Going back to the heyday of Fay Wray, “scream queens” have been a staple of horror cinema. From Psycho’s Janet Leigh to her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis, the “scream queen” canon is full of legendary female actors renowned for their frequent appearances in scary movies. The elevated horror gems and self-aware satires of the 2010s added a few new names to the “scream queen” directory, like Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch), Maika Monroe (It Follows), and Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day). This year, with the triple whammy of Scream, Studio 666, and X, a new scream queen has joined the roster: Jenna Ortega.Ortega has been appearing in horror films for almost a decade. She played a small early-career supporting role in Insidious: Chapter 2 and later played a larger part in the Netflix horror-comedy sequel The Babysitter: Killer Queen. Ortega has been building up an impressive acting résumé for years now, but memorable turns in three rapid-fire early 2022 horror hits have catapulted the young performer to new levels of stardom.While her roles in the Insidious and Babysitter franchises had already technically earned her the title of “scream queen,” Ortega didn’t truly join the canon and rub shoulders with Wray, Leigh, and Curtis until starring in Scream, Studio 666, and X earlier this year. Thanks to these three movies (one of which has a sequel on the way), Ortega has a bright future in the horror genre.
The Triple Whammy Of Scream, Studio 666, and X
The fifth Scream movie – dubbed a “requel” by the film itself – was Ortega’s first head-turning horror role of the year. Melissa Barrera is the star of the movie as Sam Carpenter, the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis, but Ortega is just as memorable in the role of Sam’s younger sister, Tara, who acts as a sort of secondary “final girl.” 2022’s Scream opens the same way as almost every other Scream movie – with Ghostface terrorizing a home-alone murder target on a landline – but Tara manages to survive this attack, instantly establishing herself as one of the Scream universe’s most badass protagonists. As a result of this opening ambush, Tara is confined to a hospital bed for most of the movie, but she manages to recover in time to kick some Ghostface butt alongside Sidney Prescott in the finale.
After Scream became a big enough box office success to revitalize the franchise, Ortega next popped up in Studio 666. Based on a story by Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Studio 666 stars Grohl and his bandmates as themselves. They rent out an Encino mansion to work on their 10th album and end up contending with a demonic presence. The blood-soaked history of the house is established in a terrifying ‘90s-set opening scene in which Ortega cameos as Skye Willow, the lead singer of a rock band called Dream Widow. This opening scene plays like a little slasher movie of its own as Skye and her bandmates are slaughtered one by one by their hammer-wielding frontman.
Following her appearances in Scream and Studio 666, Ortega showed up in arguably her best horror film of the year thus far: Ti West’s subversive slasher X. Described as “Texas Chainsaw meets Boogie Nights,” X tells the ‘70s-era tale of a group of indie porn producers being picked off in gruesome fashion by the ultra-conservative, sexually repressed elderly couple from whom they rented their filming location. The writer, director, and cinematographer of the porno, RJ, hopes to make the first truly artful, cinematic dirty movie. Ortega plays RJ’s girlfriend, Lorraine, who initially just comes along to hold the boom.
Lorraine’s role in X is one of the movie’s sharpest deconstructions of slasher tropes. After observing a couple of scenes, Lorraine asks for a role and sends RJ into a jealous rage with an on-camera affair. Lorraine initially embodies the “final girl” archetype as the innocent, monogamous boom operator, then dooms herself with the “sex equals death” rule by shooting a scene for The Farmer’s Daughters. Moments after her scene is wrapped, Lorraine finds herself trapped in the farmhouse’s creepy basement.
Every time the audience thinks Lorraine is home free, one of the killers comes along to get her. This basement sequence pays off the teaser in the opening flash-forward with the reveal of what horrified the sheriff – and, in true “scream queen” style, Ortega nails Lorraine’s horrified reaction. She swings an axe at the door like Jack Torrance, then when she’s reaching for the lock on the other side, her hand is broken by the butt of a shotgun. When Maxine opens the door and Lorraine frantically runs out onto the porch, she takes a shotgun blast to the chest. Mia Goth gives the most unforgettable performance in the movie with dual roles as final girl Maxine Minx and geriatric killer Pearl, but Ortega’s turn as Lorraine is a close second.
The New Wednesday Addams
Ortega isn’t done telling tales of the macabre in 2022. She’s also been cast as Wednesday Addams in an upcoming spin-off series that will release later this year on Netflix. Spearheaded by gothic visionary Tim Burton, Wednesday is described as a coming-of-age mystery series set during her tenure as a high school student at Nevermore Academy. The show will co-star Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, Luis Guzmán as Gomez, and Ortega’s Wednesday predecessor Christina Ricci in an undisclosed role.
Throughout the series, Wednesday will grapple with her supernatural powers, prevent a paranormal killing spree, and investigate a decades-old mystery involving her family, while trying to make friends with her classmates. After three standout horror performances in this year alone, it’ll be interesting to see what Ortega does with the iconic role of Wednesday Addams (especially under the direction of a seasoned auteur like Burton).