Ads promoting upcoming blockbuster movies are among those scheduled during Super Bowl LX.
An ad for “The Mandalorian and Grogu” included a spoof, or perhaps an homage, of the classic Budweiser ads featuring a team of Clydesdales.
The commercial showed the Mandalorian and Grogu riding a sleigh pulled by a team of tauntauns, the snow-beasts seen in the opening scenes of “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Actor Sam Elliott, who also has voiced past Budweiser ads, provided a voiceover for the commercial, Deadline reported.
The movie is scheduled to premiere May 22.
Budweiser’s own ad scheduled for the Super Bowl will feature a Clydesdale caring for a baby eagle in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, USA Today said.
Other ads scheduled during the game will promote “Toy Story 5,” The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and “Minions 3, NBC News reported.
Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” and the seventh installment of the Scream franchise, “Scream 7” will also air during Super Bowl LX.
Scream 7hits theaters at the end of this month, and the promo game is gradually building up. While Sidney Prescott fights another Ghostface or two, franchise owners Paramount and Spyglass are in a legal fight for the rights to the villain’s iconic mask.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, the two companies are taking SFX studio Alterian Ghost Factory to court before it can threaten copyright infringement. With this suit, Paramount and Spyglass hope to file a court order to prevent Alterian’s suit, claiming the company “intentionally slept on its purported rights in the iconic ‘Ghostface’ mask used throughout the Scream franchise for 30 years.”
The Ghostface mask was developed for Halloween in the early ’90s by Fun World and later discovered by Scream producer Marianne Maddalena. It was later licensed for the movie and featured throughout the franchise and its different sequels, with the one exception being the MTV show. Alterian’s arguing that since it created the underlying design first, Fun World was in the legal wrong when it licensed out the final version to Paramount. Conversely, Paramount believes Fun World deserves Alterian’s ire and that Alterian lost any right to call ownership of Ghostface after spending decades without taking any legal action.
“[It] has never legally established that it owns the rights to the Ghostface mask, and it will not be able to prove it now in this litigation,” reads Paramount’s complaint. “And seeking to disrupt the release of a completed motion picture mere weeks before its release—the seventh installment of a franchise that Alterian watched grow in silence for three decades—is an outrageous attempt to shake down [Paramount and Spyglass].”
Scream 7 is in theaters on February 27, and the legal fight for Ghostface may continue beyond that date.
Scream 7 arrives in United States theaters in February 2026 from Paramount Pictures. Directed by Kevin Williamson, the movie stars Lillard, Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers, Isabel May as Tatum Evans, Jasmin Savoy Brown as Mindy Meeks-Martin, Mason Gooding as Chad Meeks-Martin, Joel McHale as Mark Evans, and more.
What did Matthew Lillard say about Scream 7?
Speaking with ComingSoon in an exclusive interview, Lillard said that Scream 7 is “testing through the roof” following some test screenings.
He explained when asked about how it feels to come back to the Scream franchise and work with Williamson again, “It was awesome. The reality is that I remember where I was when I got the phone call. I remember in the park, exactly where it happened. Seeing the phone call from Kevin Williamson. We had seen each other at a party like three weeks beforehand at Mike Flanagan’s house. I was like, ‘What is he calling me for? That’s so strange.’ He was talking about going in and doing Scream 7. And even at the party, he was like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to go shoot the movie, I’m going to direct it.’ I was like, ‘That’s incredible.’ And he never mentioned anything. But we got on the phone and was like, ‘Do you want to come back and play with us?’ I was like, ‘You bastard, you could have said something like three weeks ago!’
“Look, I’m excited. What I’m most excited about is I think the movie, with Kevin involved and with Neve back — listen, I love the Radio Silence guys. I thought Melissa Barrera was fantastic. But I’m excited to see where this new iteration of Scream goes. The movie is testing through the roof, I think people are going to love it, and I think fans are going to lose their minds. It’s very fun.”
The official synopsis for Scream 7 reads, “When a new Ghostface killer emerges in the quiet town where Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has built a new life, her darkest fears are realized as her daughter (Isabel May) becomes the next target. Determined to protect her family, Sidney must face the horrors of her past to put an end to the bloodshed once and for all.”
Scream 7 will be released in United States theaters on February 27, 2026.
Santa Art is coming to town, and he’s bringing a few of his killer friends along to bring us a new season of frights. Taking a cue from horror movie villains, Spirit Halloween just won’t die, and we love that.
Sure, Spirit’s Christmas section also has non-horror holiday stuff too. But Creepmas fun is the main attraction, and the Halloween retailer has just unleashed a swath of holiday gear featuring Santa Art the Clown as seen in Terrifier 3.
Also joining Art under the tree are Scream‘s Ghostface, Chucky, Regan from The Exorcist, and even Halloween icon Michael Myers. You can find their ghoulish faces splattered across ugly Christmas sweaters in festive light-up garish sparkle. Listen, with the way the world has been, if you want to don spooky gear all year long, it’s very valid.
Santa Art making his mark as a holiday staple makes a lot of sense, as the brutal character played by David Howard Thornton spends most of Terrifier 3 cosplaying as the jolly man in red. The movie’s release last year may have been too close to the holidays to really see much merch take hold, but this year, it’s a full-on assault of Santa Art: nutcrackers, plushes, costumes, Christmas tree glasses, shirts, and plenty of gifting goods for the Terrifier fan in your life. We’re pretty sure Santa Art is going to stay a holiday staple for years to come.
Ghostface is also part of Spirit Halloween’s plan for taking over another holiday, including some cutesy selections if you’re dreaming of a pink Christmas—giving the masked maniac an excuse to linger around the house until the release of Scream 7 in early 2026.
Ghostface is also parodying the Christmas games started by Elf on a Shelf withGhost Face at Your Place. So you know, if you’re naughty, Ghost Face is watching. I actually prefer Ghostface over the Elf, who looks more cursed and creepy.
There are, of course, characters that make actual sense as part of the holiday pivot, including Jack Skellington as Sandy Claws from The Nightmare Before Christmas and winter folklore terror Krampus—and Spirit Halloween is all over them, too. You can find costumes, decor, and a wildly scary Krampus animatronic inspired by the 2015 film. Check out the gallery below for a look at that as well as more Creepmas inspiration!
It seems these days most major franchises want to cash in on that Star WarsBaby Yoda money by making their own adorable version of something within any given fandom. We saw it last year with the debut of Baby Beetlejuice in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and now this year we have Spirit Halloween‘s Horror Babies.
The cuteness aggression is too real with Terrifier star Art the Clown—plus Chucky, Ghostface, lil’ Michael Myers, Leatherface, Pennywise, and others, all featured as infants in the Spirit Halloween line. You just want to hold them and let them love you to death, ya know? We particularly love Pink Ghostface and the sunglass-wearing Art, who delight with bold, bright colors and playful poses.
Take a look at the lineupbelow!
According to Spirit Halloween, the dolls range in price from $15 for the mini to $55 for the full-size. The smaller options appear to be in stores and have dimensions of 4″ H x 2.8″ W x 4″ D.
