Longlegs Proved Maika Monroe Is a Great Final Girl in Horror

With Longlegs‘ current record-breaking box office success, it feels like star Maika Monroe will finally get her due outside the fanbase that has long been singing her praises as one of the horror genre’s best actresses. Its mainstream success is guaranteed to open up more doors for her, but the film also proves that Monroe is a final girl for this new generation worth rooting for. Like Jamie Lee Curtis, Heather Langenkamp, and Neve Campbell before her, Monroe has crafted characters that are vulnerable yet strong, with nuanced layers that make them more than a potential addition to the body count.

Also, a key difference from her aforementioned final girl counterparts is that the actress has done this as different characters across different films. There is a reason the horror genre has been behind Monroe as her star ascended to the level of helping Longlegs reach its current level of success. This film further solidifies her status and guarantees her a spot in the conversation of recent horror film female mainstays that have defined the genre.

Monroe is no stranger to film and television as she has been acting since she was a young child, honing her craft and preparing herself for more adult roles that would come her way. She debuted in 2012’s At Any Price, a film far away from the horror genre but a drama that became part of the film festival circuit. Co-starring Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron, Monroe’s role as Cadence Farror wasn’t one of the leads. Still, the movie competed for the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival. It got the actress noticed, leading her to two films that would soon give her two initial signature roles: It Follows and The Guest.

Maika Monroe’s Horror Dominance Began With It Follows

Monroe plays the lead role of Jamie “Jay” Height in David Robert Mitchell’s independent horror film It Follows. In the film, Monroe is a young woman who, after a sexual encounter, is pursued by a demonic entity that can only be stopped if she has a sexual encounter with someone else. It’s almost like a twisted STD version of a chain letter with a horror movie twist. With It Follows, Monroe proves that she can play many different facets of a character.

Jay is equal parts traumatized by the events she has found herself in but also extremely proactive, displaying the vulnerability and strengths necessary to make the audience root for her and hope that she breaks the unfortunate cycle she has become a part of. The best thing about her performance is that her emotions are sometimes conveyed by what she doesn’t say. It’s a very expressive portrayal, with Monroe pulling in the audience with a mere look. She creates a palpable connection with the audience; without her, It Follows wouldn’t work as well as it does.

It was a quality that many critics took notice of while watching the film. Monroe received near-universal praise for her performance, with one review in particular that sums up why her performance is essential to the DNA of It Follows. In his review for ReelViews in 2014, James Berardinelli said, “Monroe in particular makes the most of the opportunity. You can feel her despair; she sells the situation. The scene in which her character, Jay, awakens in a hospital room shows how good she can be – her terror and vulnerability are authentic.”

Maiko Monroe Saw More Success With The Guest

The Guest

Release Date

September 5, 2014

Runtime

99

The Guest, also released in 2014, isn’t a horror film in the classical sense, but it has thriller elements that make it compatible with the genre. Monroe plays Anna Peterson, a member of a family that is unexpectedly visited by a U.S. soldier named David Collins (Dan Stevens), who introduces himself as a friend of Laura Peterson’s (Sheila Kelley) son, who died while they were deployed in Afghanistan. It’s a simple setup that grows more mysterious and complicated when deaths occur after David arrives and Monroe’s Anna begins to suspect that he may have something to do with them.

Anna is a far different character from Jay in It Follows. If her first foray into the horror genre gave her a character that was much more vulnerable, The Guest allowed Monroe to play someone a bit more tough and assertive. The character has softer sides, especially in terms of her relationship with her brother Luke (Brendan Meyer), but this is a character that doesn’t wait for things to happen to her. Once she begins to suspect something isn’t right about David, she doesn’t hide in a corner; she begins to match wits with a character that is 100% dangerous and not like the guys Anna is used to potentially putting in their place.

In the review of the film from The Guardian, Adam Fleet said, “The Guest, released the same year as It Follows, finds Monroe once again on the run from an unstoppable killer; at least in The Guest, she has more agency over the spiraling situation as she attempts to uncover the truth about her family’s unexpected visitor.”

Monroe Also Starred in 2022’s Watcher

Before Longlegs, It Follows and The Guest were likely her most talked about genre efforts, but she has also shined in the films that followed, such as Villains, How to Be Alone, Watcher and Significant Other. These are horror films that tap into various aspects of the genre, but at the heart of them is a focused performance from Monroe that elevates every single one of them.

Take 2022’s Watcher, for instance. Monroe plays Julia, one half of a couple that relocates to Bucharest and moves into an apartment with a large picture window. Julia is frequently left alone while her husband Francis (Karl Glusman) is at work, and she begins to be watched by a man in the building across the street. The situation unnerves Julia to the point of paranoia, and that is only heightened when she learns that there is also a serial killer on the loose who is known for decapitating women. As the film unfolds, the audience has to figure out if Julia is actually being watched or if it’s just the stress of being in an unfamiliar place that is causing her to lose her grip on reality.

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Watcher works primarily because Monroe can play both aspects of the character. The audience grows worried about Julia because someone could be stalking her, but there is also a sense of unease that maybe Julia is losing her mind. It’s a very nuanced performance showcasing Monroe’s growing talents in her projects. A good horror film needs a character the audience can root for and even question on occasion. Monroe gives the viewer both in a single performance in Watcher. In a review of the film for Time Out, Anna Bogutskaya said, “Monroe is fantastic at making Julia’s swelling paranoia both the source of empathy and distrust. She becomes the stalker, following the man she thinks is watching her. The film makes us wonder if she’s actually being stalked or it’s just all in her head.”

Longlegs Solidifies Maika Monroe’s Final Girl Status

Longlegs

4.5/5

Release Date

July 12, 2024

Runtime

1hr 41min

Read Our Review

With Longlegs, Monroe enters a new level of maturity as FBI agent Lee Harker, someone with undeniable instincts for her field but also someone who is hiding deep and buried wounds. On her quest to hunt a sadistic serial killer known as “Longlegs” (Nicolas Cage), Lee is on her character’s journey of sorts as she begins to discover more about a past that could very well link her to the killer she has been pursuing.

In lesser hands, this would be a closed-off performance, void of much emotion, but Monroe makes the audience curious about what Lee might be hiding. Cage’s serial killer, hidden in most of the film’s marketing, may have enticed viewers to see Longlegs, but Monroe dominates the film’s runtime, and it’s her journey that ultimately shapes the movie. Without Monroe’s top-notch performance, Longlegs wouldn’t have worked nearly as well, and its climax would almost certainly have fallen flat.

Maika Monroe has been a gift to the horror genre, not only because she seems to love it but also because she has been wise about the roles she has chosen to portray. It’s a genre that can offer up thankless roles for women, especially nowadays, but Monroe has made it a point to search for characters that don’t fall into typical horror movie tropes. Recently, Monroe spoke about horror film roles for women with Variety, and some took issue with it, but there is truth to what she said.

“When I started, horror movies were moving away from hot girl running, covered in blood, to interesting, unique, layered characters and storytelling. There are so many credible female roles within this genre now.”

Monroe isn’t saying that stereotypical roles have always been what’s offered to women in the horror genre. She’s smart enough to be aware of Laurie Strode, Nancy Thompson, and Sidney Prescott before her, but there is truth to the roles offered when she broke out in It Follows. The good thing about her self-awareness is that she seems determined to play characters within the genre that break stereotypes and are much more layered than what is typically offered to women. It’s this intuitiveness that makes Monroe a true final girl of a generation and one fans will continue to watch. Longlegs is in theaters now.