The New Scream Queen (and King)
Photo Credit: IMDB
Goth on the left, Skarsgård on the right.
By: Lily Miller
As a teenage girl who is very into watching movies, horror is probably my favorite movie genre—and not just during Halloween. Watching the more popular horror movies nowadays, I’ve noticed something; I see the same faces over and over again. We can’t say we haven’t noticed Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in almost every Tim Burton movie, or Anya Taylor-Joy in a psychological thriller, or in high-stress films. The two that stick out to me the most in horror films are Mia Goth and Bill Skarsgård. Why are they so good for being recycled in horror movies? What is it about them that makes viewers not get tired of their faces and not feel like they’re overused? I think it has something to do with their features that give them that horror movie “aesthetic.”
I will be focusing on specifically the Pearl, X, and Maxxxine trilogy, and specifically the IT trilogy. I chose these two trilogies because they're their most popular movies and movies I feel like fit them super well.
You know how you see Pedro Pascal cast in everything now, and also see how tired people are of seeing him in films. If you haven’t, I definitely have, and I do think he is mildly overused. So we’re tired of him, but we’re not tired of Goth or Skarsgård? And once again, that poses the question: What makes them so good to be reused in horror movies?
The Pearl trilogy shows Goth’s eerie innocent look, and the IT trilogy shows Skarsgård’s unique features and their ability to make him transform into a monstrous antagonist.
Photo Credit: IMDB
Skarsgård as IT (2017)
Skarsgård has a multitude of features that give him the ability to be easily turned into a horror movie antagonist.
First, he has an elongated oval head shape which functions as a sculptor's canvas, it functions as an adaptable shape that an SFX artist can contort his features into a monstrosity. This impressionability, mixed with his face's skeletal structure and bulging eyes, makes his face the perfect natural foundation for horror movie monsters.
On top of his head shape, he has a pretty big forehead (not to be rude), which, for roles like Pennywise and Nosferatu, is an important part of the character. I don’t know what it is about horror characters having large foreheads that makes them so unsettling, but it does.
He also has ears that I can only explain as elf-like. Which doesn't matter as much in his role as Pennywise because the ears aren’t part of the signature “look.” However, the ears are a part of the Nosferatu role.
I feel like a big part of his look is his eyes. They’re big, and they sit further out on his face, giving them a bulging look, but his eyebrow bones sit further out than his eyes do, which also accents that big forehead aspect. The parts in IT where his eyes go in separate directions are not CGI; Skarsgård is actually just able to do that.
A common Swedish trait is high cheekbones, which is a trait that Skarsgård possesses. It makes his face more skeletal-looking, adding to what I said about his face being an “empty canvas”. It also gives him what I’ve been calling the “horror movie look”.
Next thing, he has lips that look like they are constantly pursed. I think his mouth just sits further out on his face, which gives him that look, and I think that benefits his role as IT because, along with his eyes, his mouth also gives him that iconic look.
Last thing is his nose, it's straight and narrow, which is another aspect that makes him a “blank canvas.” It was able to give IT the big button nose that's iconic for clowns without sticking one of those red foam balls on its nose. It was also able to give Nosferatu the hooked big nose, I feel like is synonymous with vampire characters like Nosferatu.
So that's what I have to say about Skarsgård’s features and why he fits playing a monster so well. As to why we aren’t tired of seeing his face, it's due to the fact that we don’t really ever see his real face in horror movies (other than in barbarian). We aren’t tired of him, also because he has the actual ability to act. It isn’t a significant moment of pop culture for no reason.
Photo Credit: IMDB
Goth in Pearl (2022)
On to Goth now. She has this eerie, naive, child-like look. It makes her look innocent in an uncanny way, like she couldn’t be innocent, but there isn’t a way to prove she's not—that's the best way to describe it. Here's her breakdown:
First, she has a pretty circular face, which gives hera doll-like look that I think benefits the Pearl role very well because it makes her look child-like, which is what I think A-24 was looking for in Pearl's character.
Next thing is she has a perfect button nose, which also adds to that doll-like childish look. Pearl's character is supposed to portray. However, she doesn’t have very full cheeks, which takes away from the doll look but adds to the eerie aspect.
Her eyes are somewhat of a defining feature for her; they don’t look wide, but when she actually puts expression on her face, they widen and become very expressive.
I think another thing that adds the eerie aspect to Goth is how her hair is always a dark color, but her eyebrows are light. They’re also high-arching, which is synonymous with the common antagonist features.
Last thing, she has a basically perfect cupid's bow and a fuller bottom lip, once again adding to the doll look. She can also open her mouth wide and smile wide, which shows her gums and perfect white, straight teet,h also making her uncanny. (In the ending scene of Pearl and into the early credits, you watch her smile wide for a good minute, the smile being wide and fake, changing as the scene and credits went on and she got tired.)
The monologue at the end of Pearl, where she's having a conversation with Mitsy (her sister-in-law), telling Mitsy everything she’d want to tell her husband, Howard, and progressively gets more deranged as the monologue goes on, showing the contrast between her innocent looks and the unhinged tone that develops the more she speaks.
That’s only about her looks. I think the reason that we like seeing Goth so much in horror movies is that she looks like the perfect horror character (as I’ve said many times). I also think it’s because she always plays this naive, presenting character that’s actually insane, and it’s so good every time.
So that’s my breakdown on what I see as the two most iconic members of the horror genre. They play their characters to the best of their ability, and it’s executed well and not tiring. The big picture here is that horror thrives on archetype,s which makes actors and stories iconic and not feel overused.