Meanwhile, the ones that approximate the size of actual human babies are made of foam filled with latex and are 12.5″ H x 12.5″ W x 8.8″ D. Some of the bigger ones will be available at the seasonal Halloween pop-up but others, like Leatherface and Pink Ghostface, appear to be online only. These are so good and, honestly, a good chilling chibi take on iconic horror titans that fans will definitely add to their collections. Happy Halloween hunting!
For those of us who love the glamor and the glitz of the entertainment industry, September passes by in a train of tulle and sartorial spectacle. Fashion weeks across New York, Paris, London, and Milan take the cake.
Packed front rows and celebrity-studded catwalks keep the internet entranced. From my couch – clad in my hole-ridden sweatpants – I judge couture and ready-to-wear fashion shows from the mega-brands and the sparkling stars who actually attend these exclusive events.
But to me, fashion week is just the punctuation to the summer film festival season. There’s the Tribeca Film Festival and Cannes, Toronto Film Festival, and Venice International Film Festival to name the heaviest hitters. Some films premiere across all these festivals; others are more selective. But each one has its headlines: the drawn-out standing ovations, the celebrity attendees, the future award winners.
Indeed, September marked the Venice Film Festival, one of the most anticipated film events of the year, and spawned some of the most talked about films of the year. The 2024 Venice Film Festival’s pomp and circumstance – arguably the film festival circuit’s glittering crown jewel – transforms the floating city into a playground for the cinematic elite.
Venice has long been the preferred launchpad for Oscar hopefuls and auteur passion projects alike. In recent years, Timothee Chalamet used it to flex his fashion prowess, the cast of The Idol used it to gaslight us into thinking it was going to be a good show (as we extensively reviewed: it wasn’t), and the Don’t Worry Darling cast played out their workplace drama for the world to see. This year was no exception. Lido was alight with couture gowns and paparazzi flashes, albeit a lot less drama and gossip to satiate us. So, rather than hashing out the latest cast feuds, let’s talk about the films.
What to watch at the Venice Film Festival 2024?
The 81st Venice International Film Festival is organized by La Biennale di Venezia and ran on the Lido di Venezia from 28 August to 7 September 2024. A parade of A-listers descended upon the city, ferried to Lido in glamorous water taxis to promote some of the films we’ll be seeing at award shows this year, and….some films that flopped.
Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore – those chameleons of the silver screen – graced the red carpet for Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut, The Room Next Door, which ultimately snagged the coveted Golden Lion (Venice’s top prize). The ever-ethereal Nicole Kidman turned heads alongside her fresh-faced co-star Harris Dickinson after her turn in The Perfect Couple. Meanwhile, Daniel Craig proved he’s still got it, swapping his Bond tuxedo Loewe alongside new It Boy Drew Starkey in Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer.”
This year’s theatrics were at their peak – enough to manufacture and stoke social media chatter. And it worked. Brad Pitt and George Clooney played up their pairing’s nostalgia factor by chasing each other around the red carpet, reliving their youth but also relying on the reputations of their glory days. Luca Guadanino took a selfie with his absolutely stacked cast. Jenna Ortega looking fabulous in one of her gothic Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice outfits proved that thematic press tour dressing is far from dead.
But this year’s films were just as conversation-worthy. Let’s dive into the films that have everyone talking:
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Tim Burton returns to the 1988 classic that launched his career, reuniting with Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder while adding Gen Z darling – Jenna Ortega – to the mix. After her turn in Wednesday, Scream, and even the video for Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste,” it’s clear that Ortega can handle horror – she’s a scream queen with the acting chops to back it up. The result is a nostalgic trip that manages to feel fresh, thanks in large part to Ortega’s deadpan charm (honed to perfection in Wednesday) as set in counterpoint to Keaton’s manic energy. It’s a welcome return to form for Burton. His triumphant release is a rare example of commercially and critically successful and was an energetic opening to the Festival.
Babygirl
The latest in the buzzy pantheon of female-driven age-gap dramas, Babygirl carves out a fresh niche for our darling Ms. Kidman. After her comic turn in A Family Affair, A24’s latest offering sees her playing an all-business CEO who becomes entangled with her much younger intern (Harris Dickinson). Fans of Triangle of Sadness, Scrapper, or The Iron Claw will recognize Dickinson and admire his remarkable range. It takes an impressive young actor to shine alongside Kidman but Dickinson is up for the task. Director Halina Reijn – fresh off her Gen Z slasher hit Bodies Bodies Bodies – brings a distinctly female gaze to the May-December romance trope. The result is a steamy, thought-provoking exploration of power dynamics that will have HR departments squirming in their seats.
The Room Next Door
Pedro Almodóvar ventures into English-language territory with this Golden Lion winner, proving that his particular brand of melodrama translates beautifully in any tongue. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s book What Are You Going Through, the film pairs Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, two of cinema’s most captivating chameleons. It follows a writer who reconnects with an old friend after years of distance in a tale of friendship, grief, and deep discussions about what it means to be a writer. It’s intimate and intellectual but feels accessible and human thanks to Almodóvar’s direction and the nuanced performances of these two powerhouse thespians.
Maria
This year’s Venice International Film Festival was a big one for shimmering stars of the silver screen. Angelina Jolie triumphed as opera legend Maria Callas, securing instant iconic status and positioning herself for Oscar recognition. The gravitas she lends to Pablo Larraín’s portrait of Callas reveals that Jolie’s side projects (like her fashion brand, Atelier Jolie) have not dampened her acting skills. Following in the footsteps of Natalie Portman’s Jackie and Kristen Stewart’s Spencer, Jolie disappears into the role of the troubled diva. Larraín’s dreamlike direction and Jolie’s raw performance make for a haunting exploration of fame, art, and the price of genius. When picking Jolie for the titular role, Larrain said he wanted an actress who would “naturally and organically be that diva,” and Jolie delivered with aching nuance. Oscar buzz is already building, and rightly so.
Queer
Speaking of actors challenging themselves, no one is in their comfort zone in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer. For this adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novel, Guadagnino reunites with his A Bigger Splash star Ralph Fiennes and ropes in Daniel Craig. Craig shed his 007 persona entirely in order to play Lee – a Burroughs stand-in – as he navigates the seedy underbelly of mid-century Mexico City. It’s a mix between last year’s Venice darling Strange Way of Life by Pedro Almodóvar and Guadagnino’s famous Call Me By Your Name.Drew Starkey – of Outer Banks fame – is the object of his desire, with Guadagnino’s camera lingering on his lithe frame in a manner that would make even Timothée Chalamet blush. It also stars singer Omar Apollo in his first major acting role. Between unflinching sex scenes and luscious landscapes, it’s a heady blend of desire and ennui that solidifies Guadagnino’s place as cinema’s Yearner In Chief.
Disclaimer
Venice isn’t all movies. Some limited dramas also make their way to Lido. Two years ago, The Idol got the full Venice treatment, but we know how that went. Luckily, Alfonso Cuarón’s return to the festival circuit fared better. This twisty psychological thriller stars Cate Blanchett – last at Venice with Tar. This time, she plays a documentary filmmaker whose life unravels when a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table. As always, Blanchett is a force of nature, her icy exterior cracking as she realizes that she’s the subject of a book that will reveal her long-buried secrets. Cuarón proves he’s as adept at space epics as he is with intimate character studies, crafting a nail-biting exploration of truth, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves.
