Editorials
Which Horror Performances Should’ve Been Nominated for Academy Awards?
Will horror have ANY presence at the Oscars this year? It rarely does.
Save for a few notable exceptions, history has proven that a great performance won’t be given any attention during Oscar season when that performance happens to be found inside of a horror movie. It’s no secret that the Academy very rarely bestows awards or even recognition on the horror genre, which is a shame considering how many great performances have come out of horror films over the years. Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs sure wasn’t the only one.
As we head towards the 2017 Academy Awards, many horror fans (myself included) are insisting that John Goodman be nominated for 10 Cloverfield Lane, and all the Oscar chatter got us thinking about other great genre performances that probably should have, at the very least, nabbed nominations. Can you believe Robert Shaw wasn’t even nominated for Jaws?!
One of my personal favorite overlooked performances came courtesy of Bill Moseley, who proved in The Devil’s Rejects that he’s a much better actor than most of us have ever really given him credit for. Of course, nobody would expect a Rob Zombie film to get any sort of attention at the Academy Awards, but I truly believe that if Moseley’s terrifying performance as Otis Driftwood were nestled inside a more Oscar-friendly movie, he would’ve had no problem nabbing a nomination. Otis is one of the most deplorable movie villains of all time and yet, when it comes time for him to pay the piper, you genuinely feel a little sad about his demise. Therein lies the power of Moseley’s performance in the horror sequel, which is an absolute tour de force of depravity.
Who else probably should’ve been nominated for an Academy Award? How about Bruce Campbell as Sebastian Haff/Elvis Presley in Bubba Ho-Tep? Campbell’s finest acting chops to date are on display in the oddball mummy flick, which gave him the opportunity to flex more than his comedic wit. Ash Williams may be the role that Campbell was born to play, but as the senior citizen Elvis impersonator who may actually be the real Elvis, he showed a whole new set of acting chops.
And what about Robert Englund in any of the Nightmare on Elm Street films? I can’t help but feel that the classically-trained horror icon has never truly gotten the respect he deserves for creating one of the most iconic movie monsters in the history of cinema. It’s sometimes way too easy to overlook a performance that’s buried underneath makeup and prosthetics, but it’s a testament to Englund’s acting chops that he turned a burnt-up dream demon into a beloved pop culture icon. All I’m saying is, the dude deserves more than a Fangoria Award for his contributions to film.
I could go on and on, but my goal here was to engage in a discussion rather than write up a list. So comment below and let’s talk about YOUR favorite snubbed horror performances!
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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