Horror's Least Likely Villain: John Gallagher Jr.

I can get you any time I want.

Horror fans are all familiar with the work of the biggest icons, be it Karloff or Price or Englund or Crampton or Curtis, but one of the genre's most subversive actors is also one of its most unlikely - a Broadway star.

John Gallagher Jr., a Tony winner for his performance in Spring Awakening and who general audiences know as the unassuming producer on The Newsroom or group-home supervisor in Short Term 12, began popping up in horror movies about a decade ago and has returned to the genre again and again in the years since. While many actors think of working in horror as slumming it, Gallagher has shown a constant commitment to that work while simultaneously keeping up with his dramatic career.

So before he returns to Broadway in a few weeks in Swept Away (I already have my tickets!), let's take a look at a few of the movies where he's shown his darker shades. If you didn't know him or his name before, hopefully you will after this.

Just about every write-up has some sort of spoiler in it. You've been warned. If you haven't seen the movie, skip that section and come back later.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

After a catastrophic car crash, a young woman wakes up in a survivalist's underground bunker, where he claims to have saved her from an apocalyptic attack that has left the outside world uninhabitable.

10 Cloverfield Lane rocked my world the first time I saw it. I thought the first Cloverfield was fine, giving it multiple chances on Hollywood Video rentals before deciding it wasn't my thing. But because it's such a clear-cut alien invasion movie, you're spending all of the sequel thinking, "Well, if this is in the Cloverfield universe, it's definitely aliens...right?"

But the joys (and thrills) of 10 Cloverfield Lane lay in its ambiguity. John Goodman (everyone always says "We don't talk enough about how great John Goodman always is," but we seriously don't talk enough about how great John Goodman always is) plays the doomsday-bunker architect who saves Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher Jr. from whatever the hell is happening outside - but they're convinced he's crazy and has kidnapped them. Is he telling the truth? Has he gone completely cuckoo? There's strong evidence to believe either side and Goodman plays it right down the middle in such an interesting and untrustworthy way.

It's his movie through and through. Don't get me wrong, Winstead is a great leading actor (and also underrated) and more on Gallagher in a second, but Goodman tucks this thing under his arm and walks away with it. How can America's loveable sitcom dad also be this scary?

But I don't think Gallagher gets enough credit for his work in this movie. Winstead is the audience's eyes and ears and Goodman is the center of her suspicions, but Gallagher is so shifty and shady that I'm not exactly sure we can trust him as Winstead's partner or if he's Goodman's right-hand man. Or maybe worse. He's presented as her confidante, but his performance is so layered and the movie is so tense that we can never really be sure.

Hush (2016)

A deaf woman is stalked by a psychotic killer in her secluded home.

I am going to spoil the best moment in this movie, so if you haven't seen it, watch it now on Shudder or wait until the new 4K disc comes out - I added it to my cart and then didn't check out when I realized it would be $50 after shipping and taxes and such. I want this disc, but that's insane.

Before Mike Flanagan was working in the world of huge Netflix budgets, he was making small, elevator-pitch horror movies with his family and friends. He co-wrote Hush with his wife, Kate Siegel, who also stars in the film as a deaf woman targeted by a serial killer.

I've written before about my love for home invasion movies and how if you give me a creepy stalker and a helpless victim whose remote house has the phone lines cut and whose car has the tires slashed, I'm all in. It doesn't even have to be good. Most of them aren't. And although Hush has become a constant-rotation comfort horror film for me, my most recent rewatch with some friends really showed some of the cracks.

But there's one moment that's so good it basically makes the entire movie. Gallagher first appears in a pretty creepy mask (and a cross-bow!) and after Siegel realizes she's caught, tries bargaining with him, writing "WON'T TELL, DIDN'T SEE FACE" in lipstick on her glass door.

He walks up to the door...and takes off his mask. "Can you read my lips?" he asks. She nods.

"You have seen it now, haven't you?" He doesn’t care. "I can come in any time I want. And I can get you any time I want. But I'm not going to. Not until it's time." And the cat and mouse begins...

Saying it doesn’t matter if you could identify me because you won't live to see the day is peak killer confidence and it works on me every. single. time.

The Belko Experiment (2017)

A group of eighty American workers are locked in their office and ordered by an unknown voice to participate in a twisted game.

Spoilers here too.

Speaking of movies that weren't quite as good as I remembered them, I must confess that I planned for The Belko Experiment to round out this list before rewatching it. When I did rewatch it earlier this week, I was surprised to see that not only is it a good bad movie and not a bad good movie like it was in my memory, John Gallagher Jr. actually plays...the good guy. Kinda messes with the whole thing, huh? So let's spin this in a way I'm not even really sure I believe so we can keep it on the list...

The Belko Experiment is a movie in concept only. The premise of "Battle Royale in an office building" is fun, sure. And if we wanted to give credit to screenwriter James Gunn, we could say that writing a script where four white dudes rampagingly kill women and people of color is inherently socio-political commentary (okay, I'm even losing myself here a little...) and the violence has something to say about blah blah. And as Gallagher, seemingly the only white dude with a conscience, tries to stop them from executing all of their co-workers, he's depriving the audience of the violence that American ticket-buyers not only want but crave...

I tried. It's probably just a mediocre movie with a crappy point of view, but it's solid watching for genre fans. And shows that John Gallagher Jr., good or bad, horror or Broadway, can really do anything...

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Credit: Each plot synopsis comes from Letterboxd via TMDb.

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