She has since appeared in numerous films of that genre, including Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007), Lonely Joe (2009) and The Butterfly Room (2012), and is considered a scream queen.

In a 2007 interview with website Icons of Fright, she admitted that in her audition for the movie, she screamed so loud that people on other floors of the building called the police to report that a woman was being attacked.

[13] Also in 2003, Leerhsen was a guest star in two episodes of the TV show Alias, and appeared in Woody Allen's romantic comedy film Anything Else, opposite Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Stockard Channing, Danny DeVito and Jimmy Fallon.

Her interplay with Rachel Miner is true in the way that smalltown friendships really are: simple seemingly on the surface, but built on such complex webbing and history that every nuance, statement or situation is to be weighed and studied.

[19][20] DVD Talk critic David Walker found her to be a "stand out" and noted that she "puts a great spin on what could easily have been another tired retread of the scream queen character".

[22] That year she was meant to star in another horror film — Shutter, opposite Joshua Jackson — portraying a character named Allison Carter, although ultimately she does not appear in the final production.

[25] The film, written and directed by Richard Jefferies, premiered on the SCI FI Channel on February 23, 2008, and was released on DVD under the title Organizm on June 10 in the United States.

She portrayed the next-door neighbor of a bipolar and butterfly-obsessed elderly lady (Barbara Steele) in The Butterfly Room, an Italian–American horror production, produced by Ethan Wiley and directed by Jonathan Zarantonello.

[32] Leerhsen starred in the low-budget horror The Message, which premiered at the 2012 Cape Fear Independent Film Festival and revolved around a young woman who is forced to come to terms with her personality flaws.

Leerhsen appeared in Woody Allen romantic comedy Magic in the Moonlight (2014) portraying the role of Caroline, a member of a rich American family in the 1920s French Riviera.

The film, starring Emma Stone, Jacki Weaver, Colin Firth, and Marcia Gay Harden, received mixed reviews from critics,[37] but was an arthouse success.