Hello, and welcome to the final full week of Horrorfest 2020! It’s insane to me that we are already at the end of the month of October, but all good horror must come to an end. This week, I am focusing on some of the most influential actors and actresses in horror and their terrific performances that have made our favorite scary stories that much scarier. Please enjoy our final full week of Fandom Horrorfest!
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Often, actors have a brief fling with horror and move onto other pursuits in other genres. Horror is sometimes seen as an entry point for some artists, and horror fans may never get to see some of their favorite performers return to the industry. However, some performers bless our horrific screens for years, and when it comes to modern horror and pop occultism, there are few–if any–names that standout for their longevity than Sarah Michelle Gellar. Known by many as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gellar has graced our screens in several horror films as well as her famous horror-adjacent role, and she consistently delivers terrific performances in any capacity.
Feminism in horror is often a very bipolar spectrum: you have stereotypical “Survivor Girls” who display varying degrees of resilience and strength in the face of their respective horrors, and you also have female characters who play the role of the damsel in distress or otherwise are misused by industry filmmakers as eye candy performers. Gellar, on the other hand, is able to display her range as an actress in just about any role you give her, and makes even smaller roles standout without dipping into tired, sexist tropes. Whether she’s kicking undead ass as Buffy, struggling against nihilistic, unrelenting supernatural horror in the Grudge films, or offering excellent comedic timing in I Know What You Did Last Summer, Gellar has a charisma that comes through every single role that makes you not only care about her character–a task that’s often pretty difficult in modern horror–but actively root for her to survive against the villain. Gellar is a standout female protagonist in horror, and although she hasn’t appeared in any horror films in a few years, she established a standard all her own for badass women in gender positive roles that can subvert audience expectations and utilize excellent acting ability and depth like her own.
I will always recommend The Grudge and The Grudge 2 to horror fans. It’s supernatural horror at its finest, and Gellar’s performance in the American adaptations is guaranteed to rock your socks off. Also, though it may only be related to horror, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is perhaps the most significant pop-occult show ever and is always worth a binge for Gellar’s amazing personification of the titular character.
