Greta contains every B-horror movie cliche you can possibly think of, a few bits out of left field, and two excellent performances from Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Grace Moretz. In nearly every way, it’s the sort of thing that used to go straight to DVD, except the acting. Moretz nails the sympathetic victim, while Huppert, one of the finest actresses American filmgoers have never heard of, gets to have more fun as the killer. The movie itself is a wisp that regularly threatens to be too silly for its own good, but seeing her prance around like a ballerina before casually shooting someone dead is just about worth the ticket.
I’m going to dispense with concerns about spoilers, because if you’ve seen a horror thriller, any horror thriller, you know right away that Huppert’s character Greta Hideg is some flavor of psycho. Gentle, kind Frances McCullen, played by Moretz in one of those roles she’s good at where she seems less innocent than simply stunned by life, finds her bag left on a subway car and returns it to her. Greta greets her warmly, makes her coffee, and convinces her to go along and help the older woman pick out a new dog. Frances is reeling from the death of her mother a year prior, and has moved into the spacious New York City apartment of her party animal friend Erica (Maika Monroe). It is, of course, the sort of apartment that would cost more money per year than you make, maintained by two women who are, respectively, a waitress and seemingly unemployed. Movie magic at work; nobody wants to see two young people living in something the size of half a bedroom.
Horror movie aficionados will figure out what’s going on right away, even without the help of the trailers (which revealed nearly everything). Greta has been planting the bags, natch, hoping some lonely soul will find her and keep her company…permanently. If this movie were to come on TV one night and you had not read a plot description or seen any previews, you may initially think Greta is pretty okay, just a women tired of being alone and burned out on life; she claims to have lost her husband, her daughter and even her dog. Frances visits her home, which is dimly lit and located off a main street, with vines growing across a brick face, the kind of place that, when you take away the banging on the walls, invites afternoon naps. It is a testament to Huppert’s world-class talent that until Frances finds multiple identical bags in a closet, we can believe Greta is sane. It’s even more of one that even though her evil plans are more full of holes than a cheese shop with rats---she leaves the key clue in a closet anyone could accidentally open, and a bag left on a New York subway would probably just be rifled through for cash and thrown away to begin with---the idea that she’s a maniacal genius killer is almost believable. As the movie goes on, she gets to act more and more hilariously batty; it doesn’t work as horror or drama, but if you are familiar with Huppert’s raw talent, it’s fun to see her completely slumming it, in much the same way as Helen Mirren doing so in Winchester was a bit of a blast. The level of writing is also well outside Moretz’s strike zone, but she gives it her all anyway. The only thing we need from her is a genuine reason to feel sympathy, and we get it. Colm Feore is shortchanged in a small role, but Monroe, so key to the success of It Follows, gets quite a lovely, and deliciously over-the-top, role in the conclusion.
This is all in service of a by-the-books movie which never surprises, shocks or offers any real, genuine thrills. Director Neil Jordan and co-writer Ray Wright have succeeded in hitting all the thriller beats, but do not sound new notes. The appeal of the movie is in seeing excellent actors cut free, temporarily, from the pressures of excellent acting and put their chops to use in service of pure schlock. It’s also an interesting notion that, even though Greta never does anything that every thriller villain hasn’t done, it is more shocking coming from a woman, perpetrated against one; the killers are almost always men. This is never really explored in a deep or interesting way, but it’s like the old dog-walking-on-its-hind-legs joke---it’s pretty unusual to see it done at all.
Even if I can’t call the movie good, there’s still something kind of entertaining to be found in such a break from the serious, if you can dig it free from the tropes.
Verdict: Average
Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.
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