serving as an audience surrogate when, you know, babies get eaten and whatnot. Whew boy.
Emily Blunt, “A Quiet Place”
One of the best (and biggest) surprises of last year, “A Quiet Place” was a creature feature with an ingenious hook: the monsters are alerted by sound, so all of the remaining humans on earth have to be very quiet. But it was director John Krasinski, who heavily rewrote the original draft, that had an even bigger stroke of genius: make it about a single-family instead of the whole world. And he had the perfect actress for the part of the beleaguered mother, pregnant and nearly alone in this incredibly scary landscape: his wife, Emily Blunt. Like many performers on this list, her job is to ground what is admittedly a sky-high concept, in familiar emotional territory. And she does. She makes decisions in an informed way. She’s always thinking about the lives of her children (and the one she’s carrying inside of her), and when she needs to get tough, she does. (Her movie-ending shotgun cock is one of the most iconic shotgun cocks in the history of film, right alongside “Terminator 2” and her own “Edge of Tomorrow.”) It’s a beautiful performance, with nuance and heart, and you can understand why she’s being brought back for the sequel: there’s just no franchise without her.
Florence Pugh, “Midsommar”
Fans of “Midsommar,” of which there are many (especially on Twitter) will point to the fact that it is a tale of nightmarish folk horror that also doubles as a story about an equally nightmarish relationship and the common phenomenon of “gaslighting” a significant other. And that added dimension is brought to life largely through the performance of Florence Pugh, as a heartbroken woman named Dani who, following the murder of her parents and the suicide of her sister (who offed them), travels with her emotionally distant dickhead boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) to Sweden to take part in a midsummer festival that proves ominous. It’s Dani’s ascension, from wounded girlfriend to all-powerful may queen, that sees her understanding the relationship she had been trapped in and breaking free of it. (Sometimes that involves cooking someone alive in a bear costume, but these things happen.) Ari Aster’s expressive direction and his use of subliminal images make her journey even more pronounced.
Sheila Vand, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,”
In 2014’s “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” director Ana Lily Amirpour and star Sheila Vand teamed up to create a black-cloaked, skateboarding vampire called The Girl. Though Amirpour’s costuming and shot choices made The Girl immediately recognizable as an icon, Vand’s sly, haunting performance turned the character into one of the most unforgettable monster women of the decade. The Girl is swathed in contradictions: alluring and withholding, sensitive and vengeful, curious and worldly. She is an anti-patriarchal badass, yes, but she’s so much more than the one-dimensional, hypersexual fantasies gracing countless horror movies. Vand plays her into living, not-quite-breathing solidity, where, though you’re never quite sure what she’s thinking, you’ll find yourself wishing you could dance to White Lies with her. Vand’s genius crops up again in other characters, like Ma of “We the Animals,” but The Girl makes her a household name among a niche subset of enlightened horror nerds. —Lena Wilson
Scarlett Johansson, “Under the Skin”
For Jonathan Glazer‘s nearly indescribable horror/sci-fi thriller, “Under the Skin,” Scarlett Johansson transforms. Gone is the squeaky clean girl-next-door or tough-as-nails Avenger, instead, she’s a feminine harbinger of death, with jet black hair and a desire for human flesh (or something – it’s not entirely clear). Amongst the many fearless aspects of this performance, she sheds all of her clothes (multiple times) and, on several occasions, is being filmed with hidden cameras as she picks up random men in an oversized truck (how did they get away with this?) Given that the movie has several elements that are hard to get a grasp on, even more weight falls on this performance, which is one of the oddest and most ethereal of her career. (And, keep in mind, this is an actress drawn to odd and ethereal characters.) Beautifully staged by Glazer, particularly in moments when Johansson enters a jet-black void (an image that was shamelessly ripped off by “Stranger Things“), Johansson takes you on this wild ride until what little humanity she has is ultimately stripped away, leaving a creature, fleeing and running around, just like the rest of us.
Matilda Lutz, “Revenge”
First off: if you haven’t seen “Revenge,” do so now. (It’s on Shudder.) Now that we’ve cleared that up, Matilda Lutz‘s remarkable performance must be celebrated. In Coralie Fargeat‘s immaculate horror thriller, Lutz plays Jen, a young woman who is having an affair with Richard, an older man, who whisks her away to his desert vacation home. There, she’s victimized by a couple of his sleazy associates, then pushed off a cliff and left for dead. What makes her return (and her bloody revenge) even more satisfying than it would have been otherwise, is because she doesn’t seem like the girl who could accomplish any of this. She is dainty and seems to be easily manipulated, but with a little willpower (and a thimbleful of peyote) she makes her way back and dishes out what the cruel men inflicted upon her. (Also, early on in the movie, the camera has a way of lingering on her as to emphasize her sexuality, which is then of course used as the mechanism to fuel her crusade for vengeance.) Hyper-stylized and very knowing, “Revenge” never luxuriates in sexual brutality or misogyny, instead quickly clearing the way for Lutz’s powerhouse performance and the string of bodies in her wake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmB4yTliUj4
Garance Marillier, “Raw”
Vegetarianism never seemed like a better option. Garance Marillier plays a young girl and a strict vegetarian, who goes to a very fucked-up veterinary school, ends up eating meat for the first time and quickly develops a hunger for human flesh. “Raw” is incredibly visceral and emotionally charged and Marillier, who was a virtual unknown for most who saw the film, sells this transformation so, so well. Like “The Witch,” it’s something of a coming of age story, with her embarking on her own life, making advances in her education and career, and murdering and eating her roommate. You know, that old story. There are some stomach-churning moments in “Raw,” but thanks to Marillier, you always know where the hunger is coming from.
Honorable Mentions
As with most of these lists, that’s kind of scratching the surface as there are dozens of great horror movies that have come out this decade—see our Best Horror Movies of The Decade [the 2010s] list—and all of them possess great performances within. Others we considered for this list include Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins for their arch performance in “Cabin In The Woods,” Sharni Vinson from Adam Wingard‘s “You’re Next” (where has she been?), both Lee Byung-hun and Choi Min-sik in” I Saw The Devil,” Kwak Do-won in the South Korean supernatural psychological mystery horror “The Wailing” (also on our main best horror of the decade list), Cosima Stratan in Ali Abbasi‘s pregnancy horror “Shelley,” Lukas and Elias Schwarz, the creepy twins in “Goodnight Mommy,” Dong-seok Ma aka Don Lee in “Train to Busan,” a supporting turn so memorable it landed him a Marvel gig (“The Eternals“) and Lili Taylor in “The Conjuring.”
Again, that’s just a bit of a taste, but a smattering of names we considered. You likely have your own thoughts, so sound off below, we’d love to hear your thoughts.
