‘The Man in My Basement’ Proves Willem Dafoe Is Cinema’s Best and Most Terrifying Actor

Willem Dafoe is one of cinema’s greatest living actors—and, also, one of its scariest, capable of sending a chill down the spine with a sly smile, sudden gesture, or sharp retort.

For more than 40 years, in projects as diverse as To Live and Die in L.A., Wild at Heart, Shadow of the Vampire, Antichrist, The Lighthouse, and Poor Things, the American-born artist has been a force of intense, unhinged, and often sorrowful menace.

His every action radiating volatile unpredictability, he’s a one-of-a-kind presence who never fails to surprise, and he reconfirms that reputation in The Man in My Basement, a beguiling psychological thriller in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents vein that premieres Sept. 5 at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In writer/director Nadia Latif’s feature debut, adap