2024 Gave Us Female-Fronted Horror Movies That Pushed Every Boundary

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Horror movies person agelong centered their stories astir pistillate characters—think The Exorcist‘s demon-plagued parent and girl duo, Halloween‘s fierce babysitter, oregon Black Christmas‘ determined sorority sisters. But successful 2024 we got a peculiarly notable harvest of women placed successful terrifying situations, including a caller sci-fi badass successful Alien: Romulus, a kind-hearted crook battling a vampire ballerina successful Abigail, and trapped Mormon missionaries successful Heretic.

But determination were a fewer peculiar standouts among this year’s people of fearsome, fearless, and fearful females—performances we admired that brought to beingness a unsocial array of characters. Here are the astir singular pistillate characters we met successful 2024’s fearfulness films.

Lee Harker, Longlegs

We deliberation we person a grip connected young FBI cause Lee Harker from the start: quiescent but superb successful the vein of The Silence of the Lambs‘ Clarice Starling, but with an unusually developed intuition that makes her well-suited to pursuit aft unpredictable criminals. However, arsenic Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs digs into its twisty transgression narrative, we recognize Lee is successful her ain vein entirely—and is tied to the movie’s titular maniac successful ways that astonishment adjacent her. Maika Monroe’s profoundly reserved show (the perfect opposition to co-star Nicolas Cage’s over-the-top turn) proves that an histrion doesn’t request a batch of dialog to make a full, expressive character.

Elisabeth Sparkle and Sue, The Substance

Demi Moore has been a awesome of Hollywood glamor for decades; astatine property 62, she perfectly channels that real-life presumption into her vanity-free portrayal of Elisabeth Sparkle successful Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, a movie that happens to person vanity arsenic a large theme. Fired from her TV gig due to the fact that the aged achromatic dudes successful complaint deliberation she’s excessively aged to beryllium sexy, Elisabeth dips into weird subject to make a younger mentation of herself—Margaret Qualley arsenic “Sue”—with complications that effect successful immoderate of the astir eye-popping assemblage fearfulness to ever grace the screen.

Because Elisabeth and Sue are the aforesaid person, the conflict betwixt them puts a gruesome but darkly hilarious rotation connected the thought that your top force is ever yourself. When they travel unneurotic arsenic the mutated “Monstro Elisasue,” it’s adjacent parts repulsive and empowering—not a operation you travel crossed each day, and a amazingly satisfying one.

Skye Riley, Smile 2

She’s an planetary popular superstar—beautiful, talented, rich, and beloved by her zillions of fans—but Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is successful hell. First it’s much of a idiosyncratic hell; a twelvemonth aft a car mishap killed her fellow and near her severely injured, she’s inactive dealing with addiction issues and intelligence and carnal scars. But aft an impulse determination to prime up immoderate black-market painkillers, she comes look to look with the demonic curse fearfulness fans met successful Parker Finn’s archetypal Smile movie.

From there, Skye’s downward spiral reveals a overmuch worse level of hell, arsenic her world becomes wholly warped by the entity’s creeping, mockingly gleeful penetration of her sanity. On insubstantial Skye is simply a hard quality to basal for, but Scott’s show makes her a quality who’s believable successful her tendency to close each the wrongs she’s caused—but feels progressively helpless arsenic the unit (both show-biz and supernatural) begins to heap on.

Margaret, The First Omen

Somebody had to springiness commencement to Damien, the kid from The Omen—and portion that 1976 fearfulness classical suggested helium was the merchandise of a jackal and Satan, successful The First Omen we conscionable his existent commencement mother, an aspiring nun who gets unwittingly tangled successful an occult conspiracy. Arkasha Stevenson’s prequel justifies its beingness by being an artistically dynamic movie with a twist-packed publication (and existent scares!); the bosom of the film, though, is Nell Tiger Free’s Margaret, a genuinely bully quality being whose beingness takes an apocalyptically acheronian turn.

Honorable notation successful the “Antichrist fearfulness pregnancy” realm for 2024—though fixed existent events, you tin surely expect much gestation fearfulness themes successful aboriginal movies—goes to different show successful a antithetic fearfulness prequel. Natalie Erika James’ Rosemary’s Baby-inspired Apartment 7A didn’t get arsenic overmuch acclaim arsenic The First Omen, but Julia Garner held its halfway arsenic Terry, a quality you concisely conscionable successful Rosemary’s Baby who has a fascinating backstory of her own.

Maxine Minx, MaXXXine

She survived the Texas porn-set massacre successful 2022’s X, and with the ambition of her would-be killer, Pearl (whose vintage dreams of stardom are explored, rather vividly, successful 2022’s Pearl), Maxine Minx yet stomps her mode into Hollywood. As we find her successful MaXXXine, she’s seeking mainstream occurrence beyond her X-rated fame—and nothing, not adjacent a serial slayer who mightiness beryllium the Night Stalker, a creepy backstage detective, existent LAPD detectives, and an ominous specter from her blood-stained past, is going to get successful the way.

Mia Goth, who plays some Pearl and Maxine crossed Ti West’s trilogy, brings america a much mature yet inactive ruthless instrumentality connected Maxine here, and the character’s mid-1980s silver-screen travel brings her to celebrated backlots (Maxine successful the Psycho location is 1 of 2024’s astir unforgettable cinematic mash-ups) and sleazy backmost rooms, and explores the terms of fame from a lurid position that’s ne'er not entertaining.

Halley, V/H/S/Beyond

Kate Siegel’s publication to the latest V/H/S anthology film, “Stowaway,” introduces america to Halley (Alanah Pearce), a pistillate whose troubled backstory is made perfectly wide with conscionable a fewer asides, and whose existent ambition is to marque a documentary connected UFOs—preferably by having her ain adjacent encounter. When her infinitesimal miraculously arrives 1 lonely nighttime successful the Mojave Desert, we’re thrilled for her—she’s been done immoderate messy stuff, it’s implied, but her weird obsession has yet recovered its reward.

Those thrills crook to sheer terror, however, erstwhile “Stowaway” makes bully connected its rubric and Halley sneaks aboard an alien craft… lone to find the wonders she discovers snowball into a body-horror nightmare that gives The Substance‘s Monstro Elisasue immoderate earnestly ghastly competition. It’s an astonishing arc, made adjacent much awesome by the information that it’s compacted into the abstraction of a abbreviated film.

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