The Order
Starring Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, and Jurnee Smollett, The Order is a historical crime drama that plunges us into the action-packed world of counterfeiting operations, bank robberies, and armored car heists in the Pacific Northwest. Told through the eyes of the lead detective, these crimes are deemed acts of domestic terrorism, revealing the deep-seated hatred and violence in the United States. Inspired by the January 6 insurrection – when nooses were hung in front of the Capitol Building – this film references a fictional white nationalist insurrection that’s at the center of William Luther Pierce’s 1978 novel The Turner Diaries. Taking this hatred back to its roots, The Order explores how these same psychologies have been buried in the US consciousness for decades.
Joe Alwyn, Taylor Swift’s ex-London Boy, sauntered through Venice alongside castmates Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. This sprawling epic follows a Hungarian immigrant architect (Brody) navigating love, loss, and artistic integrity. Initially forced to toil in poverty, he soon wins a contract that changes the course of his life for the next 30 years. Clocking in at a hefty three-and-a-half hours, it’s not for the faint of heart. But those who stick with it will be richly rewarded with a deeply felt meditation on the American Dream and the cost of creation. Corbet’s ambition is a labor of love, as his official statement expresses how he spent “the better part of a decade revving the engine to bring this particular story to life.” His toiling is definitely worth it.
Joker: Folie à Deux
Closing Venice was the ambitious, melodramatic Jukebox musical Joker: Folie à Deux. It’s the polarizing sequel to the controversial original, and although everyone’s talking about it — no one can make up their minds about whether or not it’s good. Todd Phillips returns to Gotham, bringing Lady Gaga along for the ride as Harley Quinn to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker. The addition of musical numbers is either a stroke of genius or a bridge too far, depending on who you talk with. Phoenix and Gaga commit fully to the madness, their chemistry undeniable even as the plot threatens to buckle under the weight of its own ambition.
This is a swing for the fences that doesn’t always connect, but you have to admire the creative audacity. Gaga is electric, though you can’t help but wonder if her talents are wasted in this convoluted film that, just like the original, isn’t always sure what it’s trying to say.
As the curtain falls on another Venice Film Festival, one thing is clear: cinema is alive and well, continuing to push boundaries and provoke thought even in the face of industry upheaval. Whether these films will stand the test of time remains to be seen, but for now, they’ve given us plenty to chew on as we sail away from the Lido and into the heart of awards season.
While Campbell appeared in 2022’s Scream along with franchise mainstays Courtney Cox and David Arquette, she wasn’t in 2023’s Scream VI due to a pay dispute between her and Paramount Pictures.
Speaking to People, Campbell said she missed not being in the franchise, and is happy to be back.
“Those movies have been such a big part of my life and it means so much to me, and I was sad to miss the last one, to not be a part of it,” Campbell said. “I was really grateful that they came back to me in a respectful way. I think that means a lot to women and to society. I’m grateful to be able to step in into Sidney’s shoes again and tell her story.”
While Campbell’s return is being praised by fans, the development of Scream 7 has been filled with some controversy, to say the least.
The road to Scream 7 has been controversial
Earlier this year, Spyglass Media Group fired Melissa Barrera from the franchise for speaking out against the Israel and Palestine conflict. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Barrera recalled what a tough time it was in the moment.
“It’s definitely hard, because I was just in such a cloudy state of mind, but I was very fortunate,” said Barrera. “I had a lot of support from the people around me: my team and specifically my publicists — they just carried me.”
Shortly after Barrera was fired, Jenna Ortega also dropped out of Scream 7 before Christopher Landon announced he’d no longer be directing the film in December 2023.
“It was a dream job that turned into a nightmare,” Landon said on X at the time. “And my heart did break for everyone involved. Everyone. But it’s time to move on. I have nothing more to add to the conversation other than I hope Wes’ legacy thrives and lifts above the din of a divided world. What he and Kevin created is something amazing, and I was honored to have even the briefest moment basking in their glow.”
“I’m just so grateful on what I got to infuse in the franchise, and that’s something I’ll be proud of forever,” Melissa Barrera told Deadline at Sundance tonight, indicating no bad blood after being severed from the Screamseries by Spyglass Media last month.
Barrera has clearly moved on, and she has a new horror movie here in Park City in the Midnight section, Your Monster from Caroline Lindy. In the pic, Barrera plays a soft-spoken actress, who finds her voice again after she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming Monster living in her closet.
Spyglass dropped Barrera from Scream VII after she reignited the franchise with Jenna Ortega in Scream V and Scream VI (the latter the highest grossing stateside in the horror series at $108M) due to remarks on social media about the Israel-Hamas conflict. The actress days after the firing broke her silence on the studio’s maneuver saying, “I will continue to speak out for those that need it most and continue to advocate for peace and safety, for human rights and freedom…Silence is not an option for me.” Deadline told you that Ortega wound up departing the series due to Wednesday scheduling conflicts; in addition the seventhquel’s new director Christopher Landon who called the short pre-production experience on social “a dream that turned into a nightmare.”
Last weekend at the MPTF’s 17th Annual Evening Before Gala, Barrera, Ortega and a slew of actors from the last two Scream movies reunited for a photo that was posted on Instagram. The photo included Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Liana Liberato, Tony Revolori, Jack Quaid and Barrera’s on-screen father and OG Ghostface Skeet Ulrich.
Deadline asked Barrera tonight how it felt to be back with the old gang.
She told us, “We’re family for life.”
“If we’re ever in the vicinity of each other, we always find each other and that’s what happened at that event,” she continued.
“When we find each other, we just want to spend the night with each other, and nothing is ever going to change that.”
The Scream franchise has lost a lot of blood in recent months but the beloved star who played Sidney Prescott in five films over 25 years isn’t ruling out a return.
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Neve Campbell on Saturday afternoon at the BAFTA Tea Party in Beverly Hills, where she offered up a “we’ll see” to whether she would reprise her franchise leading role in the near future. The next installment, which is currently in the works, has been in peril since November when Melissa Barrera was fired over social media posts regarding the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. Days later, it was revealed that her co-star, Jenna Ortega, had also exited the next film. Then a month after that, director Christopher Landon parted ways on the project, going so far as to say that his “dream job turned into a nightmare.”
Campbell has clearly seen the headlines. “I know things are spinning at the moment and I would imagine they are spinning at the top trying to figure out what they’re going to do. I would not be surprised to get a call,” she revealed. “But at the same time, I made a strong statement a few years ago, which is I did not believe that the way that I was treated would’ve happened if I had been a male and that I deserve a certain thing for having carried this franchise for as long as I have.”
The veteran star was referring to a highly publicized exit in June 2022 over a dispute over pay. “Sadly, I won’t be making the next Scream film,” per that statement. “As a woman I have had to work extremely hard in my career to establish my value, especially when it comes to Scream. I felt the offer that was presented to me did not equate to the value I have brought to the franchise.”
Looking back on that decision now, Campbell said she took a stand “not in an egotistical way” but as a way to fight for what she believes is right. “We have to stand up for women in this business and know what we’re worth. That hasn’t changed for me,” she continued on Saturday. “So, if they were to come back to me, it would have to be with a respectful offer that I felt was in keeping with what I bring to this franchise.”
