Ti West is a modern-day horror auteur, as evidenced by films like The Innkeepers (2011), X (2022), and Pearl (2022). My favorite work of his has to be the 2009 Satanic Panic chiller, The House of the Devil. It’s his masterpiece, a slow-burning throwback to late seventies, early eighties horror that ramps up for an intense, balls-to-the-wall finish that will leave you gasping for air and chilled to the bone.
The House of the Devil is in my personal list of top ten horror movies, all time. Hell, it’s probably top five. I love the film. I adore it. In fact, and as weird as this sounds, it’s one of my ultimate comfort films. I watch it every October, and it just feels like home. The story is beautiful in its simplicity: cash-strapped college student Samantha (the exquisite Jocelin Donahue) takes on a suspicious babysitting job from an awkward stranger (the always terrific Tom Noonan), who assures her it’s easy money. This being a horror movie named The House of the Devil though, nothing proves to be that easy.
The film’s setting, an unnamed college town in the northeastern United States during the fall of 1983, is obviously a draw for this nostalgic Gen Xer. Especially because West and his crew of indie filmmakers capture the time period perfectly. The way the film plays off the 1980s “Satanic Panic” scare that swept the nation is also pure nostalgic solid gold. It might seem odd, but nostalgia for a time when I was a kid having the pants scared off me by adults and media outlets who believed bloodthirsty Satanists were living among us—in the suburbs, no less!—is a very specific, and very powerful sort of nostalgia. As a horror fan, I love to be scared from the safety of my own couch. Remembering being scared from the safety of my couch as a kid in the eighties is always extra comforting. Once a weirdo, always a weirdo.
The House of the Devil, whose plot and particulars I’ll delve into in future posts, also holds a prestigious honor in my personal pantheon thanks to one of my favorite foods playing a crucial role in the proceedings. You see, The House of the Devil is a Hall of Fame Pizza Movie. The most perfect of portable delicacies, pizza is practically a supporting actor in the film. Seriously.
In an early scene, Samantha and her best friend Megan discuss Samantha’s financial woes over slices at the local pizzeria. Megan is played by Barbie writer-director Greta Gerwig, in a spectacularly memorable performance. The pizzeria scene is what cemented a young Greta Gerwig as one to watch for me. She’s outrageously charismatic. Playing against a beautiful, soft, and gentle performance from Donahue, Gerwig goes for broke as the brash, assertive, and hilarious Megan.
As the friends talk, Megan notes that the pizza tastes nasty—and like everything else she does in this movie, Gerwig’s like delivery is priceless. That dialogue is a nice bit of foreshadowing for the sinister role played by some funky-tasting pizza later in the film. Even though she dislikes the pizza, Megan, bless her heart, gives it another try anyway, until she finally gives up, but not before licking her fingers clean of the oily pepperoni pizza juice. Gerwig attacks her food in this scene, and it’s as inspiring as anything I’ve ever seen on film or in real life. She scarfs pizza and swigs from her Coke with gusto, dammit. That’s a woman who appreciates the finer things in life.
Ultimately that’s why Megan is so memorable. She is that friend everyone needs. Sure, she’s a flake with an oral fixation who can’t stop munching on pizza, popping candy in her mouth, or smoking, but she’s also funny and says what she’s thinking without giving a fuck what anyone else thinks about it. She also gets a bad feeling about the babysitting job Samantha accepts and tries to warn her not to do it. Alas, Samantha’s desperation wins out, and both college students pay a terrible price for that decision.
I’m not the only one obsessed with the pizza shop scene, either. I mean, how could one not be obsessed with it?? Greta Gerwig, pizza, and satanic panic: What are three things that go together perfectly, Alex? Truly sublime. Which is why, if you need me this October, I’ll be on the couch with a slice of pizza in hand and The House of the Devil playing on the television. That’s my happy place.
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