Neve Campbell ‘Had A Good Cry’ While Filming ‘Scream’ 5

The fifth film in the “Scream” franchise has finally hit theaters, and fans are excited to see Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette reunite on screen again.

Although “Scream” filmmaker Wes Craven passed away in 2015, horror directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have carried the torch to bring “Scream” back to a new generation.

In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Neve Campbell, who plays Sidney Prescott, sat down to talk about what it was like coming home to Woodsboro.

When the “Party of Five” actress stepped back onto the “Scream” set, she described the experience as “emotional.”

“I certainly felt Wes's absence, and at the same time, I clearly felt his presence,” she continued.

“Every time I walk on these movies I feel his presence, and his power, and his input, and his influence, and everything he did to make these movies amazing,” she added.

“Also, I don't think it's a giveaway to say that we do return to the original house, so to walk onto that set,” she explained. “It blew my mind because the set decorators did an incredible job; it's identical. It was petty surreal, at the time 24 years later, to walk into that house.”

She added, “I think Courteney, David, and I each individually had a good cry when we walked onto that set. I mean, these movies meant a lot. The very first experience was so much fun and meant so much to all of us in many ways. So, yeah, everything came flooding back.”

Although they didn’t have Wes Craven, Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first two films in the franchise, was overseeing the film as an executive producer. Campbell revealed that Williamson “certainly had something to say about the script.”

“Everyone was very open to the old cast giving our opinions and our thoughts on our characters because we've spent the most amount of time with them,” she added. “It was a good process for all of us.”

“I thought it was really good,” Campbell said of the script itself. “I thought it was tight. I thought it was funny again and scary again.”

She added that the directors “really wanted to honor Wes's legacy and do right by him, and that meant a great deal. I think they've done an incredible job, and I think they've elevated certain things in their own way as well. There's just no ego, which is lovely. They're such a pleasure to work with.”

The “House of Cards” actress also revealed how she felt after she watched the finished film for the first time.

“I was really, really happy and really excited and relieved, to be honest,” she said. “I had a sense that it was going to be good, and I knew how much the directors were excited to make it, and I know how good the script is, and I knew the actors were doing a good job, but you still never know, right? So I was very excited.”

When asked if there are even more “Scream” films in the works, Campbell didn’t give a definitive answer, but she seemed to indicate that the directors would be happy to come back if the film received a warm reception.

“I think they'd like to,” she said. “I think they would very much like to. I think that was the intent with this. So let's see how it does.”

Most reviews for the film have been pretty positive, considering it’s the fifth installment in a franchise that started back in 1996.

Critics gave the film a 75% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences gave the film a rating of 83%.

Olly Richards of Time Out called the movie, “Inventive, incisive and full of affection for the originals, this is easily the most fun the series has been since Scream 2.”

Esther Zuckerman of Thrillist wrote, “The challenge for any Scream movie is whether it can comment on tropes while still subverting them, and 2022’s incarnation succeeds by tossing a cheeky middle finger to its fans but still lovingly embracing them.”

Peter Travers of ABC news wrote, “Way fiercer and funnier than a fourth sequel has any right to be. Here’s ‘Scream’ for a new generation – so self-aware that it mocks itself for relying on borrowed inspiration while squeezing the golden goose for one last payoff.”

“Scream 5” is currently available to watch in theaters.