10 Best Performances From 2024 Horror Movies
5. Willa Fitzgerald - Strange Darling
It's tough to talk about JT Mollner's delicious horror-thriller Strange Darling without giving away its most impactful surprises, but it's no spoiler to say that lead actress Willa Fitzgerald gives one of the year's most unforgettable performances as its imperiled lead character.
Fitzgerald, who was a standout in Mike Flanagan's miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher last year, is fantastic as an unnamed woman who finds herself pursued by a violent man credited only as The Demon (Kyle Gallner).
There's so much more to the story than this, as is gradually unfurled throughout the runtime, and without Fitzgerald's assured, intense performance, some of its more ambitious turns of plot probably wouldn't work.
Her chemistry with genre vet Gallner is fantastic, and she instantly establishes herself here as a deeply compelling new Scream Queen with a clear aptitude for portraying femme fatale-type characters. Hopefully, she's just getting started.