Jena Malone: Genre Girlie

The following is an edited excerpt from my article ‘Jena Malone: Genre Girlie’

Since starting out as a child actor in popular Hollywood films like Contact in 1997 and Stepmom in 1998, Jena Malone has carved herself out a fascinating career in the movies.

As well as diverse and nuanced roles in Anthony Minghella's Civil War epic Cold Mountain, the incredible teen Christian satire Saved!, beautiful queer road trip movie Lovesong, Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice, Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, and The Hunger Games franchise, Jena Malone has chosen a lot of interesting projects that have made her a bit of a darling of the horror (and horror-adjacent) genre.

I've always been a huge fan of her genre work including films like Donnie Darko (2001), Love Lies Bleeding (2024), The Ruins (2008), Swallowed (2022), The Neon Demon (2016), Nocturnal Animals (2016) and now the new nunsploitation horror Consecration.

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