Which leads back to the original question, and Campbell repeated it herself. “Would I do it? There are millions of fans out there of this franchise. These movies mean a lot to people. They mean a lot to me. They mean a lot to [Kevin Williamson]. They meant a lot to [Wes Craven]. They meant a lot to all of these cast members, and we would all love to see this franchise continue. I would hate to see it burn. So we’ll see.”
Speaking of Williamson, who created the series, he has said he would love to see Campbell step back into Sidney’s shoes. “I would give her the money. I’m sure there’s a number they can agree on that will make them both happy, so hopefully one day they will figure that all out,” he said during a podcast appearance on Happy Horror Time last fall.
When the news broke that Campbell had exited the franchise, it went viral on Twitter (now X), something Campbell said was a new experience for her. “I had a friend text me and say, ‘You’re trending right now.’ I’ve never been on Twitter. I didn’t know what it meant. She was like, ‘Let me explain.’ She said, ‘You are so loved. People are so passionate about you in these films and people are fighting for you. People want the studio to do right by you.’ That meant so much to me,” she told THR. “Even the fact that it caused a stir, not anti-studio in any way, just that it caused people to stand up and think, maybe they could stand up for themselves in some way, that meant a lot and continues to mean a lot.”
Campbell attended Saturday’s star-packed BAFTA Tea Party with her friend of 30 years, Emmy winning multi-hyphenate Michael A. Goorjian, whom she met during their days on Party of Five. Goorjian and Campbell were making the rounds to celebrate the good news that his film Amerikatsi had been shortlisted for an Oscar as an international feature from Armenia.
Michael A. Goorjian and Neve Campbell at the BAFTA Tea Party at the Maybourne Hotel in Beverly Hills on Jan. 13, 2024.
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for BAFTA
Goorjian told THR that when he heard that his film snagged a spot on the shortlist, he happened to be in Campbell’s kitchen. (Goorjian is living with Campbell at the moment and he’s the godfather of her children with husband JJ Feild.) “I started screaming and she was upstairs,” he recalled. “In film and TV, you meet so many people and work with so many different people. It’s like going to summer camp and you always say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll stay in touch,’ and you never do. Nev is pretty much one of the only people in the industry that I’ve really stayed close with. It’s a rare thing.”
Campbell said she knew it was special when they met on Party of Five. “I mean, I loved Michael. I just thought he had an amazing brain and an amazing mind. He had a creative spirit and he’s really kind. He’s from Oakland and he’s really cool. We hung out a lot on Party of Five. If I was hanging out with anyone, it was usually the two of us in each other’s trailers just kicking it.”
Goorjian wrote, directed and stars in Amerikatsi playing Armenian-American repatriate Charlie Bakhchinyan. The story follows his journey after being arrested for the crime of wearing a tie in Soviet Armenia. Alone in solitary confinement, he discovers that he can see inside of an apartment building near the prison from his cell window, leading to a personal discovery of why he returned home in the first place.
“I’ve been working on this film for five years,” Goorjian explained. “We shot during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it was pretty crazy. There were a lot of obstacles to finish, but eventually, when we premiered it for an American audience, I saw the reactions and thought that maybe it worked.”
Campbell also helped along the way, offering feedback. Goorjian said he even remixed the sound of one section based on her notes. “When you’ve been in the business long enough, you have a sense of things,” she concluded. “Michael came to both JJ and I a lot, and we would watch different cuts and give thoughts because it’s always helpful. A truly wonderful director is open to other minds. I worked with Robert Altman years ago, and what was so magical about him is he truly believed that many minds is much better than just his. If you have a lot of creative opinion and you’re open, it’s really helpful. [Michael] is so talented, he really knows what he is doing, but he’s also really open to creative thoughts, which is great.”
Universal Pictures has released the trailer for the upcoming horror film “Abigail,” set to release on April 19.
The film is helmed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett — also known as Radio Silence — who directed recent popular horror movies including “Scream” (2022), “Scream VI” (2023) and “Ready or Not” (2019).
“Abigail” follows a group of kidnappers who get in over their heads when their young target, a girl named Abigail, turns out to be a vampire.
The film’s official logline reads, “Children can be such monsters. After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
The suspenseful trailer shows the captors trying to figure out the best way to kill the young bloodsucker. “What are we talking? Like an Ann Rice or a ‘True Blood’? You know, ‘Twilight’?” asks Kathryn Newton’s character.
Playing the kidnappers are Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kevin Durand, Newton, the late Angus Cloud, William Catlett and Giancarlo Esposito. Alisha Weir stars as Abigail. The film marks one of Cloud’s final on screen performances, following his death in July 2023 at the age of 25.
“Abigail” is produced by William Sherak, Paul Neinstein and James Vanderbilt on behalf of Project X Entertainment. Tripp Vinson also produces in addition to Chad Vilella of Radio Silence. Ron Lynch and Macdara Kelleher serve as executive producers.
For characters in the Scream movies, it’s wise never to answer the phone — lest Ghostface be on the other end of the line. But after a tumultuous few months for the franchise, Scream studio Spyglass is likely hoping its calls will indeed go answered as it attempts to keep its next installment from getting the ax amid a major casting shakeup and subsequent creative pivot.
On Nov. 21, it broke that Spyglass had fired Melissa Barrera from the upcoming seventh Scream movie over social media posts that company decision-makers characterized as antisemitic. Sources note the firing actually came a month earlier, in the early weeks of the Israel-Hamas war, when Barrera had become increasingly vocal. Before her firing, sources say her deal to return as Sam Carpenter, the lead character she introduced in 2022’s Scream, had been finalized.
On Nov. 22 came the news that Barrera’s onscreen sister, Jenna Ortega, had quietly exited the franchise months earlier. Scheduling issues were cited, but sources say Ortega — who has skyrocketed from child star to supporting player in last year’s Scream to the A-list thanks to her turn in the Netflix series Wednesday — asked for a bigger payday for the seventh installment, commensurate with her status. Unlike Barrera, sources say Ortega had no deal in place.
Ortega had been paid in the six figures for her previous installments, but her team now wants projects with significant paydays, something that the Scream franchise is not known for. Sources say she was seeking high seven figures and anticipated that Spyglass would balk.
Spyglass head Gary Barber is known for his shrewd business sense or for being cheap, depending on what side of the table you are on, multiple sources say. The studio had already lost Scream stalwart Neve Campbell over a salary dispute for this year’s Scream VI, with the actress saying at the time that she “couldn’t walk on set feeling undervalued.” Many predicted that film would fail without its original star, but it ended up being the biggest movie in the franchise since the 1996 original. Barber’s apparent takeaway is that neither stars nor large salaries are essential. “He didn’t need Neve, he doesn’t need Jenna,” says one insider.
Scream VII was to have been the end of a rumored trilogy focused on the two Carpenter sisters. Even after Ortega departed, it wasn’t much of a pivot to refocus on Barrera’s more prominent character. But with both actors gone, restitching from whole cloth seems necessary.
While some insiders say the situation is a “shambles” and “very raw,” it may not be as dire as it might seem. Scream has always had interchangeable villains behind the mask, ensemble casts and certain legacy characters. Another reboot will not fatally stab the franchise.
