Editorials
Immaculate Scream Queen: Sydney Sweeney’s Most Horrific Roles
In every generation, there is a scream queen–an actress known for starring in horror films who comes to embody the genre landscape of her time. From Janet Leigh and her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis, Sarah Michelle Gellar to Maika Monroe, these women often originate a beloved character or star in a variety of cutting edge films, pushing the boundaries as cinema evolves.
The jury’s still out on which Gen Z actress will ascend to the scream queen throne, but Sydney Sweeney is making a strong case for her legacy. Though not exclusively known for horror, this versatile actress specializes in creating fearsome characters that break the mold set by her predecessors. With her wide eyes and angelic smile, Sweeney has a knack for luring us in with the perception of innocence only to shock us with a cutting remark or withering glare.
In Immaculate, Sweeney enters the taboo world of pregnancy horror with her most challenging character to date. Cecilia is a young novitiate whose path to becoming a nun is derailed by the discovery that she may be carrying the child of God in her womb. Directed by Michael Mohan, the film is a blood-soaked battle between good and evil with Cecilia trapped somewhere in between.
Yet Sweeney excels in this type of ambiguity, often blindsiding audiences with a villainous turn or devastating death. She’s spent the last 15 years deconstructing her girl next door persona with an impressive resume boasting horrific roles from film and television of all genres. In anticipation of Immaculate, Bloody Disgusting has compiled her most terrifying turns — even outside of the genre.
Alice – The Ward (2010)
Sweeney’s acting career was born out of horror. Her first film credit was a small role in the 2009 horror comedy ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, followed by a handful of scary shorts and appearances on Heroes and Criminal Minds. In 2010, however, Sweeney nabbed a role in The Ward, John Carpenter’s eagerly anticipated return to the director’s chair. Sweeney plays a small but pivotal role as a younger version of the film’s supernatural threat through periodic flashbacks that find her chained in a dirty basement. Sweeney makes the most out of a limited role and demonstrates an uncanny ability to dance between the boundaries of villain and victim. As a captive, she is clearly no threat, but her disarming eyes hint at a lurking malevolence just waiting to emerge.
Emaline – Everything Sucks! (2018)
Sweeney would spend the next eight years building a name for herself in film and TV, appearing in B-movies like Spiders and Held while booking guest spots on prominent shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Pretty Little Liars. In 2018, Sweeney landed a major role in the Netflix series Everything Sucks! created by Ben York Jones and Immaculate director Michael Mohan. Set in 1996, this quirky series follows high school freshman Luke (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) and his fellow AV Club members as they feud with older students from the Drama Club. Sweeney plays Emaline, a vicious mean girl who dedicates her life to taking Luke and his nerdy friends down. As the outwardly hostile but inwardly frightened girl, Sweeney brings both heart and relatability to Emaline, essentially laying out the blueprint that leads to her international stardom.
Ashley – Along Came the Devil (2018)
This year also saw Sweeney star in more traditional horror fare with Jason DeVan’s horror film Along Came the Devil. Sweeney leads the cast as Ashely, a young teen recently removed from the home of her abusive father. With her sister off to college and her mother long dead, Ashley moves in with her Aunt Tanya (Jessica Barth) and reconnects with childhood friends. While trying to impress her new classmates, Ashley takes part in a reckless séance and inadvertently opens the door for an evil force. As the demonic entity takes possession of her body, Ashley begins to act with violence and profanity. The film itself is a standard possession story, but Sweeney is a bright spot as the tormented victim and practices the sweetly devilish charm she would go on to perfect in future roles.
Eden – The Handmaid’s Tale (2018)
Sweeney followed this starring turn with a memorable role on one of TV’s buzziest shows. Season two of The Handmaid’s Tale introduces Eden, a devout child bride forced to marry a man she barely knows. As an Econowife, she’s been raised to believe she exists to serve her husband and bear his children, abandoning her own desires to fulfill God’s purpose for her life. But regardless of intention, this teenager finds herself drawn to a cute boy who gives her the affection her aloof husband will not. She engages in a romantic dalliance and winds up paying a steep price for the crime of infidelity. Betrayed by her own father, Eden is publicly executed when she refuses to “renounce her sin.” This quiet act of courage and defiance sparks similar rebellion in the dehumanized women forced to watch her drown. Sweeney may play an innocent character, but her shocking death remains one of the show’s most upsetting and horrific moments.
Alice – Sharp Objects (2018)
In addition to this memorable role, Sweeney would make a brief but pivotal appearance in another of the year’s most talked about shows. Like its name foretells, HBO’s Sharp Objects is an unflinching adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s debut novel and a jaw-dropping exploration of self-harm and addiction. Sweeney appears in a series of flashbacks that serve as a reference point for Camille (Amy Adams), the story’s troubled protagonist. Roommates in a residential treatment center, Alice and Camille quickly bond over music and a shared understanding of the overwhelming desire to mutilate their own bodies. Tragically, Camille discovers Alice’s lifeless body moments after drinking drain cleaner. Consumed with shock and grief, Camille desperately tries to slit her wrists with a loose screw from a nearby toilet as hospital staff wrestle her to safety. It’s a brutal moment.
