Recently, she was the villain in Hulu’s The Hand that Rocks the Cradle reboot, she had viewers weeping in her short film spot for Resident Evil Requiem: Evil Has Always Had a Name video game, and soon, she’ll be starring in Victorian Psycho. Over the last decade plus, Monroe has become a scream queen. These eight films are among her best, and two are in the running for the best horror films of the 21st century.
Maika Monroe and Chloe Grace Moretz sit on a couch looking forward with hesitation in GretaImage via Focus Features
Co-written and directed by Neil Jordan, Greta stars Isabelle Huppert in the titular role, a piano teacher in New York City whose lost bag is returned to her by the lonely Frances (Chloë Grace Moretz). The two women bond and become friends, until Frances discovers that Greta might not be as nice and trustworthy as she first thought. The strange woman turns her sights on Frances and her friend Erica (Monroe) in a creepy game of obsession.
Huppert and Moretz are the stars of Greta, but Maika Monroe has an integral role, especially when it comes to the strength she shows in the shocking third act. It’s a silly, over-the-top movie at times, but the talent of Monroe and others keeps it from falling apart. This isn’t one of her best movies, but it shows what she can overcome with a lacking script.
Maika Monroe as Julia in TauImage Via Netflix
The same year Greta was released, Monroe landed the lead role in the Netflix film Tau. Directed by Federico D’Alessandro and co-starring** Ed Skrein** and the one and only Gary Oldman, our scream queen plays Julia, a woman kidnapped by Skrein’s Alex, a tech wizard who just so happens to be crazy too. How so? He keeps Julia trapped in his smart house, where an AI bot named Tau (Goldman) uses its unwilling human hosts to develop a more lifelike consciousness.
Tau is held back by an unrealistic plot filled with stereotypes. It’s a flawed film, but it’s Monroe doing what she does best as the woman pushed down by a man who must fight back and overcome if she’s to see another day. Having to spend many scenes acting alongside Goldman’s bodiless voice puts so much on Monroe, and she pulls it off.
Maika Monroe holds a lantern in the darkness in Significant OtherImage via Paramount+
Significant Other, released on Paramount+, is hard to talk about without giving away the twist. Co-written and directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, Monroe is Ruth, the girlfriend of Harry (Jack Lacy). Together, the struggling couple decides to go camping in the woods. Rather than running into some masked killer with a machete, they discover something more terrifying that will alter not just their lives but everyone’s.
Significant Other isn’t flawless, but it works by not telling you what’s going on. The viewer expects one type of movie and gets another. It’s part relationship drama, part sci-fi thriller, and part horror movie. Monroe carries it as the hero in a screenplay that only has a few characters to rely on. The film succeeds or fails on its lead. With Monroe in that position, this one is worth checking out.
Jules and Mickey tied to their chairs at the dinner table in VillainsImage via Gunpowder & Sky
Significant Other wasn’t the first time Monroe collaborated with Dan Berk and Robert Olsen — the trio actually worked together three years prior on the even better Villains. In the film, she is Jules, a lowly robber and the girlfriend of Bill Skarsgård’s Mickey. You might think they’re the aforementioned villains of this movie when they break into what they think is an abandoned home, but when they find a tied-up girl in the basement, some much more terrifying antagonists are revealed.
More of a dark comedy than a straight-up horror thriller, the oddball approach might not be what some viewers are looking for, as you could argue that the silliness takes away from the tension of the plot. However, Monroe’s straightforward approach is by far the best part of Villains. She singlehandedly keeps it from floating away.
Maika Monroe pointing a gun in The GuestImage via Picturehouse
2014 was the year of Maika Monroe and horror. We’ll get to the second film she made that year later, but first was The Guest. Directed by Adam Wingard, who also made You’re Next, Blair Witch, and two Godzilla vs Kong movies, Monroe is Anna Peterson, the sister of a man killed in the war in Afghanistan. They are surprised when one day a man named David (Dan Stephens), who says he was best friends with the brother, shows up at the family’s door out of the blue and ingrains himself in their lives. But is David who he says he is?
The Guest is a smart film, and Wingard creates an atmosphere reminiscent of iconic horror movies like Halloween and The Terminator, but Monroe isn’t a rehash of what Jamie Lee Curtis and** Linda Hamilton** established. Anna is the window into the plot as the character who notices something wrong with David long before anyone else does. If her family is going to survive, it will be because she takes the fight to their unwanted guest.
Maika Monroe as Julia in Watcher looking worried.Image via IFC Midnight
Written and directed by Chloe Okuno, Maika Monroe is the one to watch in Watcher. She stars as Julia, a lonely wife new to Romania. With her husband gone all the time, Julia is often alone. That turns very bad when she notices a man (Karl Glusman) watching her from another building. Creeped out, Julia begins to follow him, convinced that he might be a serial killer on the loose, even though everyone else thinks she’s losing it.
Once again, Monroe is the put-upon woman who is aware when others aren’t. She is easily convincing as the smart character through whom a story can be told. Julia is a sad and quiet woman, but she’s not about to cower from a threat. Watcher’s third act is absolutely terrifying. If you’ve never seen it, check out what you’ve been missing. It’s Monroe as a true horror scream queen.
Maika Monroe stands with her back against a blood-spattered wall in Longlegs.Image via Neon
Longlegs was the talk of the horror community in 2024 thanks to Nicolas Cage’s wild performance as the titular serial killer in Osgood Perkins’ masterpiece. In an homage to ’90s thrillers like The Silence of the Lambs, Monroe is a young FBI agent named Lee Harker. She has a special talent no one else in the bureau does and is able to track down the killer, who might just have her lined up to be his next victim.
There is quite a contrast between Cage and Monroe’s energy. As we’re accustomed to, the Academy Award-winning actor is a ball of chaos. Monroe’s character, however, is very subdued — a woman with a highly traumatic past who uses her gifts to help others, even though she can barely help herself. It’s so easy to look at her and see Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling. And there’s no forgetting the scene when Longlegs and Harker first meet.
Jay (Maika Monroe) screams when she sees the entity in ‘It Follows’Image via RADiUS-TWC
This is where Maika Monroe became an iconic final girl and truly started her scream queen journey. In It Follows, written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, Monroe is Jay, a college student whose life is changed for the worse when she goes on a seemingly innocent date, only to come face to face with an entity attached to her through a sexual transfer. For the entire movie, it slowly stalks its victim. Will Jay and her friends be able to escape?
It Follows feels like a tribute to movies like Halloween and ***A Nightmare on Elm Street, ***with a group of friends in the suburbs battling an impossible monster. Mitchell purposely keeps things a bit off-kilter, and Disasterpiece’s score is unnerving. As the victim of the entity, this is Maika Monroe’s movie. She spends the last two acts screaming and running for her life, but never backing down from a foe no one else can see except for her. Thankfully, a sequel is finally happening with Maika Monroe returning. We can’t wait!
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