Christopher Landon remains on board as director, as does James Vanderbilt, who co-wrote the two previous installments.
This story first appeared in the Nov. 29 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe
Melissa Barrera is no longer starring in Scream VII. The actor was dropped from the project after a series of social media posts in the wake of the Israel-Hamas War.
“Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp,” she wrote in one post on Instagram stories. “Cornering everyone together, with no where to go, no electricity no water … People have learnt nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING.”
Spyglass, the company behind the Scream franchise, had no comment.
Barrera helped revitalize the franchise with Scream, the 2022 feature that earned $137.7 million globally and combined generations of castmembers from the franchise. Barrera’s Sam Carpenter was the lead of that film, and the older sister of Jenna Ortega’s Tera. Barrera also starred in Scream VI, which was released in March and topped $168.9 million at the global box office.
Happy Death Day filmmaker Christopher Landon is taking over directing duties on Scream VII from filmmakers Radio Silence. Filming had not begun, and development had been slow amid the actors and writers strikes. Now, Spyglass is expected to recalibrate plans following Barrera. Paramount has handled distribution on the recent installments and is expected to return for the new film.
Earlier on Tuesday, news broke that actor Susan Sarandon had been dropped by talent agency UTA following comments at a pro-Palestinian rally in New York City on Nov. 17.
As far as gimmicky horror movies go, there’s been no shortage since Scream reanimated the genre in 1996. And, in the decades since its initial release, Kevin Williamson effectively gave permission to writers everywhere to be as meta as possible with horror (/comedy horror). Which is why we now have shows such as The Other Black Girl literally calling out in the dialogue how it’s just like the premise of Get Out (and yes, it pretty much is). In Totally Killer, our sort-of final girl, Jamie Hughes (Kiernan Shipka), also has no trouble calling out the cinematic similarities of the plot she’s living through. Specifically, its similarities to Back to the Future and the aforementioned Scream. Mainly the former because Jamie accidentally ends up traveling back to the 80s (October 27, 1987, to be exact) after her best friend, Amelia (Kelcey Mawema), invents a time machine based on her mother Lauren’s (Kimberly Huie) abandoned scrawlings from a high school notebook.
The apparatus used? A photobooth at the abandoned Vernon carnival grounds where the high school science fair is going to be held. When Jamie approaches the desolate, creepy place (called Billy’s Boardwalk) to find Amelia, she can’t help but ask why the principal would want to hold the fair here. Amelia responds matter-of-factly, “Principal Summers got it for free. You know, to help bring people back in. This used to be the place to hang in Vernon, but now it’s just another stop on the murder tour.” And, speaking of the murder tour, it’s a real thing that’s actually run by Chris Dubusage (Jonathan Potts), the self-styled “expert” on the Sweet Sixteen murders that happened in 1987 (basically, he’s sort of the Gale Weathers [Courteney Cox] of the movie). The murders that have made Jamie’s mom, Pam (Julie Bowen), hyper-paranoid and very helicopter parent-y (that’s right, she deliberately smacks of Sidney Prescott [Neve Campbell]). Which is why, when Jamie says she wants to go to a concert with Amelia on Halloween and Pam proceeds to get all protective and foreboding about it, Jamie snaps back, “So I can’t go to a concert because your friends were murdered thirty-five years ago?” Jamie keeps up the harshness by adding, “I sort of wish you guys would just get over it.”
But, obviously, there are many things that both Pam and Jamie’s dad, Blake (Lochlyn Munro), haven’t gotten over since 1987. For Blake, it’s an ongoing contempt for Chris Dubusage and his exploitative ways. For Pam, it isn’t just that her friends were murdered, but also a high-key obsession with Molly Ringwald—hence, dressing as Claire Standish from The Breakfast Club for Halloween. This is no coincidence, as Jamie soon finds out. For her mom’s friend group in high school is referred to as “the Mollys” because they all like to dress in different iterations of her movie characters. This being somewhat ironic considering that Ringwald never played a “popular girl” (save for Claire), favoring instead the underdog characters from the “wrong side of the tracks” (this phrase being literal in Pretty in Pink). Perhaps it was ultimately a sign of Pam’s humanity beneath all the mean girl bravado, what with her role as the leader of the group dictating that Heather (Anna Diaz), Tiffany (Liana Liberato) and Marisa (Stephi Chin-Salvo) should also dress like the “ain’t she sweet” teen queen of the 80s (even though Tiffany is the only redhead). But before unearthing any of that humanity, Jamie is shocked to find out the kind of person her mother was as a teenager after her unexpected bout with time travel. The one caused by being chased into the photo booth by the revived killer (who has already stabbed Jamie’s mom by this point).
When the killer accidentally stabs at the glass plate where the date is displayed, it manages to create the extra metal conduction Amelia was missing to make the time machine work. So it is that Jamie returns to October 27, 1987 (consider it her version of Marty McFly’s November 5, 1955), the date preset by Amelia, who wanted to help Jamie catch the killer from the start so that her mother won’t be murdered in the present. On the other side of time, Jamie is relieved to have evaded the killer, but that relief is gone the instant she realizes (to the initially faint tune of Bananarama’s “Venus”) that she is very much back in 1987.
And, of course, that makes things rife for comedy…which happens to be director Nahnatchka Khan’s specialty (lest anyone forget, she wrote and directed Don’t Trust the B- – – – in Apartment 23…where, incidentally, Kiernan Shipka cameo’d as herself in an episode). Tackling the script by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D’Angelo, Khan visually plays up the shock on Jamie’s part. Not just at having time traveled, but how “problematic” things are in 1987, including the sight of a man wearing an “FBI (Federal Booby Inspector)” shirt at the carnival. When Jamie chastises him for wearing it, his girlfriend notes, “I like your shirt.” Just another indication that the collective mind hadn’t yet been reprogrammed to understand the insidious presence of misogyny in every facet of culture.
Jamie is further appalled when, after asking a woman with two kids what year it is, she offers to give her a ride back to school…where she’s supposed to be at this time of day. Jamie replies, “I can’t get in a car with you, you’re a total stranger. You could be a serial killer.” The woman laughs and says, “Would a serial killer wear Gloria Vanderbilt?” Thus, Jamie rides in the smoke-filled station wagon (another amplification of how different things were back then because a mother was willing to freely suffocate her children with secondhand smoke) to the school. Where she’s met with even more anathema interactions that don’t jibe with her Gen Z perspective. Starting with her sighting of the Vernon “mascot” on the side of the school: a “Red Devil” a.k.a. Native American. She remarks to herself, “And there’s the racism. Knew that was coming.” But with the bad, Jamie takes the good—for instance, a total lack of concern with security on the part of the admin lady she approaches at the front desk with a fake story about being an exchange student from Prince Edward Island. When the woman cuts her off and asks her what grade she’s in so she can give her a catch-all schedule, Jamie asks incredulously, “You don’t need to verify anything?” The woman scoffs, “What is this, Fort Knox?”
Later on, when Jamie needs to figure out what class Amelia’s mom is in, she also approaches the admin lady with the same view she would in the present, figuring that such information can’t be given out because it’s private. But no, the admin lady readily tells her that Lauren is in Earth Science and gets back to reading her romance novel. In disbelief, Jamie notes to herself, “Flying on a plane right now must be insane.”