Snake – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
Sweeney’s next high profile role would be a small part in one of the most exciting films of 2019: Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is a revisionist history of 1969 Hollywood that garnered 10 Oscar nominations and two wins. Sweeney plays Snake, a younger member of the deadly Manson Family cult who’ve laid claim to Spahn Ranch on the outskirts of town. Looking out from a dirty screen door, Snake exudes menace even though we don’t yet know the true nature of the group’s plans. Sweeney’s character is loosely based on a real life member of the Manson family, Dianne Lake, who spent two years with Manson and testified against a number of his followers. Sweeney doesn’t do anything overtly evil in this minimal role, but her seductive and confronting eyes are enough to tell us that something is very wrong on the grounds of Spahn Ranch.
Juliet – Nocturne (2020)
Sweeney’s next feature film appearance would be in a leading role. Following her breakout portrayal of Cassie Howard in Sam Levinson’s Euphoria, the actress starred as Juliet in Nocturne, the fourth installment in Amazon Studios’ Welcome to Blumhouse series. Overshadowed by her more talented sister, Juliet begins to have sinister visions when she stumbles on a cryptic notebook related to the death of a fellow student. This faustian horror film follows Juliet through betrayal and violence as she weighs love for her twin sister with an overwhelming desire for perfection. In a villainous yet relatable performance, Sweeney shows that she can maintain the audience’s sympathies while doing the most despicable things.
Olivia – The White Lotus (2021)
Sweeney’s appearance on HBO’s The White Lotus would solidify her status as one of Hollywood’s most versatile young stars. Olivia is a privileged college student on a Hawaiian vacation with her ultra-wealthy businesswoman mother and 2nd generation famous father. Dubbed the “scariest girls on TV,” she and her friend Paula (Brittany O’Grady) spend their days doing drugs and eviscerating fellow guests with sharp words and thinly veiled insults. But a rift forms between the cynical friends when Paula begins sleeping with a hunky member of the staff. No longer the center of attention, Olivia vows revenge and begins subtly torturing her friend with snide comments and viscous barbs. Though never outright dangerous, Olivia wields her unearned power like a knife and doesn’t hesitate to cut those around her to smithereens.
Reality Winner – Reality (2023)
Hoping to take her career in an unexpected direction, Sweeney auditioned and fought for the titular role in Tina Satter’s unsettling HBO docu-drama Reality. We first meet Sweeney’s Reality Winner as she watches news coverage of James Comey’s termination from her desk at a military contracting organization. Later, she’s surprised at home by FBI agents with a warrant to search her apartment for evidence that she leaked a classified document proving Russian interference with the 2016 election. The real Winner, a former U.S. Air Force veteran and NSA translator, would go on to serve more than five years in federal prison, the steepest sentence ever given to an American whistleblower. Satter’s film is based largely on transcripts of a conversation recorded as Winner is taken into custody, reminding us that this woman portrayed in the news as a criminal mastermind is in actuality a relatable 25 year old just trying to be a good citizen. Of all Sweeney’s terrifying roles, this may be the most horrific simply because every bit of the nerve-wracking story is true.
Cassie Howard – Euphoria (2019 to Present)
When we first meet Cassie Howard on the debut season of Euphoria, she’s a sweet girl longing for the father she lost to substance abuse. Dating a college football player, she faces her share of heartbreak, but the ingénue takes a devious turn in the Season 2 premiere when she begins sleeping with her best friend’s ex. Carrying this secret for much of the season, Cassie explodes when she watches a recreation of her most painful moments unfold on stage as the subject of her sister’s school play. With her relationship in shambles and nothing left to lose, Cassie walks down the aisle on a kamikaze mission to ruin the performance and humiliate her younger sister in return. Though not a villainous character, Cassie becomes an unpredictable and catastrophic force in this combustible friend group. There’s no telling what her self-destructive eyes will fall on next and who will suffer in the collateral damage
Photo Credit: Fabian Lavino courtesy of NEON
In the 15 years since her first screen credit, Sweeney has perfected the art of deceptive horror. Whether bringing fear to innocuous comedies or playing compelling victims in outright horror, Sweeney constantly keeps us guessing in one uniquely shocking role after another. Her magnetic turn as a pregnant nun in Immaculate is both the culmination of a long journey through the horror genre and an exciting harbinger of roles to come. With two upcoming thrillers currently in post-production and Season 3 of Euphoria due in 2025, it seems the chameleonic actress will likely be surprising us with more horrific roles for the foreseeable future.
Witness unholy horror. IMMACULATE starring Sydney Sweeney is in theaters this Friday. Get tickets now.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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