Maika Monroe, Hollywood’s newest scream queen who received recognition with the recent horror sensation Longlegs, has been cast to lead a remake of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (1992), a revenge thriller.

Monroe will play Payton, a pregnant woman whose husband commits suicide due to sexual assault allegations against him. After grief causes her to miscarry, Payton becomes obsessed with destroying her husband’s accuser Claire, so she infiltrates her family by posing as a nanny. To ruin Claire’s life, Payton must gain her trust. 

The new remake is set to be directed by Michelle Garza Cervera, whose directorial debut Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) premiered at Tribeca. Like The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Huesera explores motherhood and pregnancy through a dark, tense, horror-oriented lens. Other people involved with the project include writer and producer Micah Bloomberg, who will be writing the screenplay. This week, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim, 10 Cloverfield Lane) was announced to be starring alongside Monroe. 

While little about the remake has been revealed, Monroe is a promising lead with filmography including some of the best horrors made in the last few years. For once, though, she’ll be the villain. Monroe’s prior roles have typically been as a protagonist, the one being hunted, haunted, or hexed.

Her first major film was It Follows (2014), in which she portrays a young woman who becomes subject to a deathly curse passed between victims by sexual contact. While It Follows put her in the map, Watcher (2022) is the movie that established her as an up and coming scream queen. In Watcher she plays Julia, an American and young actress who just moved to town with her boyfriend and notices a mysterious stranger watching her from across the street.

Her most successful and mainstream role to date has been in the indie horror Longlegs (2024). Her character Lee, an FBI agent, works to unravel an unsolved serial killer case only to find the truth more sinister and threatening than she ever anticipated. Longlegs was a wicked success, grossing over $100 million at the box office and becoming one of the most profitable indie horrors in recent years. 

A release date of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle’s remake has yet to be announced, leaving much to anticipate. The film is sure to reveal a new side of Monroe’s talents as she embraces the role of Payton.