It is the “insanity” of the 80s overall that Khan and the writers highlight as much as an appreciation for Halloween, Back to the Future and Scream. However, even more significant than that is the racial element that eventually makes itself known by the time the killer is revealed. For the culprit behind the three murders (Pam’s murder thirty-five years later serves as the additional plot twist) turns out to be a person of color whose girlfriend died as a direct result of the Mollys’ bullying. Save for Pam, who wasn’t there on the night in question, and therefore wasn’t targeted by the murderer in 1987.
That the killer chooses to dress in a quintessential 80s douchebag mask (one that’s kind of reminiscent of a Donald Trump face) is also telling of “the other” during that decade trying especially hard to fit in with the rest of the white mold held up as an “exemplar” of “how to be.” Not to mention how telling it is that Marisa and Heather so gladly go along with emulating Ringwald because that’s what the white leader of their clique wants to do.
What’s more, the fact that the killer was constantly bullied and ostracized himself heightens the message that things weren’t really “better” “back in the day.” They were simply more convenient for the white majority that didn’t have to “watch itself” as much as it does now (that it’s becoming a minority).
Avery Plewes has always loved Halloween. “Halloween was my favorite holiday as a kid,” she tells POPSUGAR. “Before I was a costume designer, I was so into it. I would go all out.” However, now that she’s designed costumes for some of the biggest horror movies in the business — including 2022’s “Scream 6” — she’s less inclined to dress up, given the fact that she spends the whole year crafting elaborate costumes for the screen.
That also means she has a huge amount of Halloween costume expertise to share with the rest of us. Plewes took a particularly deep dive into Halloween icons of yore while costuming “Scream 6,” which takes place during one long, bloody Halloween weekend in New York City. “I wanted to design as many costumes for the background as I could to make it feel as realistic as possible, and also to have the audience get lost in the Halloween of it all,” she says. In particular, Plewes had to go all out for a terrifying scene that takes place on the subway, where the real Ghostface blends in with countless costumed riders dressed as everyone from the Babadook to Julia Fox. “That scene was like my child,” she says, describing it as a moment of “crisis” for the characters.
“Fake blood always helps, in my opinion.”
While most of the costumes in legacy franchises like Scream have to be put together perfectly, Plewes had to make sure the subway riders’ costumes looked a little more haphazard. In movies, “when you’re reproducing a look, you always want it to be as accurate as possible,” she says. “But for this, I had to unlearn that because often with Halloween, it’s like, ‘Oh, I have a shirt that kind of looks like what Freddy Krueger would wear.’”
Fortunately, that means she has plenty of simple tips to offer the rest of us when it comes to putting together quick and easy tributes to our Halloween characters of choice, including the “Scream 6” characters themselves. If you’re planning on dressing up as a character from the movie other than Ghostface, Plewes suggests pairing that more ordinary look with a scary character from the subway scene for a unique couple’s costume.
When it comes to actually deciding on a costume, Plewes’s advice is to follow your heart. “I always think people have the most fun when they pick a costume from something that’s meaningful to them — and also comfortable,” she says. “I would always personally lean into either a franchise or a movie or something that I really enjoy, because putting the costume together will be more fun that way.”
Ahead, check out Plewes’s tips on how to dress as some of the many characters featured in “Scream 6″‘s subway scene.
Zany and prolific actor Nicolas “Nic” Cage is coming to the asymmetrical survival-horror game Dead By Daylight on July 25. If you know anything about him, you’d expect his voice lines to be unhinged as hell. Well, they’re so unhinged that people on TikTok are marveling at Cage’s dedication to his latest role.
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After leaking earlier this year, developer Behaviour Interactive confirmed that the Cageman would join the game as a Survivor during Summer Game Fest with a reveal trailer. Survivors are one of the many playable characters in the 4v1 asymmetrical horror sim that are laser-focused on getting the hell away from the Killers that hang players on meathooks so they can sacrifice them to an otherworldly entity. Yikes.
At the time, we didn’t get any real idea of how Cage would play his Survivor, though he said it was a “heightened, exaggerated version of a film actor” of the same name. That means it’s wacky and wild, right? Well, yes, but IDK if you’re at all prepared for just how bonkers Cage’s voice lines are in this game. Strap in.
OK, what’s going on? He’s screaming his lungs out, babbling like Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura or something, and singing the infamous Halloween tune as if he’s in an ‘80s hair metal band. Nic Cage also apparently has 185 voice lines in the game. And the one that absolutely takes me out, aside from him doing the Halloween theme, is his character shouting “I’m Nic Fucking Cage” several times. I’d love for him to burst onto a movie scene with this line, just one time.
Nicolas Cage’s silly, and effective, Dead by Daylight perks
According to folks who have opted into the public test build (PTB) of the game through Steam, Nic Cage is the “best Survivor” because of his perks. Not only are they hilarious, but they seem to be pretty effective and offer a chance to drastically change the meta, which can quite often feel a bit stale.
One perk, Scene Partner, activates whenever Cage is within the Killer’s Terror Radius—he’ll comically scream before giving players a chance to see the Killer’s outline for a few seconds. There’s a chance he’ll ridiculously scream again, giving them a longer look at wherever the Killer may be lurking.
Then there’s Plot Twist, an active ability that basically lets players fake their own death—they’ll enter into the “dying state” but won’t leave a trail of blood or let out any whimpers to alert the Killer to their location. Recovering from that fake dying state will fully heal you and temporarily boost your movement speed.
Dramaturgy will turn Cage’s run into a Looney Tunes-esque knee-high canter, increasing movement speed and then randomly enacting one of several effects that could either help or hurt your game (you could be exposed to the Killer, or randomly gain a rare item).
Dead By Daylight streamer SpookyLoopz uploaded a YouTube video on July 5 demonstrating Nic Cage’s character in full. He’s got some pretty funny lore, with the character believing the Dead By Daylight world is part of some film script, and even funnier in-game animations, such as his scream.
SpookyLoopz
“That is Nicolas Cage,” SpookyLoopz said. “The man, the myth, the legend—the first celebrity we’ve ever gotten in [Dead By Daylight]. Super, duper excited for the [character]. […] He’s easily the funniest survivor in the game.”
In a press release announcing Nic Cage’s introduction to Dead By Daylight’s PTB, Behaviour Interactive head of partnerships Mathieu Côté hyped the actor.
“To say we are thrilled to have Nicolas Cage join the gaming world for the first time with Dead by Daylight is an understatement,” said Côté. “Mr. Cage recorded all his voice lines and was involved every step of the way; his dedication to his craft and professionalism is unmatched. We feel very privileged to have him and to our players: you’re in for a treat!”
Behaviour Interactive is also working with Atomic Monster and Blumhouse to turn the game into a film. Maybe the IRL actor will make an appearance in the movie? That would be a pretty meta crossover.
This is a message for the directors: turn your movie musical and comedy scripts over to Jasmin Savoy Brown. The modern scream queen wants to know: “Why the fuck do I keep playing these parts? I guess I’m good at it,” she says, “but I want to do some comedy. Or put me in as Jenna in [a movie of the musical] Waitress.”
