Editorials
Everybody’s a Suspect: Meet the New Generation Cast and Characters of ‘Scream’!
Ghostface, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), and Dewey Riley (David Arquette) are all back in the new Scream, arriving in theaters on January 14, 2022. So, too, is original screenwriter Kevin Williamson, this time as executive producer. But the trailer makes it clear that fans can expect a new generation to get brought into the bloody fold, including directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett.
Last year, Bloody Disgusting spoke to the new cast while production was still underway. True to franchise form, secrecy was of topmost priority- even the idea of sharing a single detail about their characters induced instant panic. Between the incomplete scripts and the scripts with multiple endings, the cast was kept in the dark as to Ghostface’s identity, adding a new meta layer to the shoot. All of this to say that if you’re worried about spoilers, you’ll find none here; the cast had none to give.
One thing is clear, though: everybody’s a suspect.
Let’s meet the new Scream generation and listen to their experiences on set.
Mason Gooding (Chad)
Mason Gooding (“Chad”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s Scream.
“Well, I can tell you that my character’s name is Chad. He’s a high school football player. He’s American, and he’s probably blood type O negative because I am,” Gooding shares.
On working with Radio Silence and not knowing the ending: “They’re incredibly secretive and dedicated to making sure that it’s a new and unseen experience for the fans because the worst feeling is walking into a movie, knowing how it’s going to play out. Rather than allowing that to happen, they make our lives as actors super interesting by not necessarily divulging certain levels of information. We operate under the ethos that everyone is a suspect rather than everyone’s innocent. It’s a very interesting and engaging sort of a format to tell a story.”
Kyle Gallner (Vince)
Kyle Gallner (“Vince”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s Scream.
“Yeah, I’m not going to be able to give you much more than that either, man. I play Vince. I’m a guy around town in Woodsboro.”
Gallner adds to Gooding’s thoughts on the production’s secrecy, “The main reason why that can work is it’s being shot pretty sequentially. That’s how it’s able to live in that world. They’re shooting it, pretty much in order, a lot of it.”
Sonia Ammar (Liv)
Sonia Ammar (“Liv”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s Scream.
“I’m Sonia Ammar, and I play Liv. I’m part of the new group of new characters to join the franchise and the legacy characters. And that’s all I can say.”
Ammar also has effusive praise for the directors. “They have such a great energy and excitement, and they have the uttermost respect and admiration for Wes Craven and the legacy that he has left behind with these films, and they just really want to pay homage to it, but bring a fresh take to it.”
Jenna Ortega (Tara)
Jenna Ortega (“Tara”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s Scream.
Ortega was too afraid to reveal anything: “I don’t know how much I could say. I’m scared even to say my name. Compared to my last characters, I feel like I tend to play hard people who come off as bitchy sometimes. I don’t know. I think my character is cool, and I relate to her a lot in my personal life.
“I love horror. I love this franchise. Obviously, its self-awareness is impeccable. And just the fact that we’re given the opportunity to build on top and become a part of this immaculate world that Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson and they’ve all created is such an honor. And I think I’ve said it before, but this film, I truly believe, is just such a great fit, and I cannot wait to show everybody what we’ve been creating because it’s pretty awesome.”
Melissa Barrera (Sam)
Melissa Barrera (“Sam”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s Scream.
“We’re not allowed to tell you a lot because we’ll get in trouble, but I can tell you that I play Sam, and we’re definitely a new generation of characters.”
“It is my first time in a horror film. Do you know what’s so funny? I never thought that I would ever do a horror film in my life. I’m a scaredy-cat. I love watching horror movies, but I then can’t sleep for two weeks. All my assumptions of what it was to do a horror movie were completely wrong because this is probably one of the most fun, most chill sets that I’ve ever been on. And it’s just been an incredible experience. I’m so honored that I get to be in Scream.”
Jack Quaid (Richie)
Jack Quaid (“Richie”) and Melissa Barrera (“Sam”) star in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s Scream.
“Oh, man. Sorry, we’re all very paranoid just because the thrill of Scream is knowing absolutely nothing. So, I’ll start by saying, my name is Richie, and Richie looks like me,” Quaid quips on the secrecy.
Quaid reflected on his continued streak of choosing very bloody projects: “I did a movie called Tragedy Girls, which was a horror-comedy, and I’m no stranger to copious amounts of blood in my projects. So, it feels like I’m coming back home in a lot of ways.”
Dylan Minnette (Wes Hicks)
Dylan Minnette (“Wes”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s Scream.
Like his fellow castmates, Minnette was afraid even to utter his character’s name. Luckily, returning player Marley Shelton revealed that he plays her teen son Wes, likely a sweet nod to Wes Craven.
“It’s so surreal to share a screen with these people and to be talking about Ghostface on camera,” Minnette reveals.
Jasmin Savoy Brown (Mindy)
Jasmin Savoy Brown (“Mindy”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s Scream.
“Speaking for myself, being a queer woman of color and getting to be my full self on screen in my character is cool, especially in this world, with such great writing and directing. None of our characters feel like tropes; they feel like fully realized people,” Brown offers of her character.
As for the set’s confidentiality? “There’s a lot of different versions of the ending, and no one knows what’s real,” she says.
Mikey Madison (Amber)
Mikey Madison (“Amber”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s Scream.
“This is my first horror film, which is crazy because horror is one of my favorite genres. What an incredible first horror movie to do. Production has been really careful in making sure there are no leaks. I think the secrecy adds suspense as well,” Madison cryptically adds.
Based on the trailer and first look images, though, Amber appears to be friends with Tara and perhaps a bit suspicious, too.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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