Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried in 'The Housemaid' Daniel McFadden/Lionsgate Freida McFadden's enormously popular novel The Housemaid sold 3.5 million copies to date, has stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 130 weeks and has been translated into 45 languages. Clearly there is a market for this kind of twisty thriller, and you can see why Paul Feig wanted to bring it to the screen. Even if this female-driven tale marches right up to the edge of horror, it is more in the tradition of a '40s-style melodrama pitting two female stars against each other.