It’s uncanny, almost, that Savoy Brown, 29, is ready to leave the horror sphere behind, even as she’s killing it. She’s currently seen battling through the wilderness in Showtime’s Yellowjackets and is set to co-star with Tatiana Maslany in Josh Ruben’s horror film Green Bank. The young actress just gleefully returned for her second appearance in the Scream franchise as Mindy Meeks-Martin, the guts-and-gore-obsessed twin of Mason Gooding’s Chad.
Savoy Brown wasn’t dreaming about starring in horror films in her youth. The California native made up songs in the grocery store and did a lot of musical theater (we spent more than a moment gushing over her favorite musicals, including Memphis, In The Heights, and Come From Away). And while she’s loved being part of Scream—“All three options in a Scream movie are solid. You either die, and it’s going to be an epic death. You survive, and that’s amazing, or you’re the killer. So, no matter which hand I’m dealt, every time I’m happy”—she has critiques for the genre. “I was never interested in horror because it was just so straight and white,” she says. “That’s just not interesting to me, aside from my one white woman show a year, which was Big Little Lies and then The White Lotus.”
Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding in Scream VI.
Philippe Bossé//Paramount
Her character in Scream VI pushes backs on the tropes. Mindy is the first queer role in the franchise, and in the most recent installment, she and her girlfriend Anika have become fan favorites. “Mindy’s queerness has nothing to do with her character arc, and no one cares. It’s such a big deal, because it’s not a big deal at all,” Savoy Brown says. “I love the idea that some people who would not normally interact with a character like myself are now meeting Mindy in that franchise and hopefully in a way that is pleasant for them.”
There is something to be said for taking up space in your workplace as all that you are.”
Savoy Brown also plays a Black lesbian, young Taissa Turner, in Yellowjackets. The significance of that representation is not lost on her, especially as both her most prominent characters share identities she owns. “It’s allowed me the space to not have to hide, even psychologically,” she says. “There is something to be said for taking up space in your workplace as all that you are.”
Currently in its second season, Yellowjackets crashed Showtime with its premiere episode and set record-breaking numbers for the network. The series is set in two timelines: the past, where a high school soccer team’s plane to the national tournament crashes in the Canadian wilderness, and the present, years after the disaster where the events in the wild begin to haunt the remaining survivors. The first season had audiences playing a “did they or didn’t they?” game, as the older version of Savoy Brown’s character (played by Tawny Cypress), ran for public office and was accused of cannibalizing a teammate those years ago.
In season 2, the show gets bloodier and gorier. Audiences—spoiler alert—finally find out a piece of what really happened in those woods. The girls do eat their teammate, Jackie, who died from extreme cold at the end of the first season. While filming the scene, many of the actresses threw up.
Throughout the whole series, the actors are confronted with intense or psychologically damaging situations. To help them film the hardest moments, the show had an on-set intimacy coordinator. “It is a mindfuck to ‘eat’ a person,” Savoy Brown says of filming the nauseating moment, revealing the “flesh” they consumed was actually jackfruit stuffed inside a body-like figure. “If someone got an upset stomach, we’d make fun of them, but then go see if they were okay. But I will never eat jackfruit again.”
Savoy Brown plays young Taissa Turner in Yellowjackets.
Kailey Schwerman
Whether it be her costars, family, friends, or queer comrades, community is at the heart of Savoy Brown’s being. She only has gushing words for her castmates, and spends time talking about how Scream’s Courtney Cox has become a close friend. Her dad was a musician in Philadelphia and gave her a passion for music, something she’s grateful for. She’s released a few singles and plans to release more. Her friend Lucy Dacus has shown her the music world and asked her to star in her recent music video for “Night Shift.” Her Los Angeles supporters helped her with self-tapes and acting workshops. She credits Academy Award winner Regina King, her co-star in The Leftovers, as a major mentor. “She’s just the best person you’ll ever meet,” Savoy Brown says.
As we talk on Zoom, she prioritizes her people once more. She’s currently long-distance with her girlfriend, a relationship she hard-launched on Instagram weeks after our call. Her girlfriend has COVID-19, and Savoy Brown pauses our talk to make sure her gift of get-well-soon dumplings was received. “Community is more important than anything,” she declares, “and having people you can call to send you dumplings when you have COVID.”
Hair by Vernon François for Redken; makeup by Karo Kangas for Westman Atelier; produced by Rhianna Rule.
A version of this story appears in the May 2023 issue of ELLE.
Samuel is the Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief at ELLE Magazine. His interests include music, theater, books, video games, and anything to do with Taylor Swift. He famously broke both his arms at the same time in fourth grade.
For all the promotional hype surrounding the latest installment in the Scream franchise (officially poking fun at itself for having become that) and how it takes place in New York, there is surprisingly little riffing on that fact. Indeed, if one had anticipated that New York might be the “fifth character” (à la Sex and the City) among the self-described “Core Four” in Scream VI (stylized so that the Roman numeral serves as the “M” in the title), they would be sorely mistaken.
To be blunt, the only time we really get a “taste of NYC” is during the clips deliberately accented in the trailer. Apart from those (featuring the requisite “bodega” and “subway” scenes), the closest we get to a sense of place is when Samara Weaving steps in for Drew Barrymore’s (as Casey Becker) memorable opening sequence from the original. Weaving plays Laura Crane, a woman waiting for an app-culled date at some “trendy” bar on “Hudson Street” (not really though—for even that is faked in Montreal). As the two go back and forth about how, essentially, they still feel too “uncool” for New York and places like said bar, they both state that they’ve only been in town for a matter of months. In addition, Laura makes mention of being a Film Studies professor specializing in the slasher genre. Clearly, things really have gotten too niche in our post-post-post-post-post-post-modern world. Particularly in academia (already poked fun of saliently in White Noise). After getting her to believe he’s hopelessly lost and can’t find the restaurant, soon enough, Laura’s “date” is able to lure her outside and into an alley. Of course, it’s not really Laura’s date, and it’s not even really New York either—what with so many locations filmed in Montreal.
This includes one of the other “indelible” New York moments when Samantha “Sam” Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) find themselves cornered in a bodega with the latest Ghostface. Called “Abe’s Snake Bodega” (the dead giveaway of it not being “Real New York” is that it feels the need to add “Bodega” into its name at all), the scene was shot in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood. As were many others doubling as “the greatest city in the world.” Which, as usual, has shown itself to be highly recreatable in [insert other major city here]. And, contrary to popular belief, it’s not because it’s so “indelible” and “unique,” but because it has mutated into its own worst fear: the average metropolis. Something that other major cities haven’t fallen prey to quite so easily. Even San Francisco, for all the talk of the “tech bros” coming in and changing the face of the landscape with their presence, has not succumbed so effortlessly to a generic makeover as New York, particularly Manhattan and most of North Brooklyn (spreading with more and more ease to South Brooklyn and beyond).
The vast majority of these two particular “sects” of New York have been overrun with corporate takeovers touting (unspokenly) how great it is not only to sell the city back to itself at an even higher price, but also how “necessary” it is to present the city with an array of new job opportunities for its burgeoning young workforce (emphasis on the word “young,” because that’s the demographic most willing to bend over for low-wage employment). Sam is ostensibly one of those youths, as Tara is certain to call her out for having two shitty jobs and no other real reason for being in town apart from monitoring her sister with stalker-like precision.
