Scream 5 Star Reveals Why She Was Able To Breathe A ‘Big Sigh Of Relief’ After Meeting Neve Campbell For The First Time

Melissa Barrera in Scream
(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

In less than a month, Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott will return to Woodsboro for  Scream 5 (or simply Scream). The first movie from the slasher franchise in over a decade will also see Courtney Cox’s Gale Weathers, David Arquette’s Dewey Riley and Marley Shelton’s Deputy Judy Hicks all back for the upcoming movie, alongside a massive cast of fresh faces including Jack Quaid, Dylan Minnette and Melissa Barrera. One has to wonder what it’s like to step into the franchise as a new addition alongside the original actors. Apparently though, one star received a "big sigh of relief" early on from Neve Campbell.

Melissa Barrera gave an apt description of the feeling. The 31-year-old actress, who recently found a breakout movie role with In The Heights, shared her own experience meeting Neve Campbell. In her words: 

The amazing Neve Campbell said about our cast, when we all kind of met together for the first time and had dinner, was that this cast seemed most like the original cast from the first film. Which that to us was such a big sigh of relief.

Talk about a compliment! As Melissa Barrera shared to Entertainment Tonight, the veteran actress placed her nerves to rest when she said that she felt like the Scream 5 cast was as close to the original cast from the very first movie than she’d ever seen on other installments. In other words, Barrera and her castmates were majorly blessed by the scream queen at the center of this beloved franchise. 

In the upcoming movie, the up-and-coming actress plays a character named Sam Carpenter, who has a younger sister in Jenna Ortega’s Tara Carpenter. As the trailer shows, Tara is the victim of one of the attacks by Ghostface, who is once again haunting the town of Woodsboro, 25 years after the streak began.  

Courteney Cox and Neve Campbell in Scream

(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

After a string of attacks, Sidney, Gale and Dewey return to their hometown to eliminate the masked murderer once again. And once again the question hanging upon Woodsboro is who is the killer? As the trailer shows, the connection is that the attacks are all on people related to the original killers, calling to question who this Ghostface could be. You can read up about the previous characters behind the moniker and make your own assumptions ahead of the movie. 

This installment of Scream is the first not to be directed by the legendary Wes Craven, following his death in 2015. This time, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet are helming, after previously making 2019’s Ready Or Not. Gillett recently shared that he felt that the screenwriters (James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick) found a “real reason” for the new movie to exist and believes there is “more gas in the tank.” So it’s possible this movie could spawn more for the franchise, if the fans love it. 

Scream hits theaters on January 14, 2022. Check out what other movies are hitting theaters this upcoming year with CinemaBlend’s 2022 new movie release schedule

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.