Two of the most defining horror movies of the ’90s are The Craft and Scream, which both happened to star Neve Campbell. Now starring in Netflix’s House of Cards, the actress revealed to Entertainment Weekly what it’s like to look back on those roles and what the films represent to millions of fans.
In The Craft, Campbell played Bonnie, a girl who had been burned in a fire, resulting in much of her body being covered in scars. Thanks to her friendship with other high school outcasts, they learned to channel their energy through the use of witchcraft to get revenge on anyone who stood in their way.
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“I went to a 20-year reunion screening of The Craft at the Hollywood Cemetery last year, with Rachel True and Robin Tunney, and Andy Fleming, our director,” explained Campbell. “It was pretty insane. Everyone was in costumes โ wearing our school uniforms and getting a little drunk. Having a lot of fun, screaming the lines at the screen. I don’t think I had ever realized what a cult kind of movie it was. What a cult classic it was. So that was a lot of fun to see.”
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The film was only a modest success at the time, but in subsequent years, earned itself a legion of fans, thanks to the film focusing on female characters who banded together when the popular crowd deemed them unworthy. Granted, the girls use their powers for their own selfish deeds, but compared to the many male fantasies dominating the horror world in the ’90s, The Craft was a welcome change.
Scream, on the other hand, was quick to usher in a new wave of smarter, self-referential slashers, but while filming, the cast was still unaware that lightning had been captured in a bottle.
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“Scream was an absolute blast. We shot in Santa Rosa, California, outside of San Francisco, for a summer,” the actress explained. “None of us really thought it’d be huge. We had no idea. We knew the script was good, but we would literally sit together at night after long days, covered in blood, and we’d say, ‘Do you think that maybe there might be a Halloween costume?’ Twenty years later, I still see them.”
In addition to redefining the expectations of the horror genre, Scream also went on to score multiple sequels and even a TV show on MTV. Campbell starred in all four of the theatrical installments, with no announced plans for a new film.