To this point, Tara unwittingly brings up a larger issue about New York: that no one would ever go there without an “ambition.” That to go there “just to be there” is not only unheard of, but rather unhinged (perhaps part of the reason it’s so easy to paint Sam that way). Even as a “la-di-da” artist, it’s unfathomable to arrive in town without some cold, hard “goals.” For, unlike other cities that serve as “artistic havens,” New York isn’t solely about “being an artist” for the mere sake of it. More than any other “bohemia” hotspot, it is a place where you’re not only “supposed to” monetize your art, but where you have to if you want to actually survive without being ejected. And who could possibly want to be exiled from such a “fun” place? Where all worth and value is placed on the money you make (this capitalistic reality being on steroids compared to most other cities). In the alternate version of Scream VI that makes better use of its setting, Ghostface isn’t just out for some petty revenge on any of the remaining characters involved in the “legacy murders.” He’s also got personal beef against all of the pretentious, pseudo-influential fucks roaming the streets trying to “hustle” their so-called talents. Call him Patrick Bateman, but less arbitrary/prone to killing the poorest of the poor (a.k.a. the homeless). This making the randomness of the kills far more rife.
Alas, some would say Kevin Williamson’s original version was never about such a message—with the core of it cutting to what Randy (Jamie Kennedy) said in the 1996 movie: “It’s the millennium. Motives are incidental.” This adding to the “fear factor” of the slasher behind the mask being anyone, at anytime. And yet, “motives” have remained decidedly not incidental for being in New York. In fact, they’ve remained steadfastly the same: you go there to “become” someone. To “make it.” Rarely, if ever, is being there about “disappearing,” as the Carpenter sisters want to do. For, despite the presence of the huddled masses, NYC is among the most visible places a person could “escape to.” Even so, its “singular” visibility (largely contributed to by everyone taking a picture of themselves on every corner where you could potentially be in the background) doesn’t mean it hasn’t long been recreatable in other locations.
And sure, filming in more affordable environments meant to be New York is nothing new. In the 80s and 90s, Chicago easily doubled for “Gotham” (literally, in The Dark Knight’s case), even in a film like Escape From New York—with the city itself built right into the title. What’s more, look at what a series such as Friends did to recreate the town in a prophecy-like manner on a Burbank backlot. Friends, for as eye-rolled at as it is in the present, had a crystal ball-like use in foreseeing just how increasingly generic the city would become. This, in large part, thanks to stamping out all traces of the very populations that once made it unique with a little phenomenon called “eugenics of the poor.” And pretty much everyone is poor when they live in New York. The Carpenter sisters included. In effect, it has become easier and easier to bill the city as Anywhere, USA (or, in this instance, Anywhere, Canada) because it has lost all sense of the “personal touches” that once made it stand apart from garden-variety corporate infiltration.
Even NYU has something of the “corporate effect” on the city it profits from. To that end, the university name “Blackmore” (where Tara attends)—actually Montreal’s McGill University—could very well be a dig at NYU needing to up its Black person “quota.” As for other set design details intended to “serve” New York, the use of a Chock Full o’Nuts ad at a reconstructed subway station reads, “Hipsters Like It. But Drink It Anyway.” This, of course, is meant to lend greater “authenticity” to an ersatz New York, despite the reality that “hipster” is a word that has been rendered so oversaturated that it has become meaningless and irrelevant…almost like New York itself. Another notable “subtlety” that actually has nothing to do with New York is a sign that reads, “Le Domas Financial Group.” This name being too much of a coincidence not to apply to the family moniker in Ready or Not, starring none other than the woman playing the first to be killed: Samara Weaving. But, more to the point, Scream (2022) and Scream VI’s co-directors, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett also directed Ready or Not. Just as the co-screenwriters of Scream (2022) and Scream VI, Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt, also co-wrote Ready or Not. And yes, James is a member of that illustriously moneyed New York family, the Vanderbilts (no wonder he wrote a script like Ready or Not). So perhaps the transition to NYC as the latest Scream location was his idea.
Whoever determined the “change-up” environment, one must ask: what was really the purpose of setting Scream VI in New York? Especially if the movie wasn’t going to maximize the erstwhile “uniqueness” of the town to its utmost. After all, a subway scene can be done in any major city (even L.A.). The same goes for filming in darkened streets and alleys. Scream VI proved that much by shooting in Montreal. Where more indelible landmarks, like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler Building, etc. (all ideal locations for a stabbing, by the way) can’t be so effortlessly remade “in a pinch” as subway stations and a bodega. To be fair, Scream VI offered a token scene of the Carpenter sisters briefly walking around in “Central Park.” After all, that’s where the movie poster embeds the image of Ghostface’s screaming visage with an overhead shot of the park’s greenery and repositioned lakes. Nonetheless, with a tagline like “New York. New Rules,” one might have been expecting slightly more dependency on the location.
Admittedly, however, Scream is never really about location. The fact that it began in an Anywhere, USA type of town was meant to highlight that—in addition to providing the chilling idea that “nowhere is safe” (something coronavirus has made good on repeatedly since 2020)—the biggest freaks can so often live outside of major metropolises. But, as for the concept of nowhere being safe, that’s something that’s long been alive and well in NYC—at a zenith in the 1970s, complete with a pamphlet warning tourists, “Welcome to Fear City.” Indeed, the reaper-esque image that appears on the cover of the pamphlet could easily pass for Ghostface himself (call it another botched chance to pay much of any real homage to the city in which Scream VI takes place). And, to be candid, the lily-livered snowflakes who turn out to be Ghostface in Scream VI would have no chance of not getting stabbed themselves in that era that can now be referred to as Pre-Generic New York.
As Halloween approaches, it’s time to get those horror movie marathons going. From old school classics to modern takes on beloved franchises, there are so many scary movies that deserve a spot in your rotation. Horror films are well-trodden territory, and the actors who star in them are undeniably connected to their success. It wouldn’t quite be The Shining without Jack Nicholson as the chilling Jack Torrance, nor would it be The Silence of the Lambs without Anthony Hopkins as enigmatic serial killer Hannibal Lecter. But imagine if your favorite horror movies’ iconic villains were played by completely different actors. Believe it or not, that was a real possibility.
Casting a feature film is a long process — sometimes, an actor even ends up with a different role than the one they auditioned for. Other times, an actor just might not be the right fit for a project, no matter how good their audition was. Horror films are no different, and finding the right performer for a villainous role can be tricky. Playing the Big Bad in a potentially successful horror flick can propel an actor’s career forward, but the actor risks becoming typecast as solely an antagonist. It’s important to find a dynamic actor who can send a chill down the audience’s spine without going over the top.
It may be hard to fully grasp an alternate universe where different actors haunt horror favorites such as Scream and American Psycho, but this was almost the case. Here are 10 well-known actors who almost played famous horror movie villains.
10 Famous Actors Who Almost Played Iconic Horror Villains
These movies would have looked a lot different if these famous actors had been cast as their villains.
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