EW The Ultimate Guide to Scream

BY THE EARLY 1990S, THE HOLLYWOOD slasher film was as dead as a promiscuous camp counselor on the eve of Friday the 13th. The cathartically bloody teen body-count genre had certainly had a long and respectable run—especially for such an unrespectable genre. But after a dozen or so years of countless sequels, increasingly formulaic premises and onscreen violence that had grown more and more tedious with each new offering, this particular strain of horror cinema had grown stale both creatively and commercially. Like all movie fads, its demise had been inevitable. And it’s amazing that it managed to last as long as it did. But after seeing unkillable bogeymen rise from the dead one too many times, big-screen slicing and dicing had lost its original thrill and shock value. The…

GHOSTFACE SPARKS FEAR IN THE hearts of millions. But when Tyler Gillett first came face-to-face with the horror icon, he was filled with a very different feeling: peace of mind. “I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life,” the Scream codirector says of stopping by the costume department in the early, stressful days of working on his 2022 film. “I mean, that mask is just so much part of the horror language now. It was thrilling. It was one of those moments where I think we all went, ‘Oh, we’re going to be okay.’ ” The responsibility of bringing a fifth installment into the beloved and lucrative Scream franchise—which kicked off in 1996 and grossed $600 million at the box offce over the first four movies—weighed heavily on the…

NEVE CAMPBELL IN HEROINE SIDNEY PRESCOTT, HORROR FANS FOUND A PERFECT FINAL Girl for the ’90s—the antidote to that prevailing “big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door” trope, as Sid so eloquently explained to Ghostface on the phone in the original Scream. Over the years, that calm, cool and collected manner has helped Sidney become a survivor—now a Final Girl for the 2020s. Yep, actress Neve Campbell (Party of Five, House of Cards) will once again reprise the role she’s been playing since her early 20s in Scream (2022). What kind of hell will an older and wiser Sidney give the villainous Ghostface this time around? EW’s Patrick Gomez talked to the actress about returning to Woodsboro,…

TARA CARPENTER JENNA ORTEGA After one viewing of the Scream trailer, it’s clear Jenna Ortega’s Tara is throwing shades of Casey Becker, as she goes toe-to-toe with Ghostface. The little sister of lead character Sam (Melissa Barrera), Tara is “a nice, solid, funny teenage girl,” says Ortega. ON HOW THE EVENTS OF THE MOVIE WERE KEPT SECRET A very small portion of the cast had the actual script, and everybody else [was] kind of left up in the air. Nobody wanted to really ask questions, either, because we all were fans of the franchise.… Anyone who appreciates the film, and the franchise for what it is, understands that the whodunit or never really knowing who the killer is until the very end, is the most thrilling part. ON WHY SCREAM REMAINS AN ICONIC HORROR FILM…

ONE GLANCE OVER AT THE SCREAM DIRECTOR’S CHAIR, and it’s clear things are a little different on the set of the franchise’s latest entry. For one, the perch no longer has the name “Wes Craven” emblazoned on the back, as the beloved auteur died in 2015; for another, that single director’s chair has been replaced by two. Stepping in to helm the new film is the directorial team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (otherwise known as Radio Silence), whose previous horror-tinged credits include Ready or Not (2019), Southbound (2015) and Devil’s Due (2014). Lifelong Craven fans, the duo talk about how they carried on his legacy while crafting a thoroughly modern, thoroughly them slasher. What made you want to do a Scream movie? TYLER GILLETT The Scream movies have been so…

13 CICI COOPER SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR The Scream series’ habit of subverting expectations begins with their casting. In 1997 Gellar was already known for playing survivors, such as her starring role as the vampire-slaying Buffy Summers. That doesn’t protect poor Cici from dying while alone in her sorority house early in Scream 2. She runs up the stairs instead of out the door, a rookie mistake that leads to a memorable fall from a balcony. 12 KIRBY REED HAYDEN PANETTIERE What’s worse than dying at the hands of one of Scream’s killers? How about dying while gripped by shock and betrayal after being stabbed by someone close to you? A horror fan, Kirby thinks she’s outwitted the bad guy’s trivia game and found a way to save her flirt partner Charlie from certain death in…