Summer Film Recap: Ben Konuch’s summer of scares and suspense

By Ben Konuch

This summer, as blockbuster season came upon us, I found myself drawn to the smaller budget, smaller impact films from Hollywood’s most profitable genre: the horror film.

Three new, hotly-anticipated horror films released during the summer of 2024. “Longlegs,” “A Quiet Place: Day One” and “Alien: Romulus” all released to significant excitement and hype, despite all being in completely different niches of the horror genre. 

While “Longlegs” was helmed by Oz Perkins and distributed by Neon Pictures, a smaller, indie-focused studio, “A Quiet Place: Day One” was written and directed by Michael Sarnoski and distributed by Paramount as a long-anticipated return to an iconic franchise created by John Krasinski. In contrast, “Alien: Romulus” was the seventh mainline installment in 20th Century’s iconic “Alien” franchise and was revitalized under the guidance of director Fede Álvarez.

“Longlegs” stars Maika Monroe as Lee, a young FBI agent with uncanny abilities tasked with solving an unspeakable crime. As she dives into a string of ritualistic murders that spans decades, she becomes increasingly unsettled by the culprit seemingly at the root of each death – a man known only as Longlegs (Nicholas Cage). As Lee traces down cryptic clues and unearths an evil beyond our world, she is forced to reckon with the nature of evil itself and the many faces it wears, even if some of those faces are closer than she realizes.

In the darkness, hunting for answers often just gives more questions

It’s no secret that “Longlegs” had one of the best marketing strategies I’ve ever seen. Its posters were bold, fresh and provocative, teasing an evil that was never quite revealed and leaving you wondering what horrors lurked beyond the boundaries of their pages. The trailers that were released for the film directly answered my frustration with modern Hollywood movie trailers showing too much, as each bit of footage carefully unnerved viewers to their core while mesmerizing them nonetheless. In short, “Longlegs” seemed like a morbidly fascinating horror that promised to scare and unsettle, but something about it meant we couldn’t look away.

With that kind of publicity and promise, would any film be able to actually deliver and hold up? “Longlegs” didn’t, but I honestly can’t blame it. The film is perfectly fine, and aspects of its cinematography and tension-building are expertly executed. But the promise of horrifying evil, of unsettling violence and something truly terrifying was never delivered. “Longlegs” built its tension expertly, but what the film accomplished with it was a bit of a waste.

I give “Longlegs” a 6.5/10

While “Longlegs” disappointed me, “A Quiet Place: Day One” angered me. Maybe that’s unfair to say, but after two excellent movies in the franchise teasing the horrifying way the apocalypse began, “Day One” was finally going to show us that. Everything about its marketing proved this point, with the taglines “Witness the day the world went quiet” or “Hear how it all began” plastered all across its trailers and posters. 

But the film we received, while an entertaining drama in its own right, was neither particularly scary nor revealed anything new to the “Quiet Place” series.

Setting the film in New York City, one of the busiest and loudest population centers in America, was supposed to give us a massive sense of scale and carnage. But cameras that follow our protagonists too closely seldom back away and show us the extent of the violence and horror unfolding in the streets. 

“Day One’s” most grievous failing is the times when our protagonists find themselves in the center of a mass-casualty attack by monsters, only to hide under something or be knocked unconscious. We then see the aftermath of the danger, with bloody clothes and destroyed cars littering the streets, but seeing the aftereffects of someone jumping out at you to scare you won’t do the same thing as experiencing the scare for yourself. 

Lead actors Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn excel with a screenplay that fails them at every turn. While their acting is never in question, the characters they’re called to play certainly are. Character motivations are hazy and lazy, and it’s hard to feel fear and tension for the characters’ survival when the beginning of the film makes it abundantly clear that one character has already given up on life. What’s the point in being afraid for her when she’s in danger when she’s already expressed her desire to die?

I give “A Quiet Place: Day One” a 6/10

“Alien: Romulus” stands apart from the other two films in many ways, the first of which is the baggage that it inherited from past installments in the franchise. The original “Alien” released in 1979 and its sequel from 1986 are considered masterpieces, while every subsequent film has varied from flawed success to downright failure. With the most recent release of “Alien: Covenant” leaving audiences with mixed emotions, the outcry from fans was to have someone, anyone take the franchise back to its roots.

That was exactly what Fede Álvarez accomplished.

“Alien: Romulus” distills the cluttered franchise back to its basics as it throws a ragtag group of survivors onto a space station doomed to crash in hours with hopes of salvaging technology that could secure their future. 

The aesthetics of the original film are perfectly preserved, as is the growing sense of tension and disgust at what these survivors unearth. Effective pacing and uncomfortable practical effects quickly turn “Romulus” from a heartfelt drama to an absolute nightmare in all the right ways.

Cailee Spaeny shines bright in “Romulus,” as do the entire supporting cast. Through them, there’s an earnestness to the characters forced to fight for their lives that makes every scare, danger and death register on a personal level. Through their performances the terror of “Romulus” is felt deeper, and with a twenty-minute finale that genuinely disturbed me more than I expected, “Alien: Romulus” is easily one of the best entries in its franchise and the best horror film of the summer.

I give Alien: Romulus an 8.5/10

“Longlegs” and “A Quiet Place: Day One” are available to rent or buy on all major platforms and “Alien: Romulus” is currently playing in theaters.

Ben Konuch is a senior Strategic Communication student who serves as a writer for Cedars A&E and as their social media lead. He enjoys getting sucked into good stories, playing video games and swing dancing in the rain.

Images courtesy of Neon Pictures, Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Studios