In each era, there’s a scream queen–an actress identified for starring in horror movies who involves embody the style panorama of her time. From Janet Leigh and her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis, Sarah Michelle Gellar to Maika Monroe, these girls typically originate a beloved character or star in quite a lot of leading edge movies, pushing the boundaries as cinema evolves.
The jury’s nonetheless out on which Gen Z actress will ascend to the scream queen throne, however Sydney Sweeney is making a robust case for her legacy. Although not solely identified for horror, this versatile actress makes a speciality of creating fearsome characters that break the mildew set by her predecessors. Along with her huge eyes and angelic smile, Sweeney has a knack for luring us in with the notion of innocence solely to shock us with a slicing comment or withering glare.
In Immaculate, Sweeney enters the taboo world of being pregnant horror along with her most difficult character so far. Cecilia is a younger novitiate whose path to changing into a nun is derailed by the invention that she could also be carrying the kid of God in her womb. Directed by Michael Mohan, the movie is a blood-soaked battle between good and evil with Cecilia trapped someplace in between.
But Sweeney excels in this kind of ambiguity, typically blindsiding audiences with a villainous flip or devastating dying. She’s spent the final 15 years deconstructing her woman subsequent door persona with a formidable resume boasting horrific roles from movie and tv of all genres. In anticipation of Immaculate, Bloody Disgusting has compiled her most terrifying turns — even exterior of the style.
Alice – The Ward (2010)
Sweeney’s appearing profession was born out of horror. Her first movie credit score was a small function within the 2009 horror comedy ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, adopted by a handful of scary shorts and appearances on Heroes and Prison Minds. In 2010, nevertheless, Sweeney nabbed a task in The Ward, John Carpenter’s eagerly anticipated return to the director’s chair. Sweeney performs a small however pivotal function as a youthful model of the movie’s supernatural menace via periodic flashbacks that discover her chained in a unclean basement. Sweeney makes essentially the most out of a restricted function and demonstrates an uncanny capacity to bounce between the boundaries of villain and sufferer. As a captive, she is clearly no menace, however her disarming eyes trace at a lurking malevolence simply ready to emerge.
Emaline – Every part Sucks! (2018)
Sweeney would spend the following eight years constructing a reputation for herself in movie and TV, showing in B-movies like Spiders and Held whereas reserving visitor spots on distinguished reveals like Gray’s Anatomy and Fairly Little Liars. In 2018, Sweeney landed a serious function within the Netflix collection Every part Sucks! created by Ben York Jones and Immaculate director Michael Mohan. Set in 1996, this quirky collection follows highschool freshman Luke (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) and his fellow AV Membership members as they feud with older college students from the Drama Membership. Sweeney performs Emaline, a vicious imply woman who dedicates her life to taking Luke and his nerdy pals down. Because the outwardly hostile however inwardly frightened woman, Sweeney brings each coronary heart and relatability to Emaline, basically laying out the blueprint that results in her worldwide stardom.
Ashley – Alongside Got here the Satan (2018)
This yr additionally noticed Sweeney star in additional conventional horror fare with Jason DeVan’s horror movie Alongside Got here the Satan. Sweeney leads the forged as Ashely, a younger teen not too long ago faraway from the house of her abusive father. Along with her sister off to varsity and her mom lengthy lifeless, Ashley strikes in along with her Aunt Tanya (Jessica Barth) and reconnects with childhood pals. Whereas making an attempt to impress her new classmates, Ashley takes half in a reckless séance and inadvertently opens the door for an evil drive. Because the demonic entity takes possession of her physique, Ashley begins to behave with violence and profanity. The movie itself is a regular possession story, however Sweeney is a shiny spot because the tormented sufferer and practices the sweetly devilish attraction she would go on to excellent in future roles.
Eden – The Handmaid’s Story (2018)
Sweeney adopted this starring flip with a memorable function on one in all TV’s buzziest reveals. Season two of The Handmaid’s Story introduces Eden, a religious youngster bride compelled to marry a person she barely is aware of. As an Econowife, she’s been raised to imagine she exists to serve her husband and bear his kids, abandoning her personal needs to meet God’s goal for her life. However no matter intention, this teenager finds herself drawn to a cute boy who provides her the love her aloof husband won’t. She engages in a romantic dalliance and winds up paying a steep worth for the crime of infidelity. Betrayed by her personal father, Eden is publicly executed when she refuses to “resign her sin.” This quiet act of braveness and defiance sparks related rise up within the dehumanized girls compelled to look at her drown. Sweeney could play an harmless character, however her stunning dying stays one of many present’s most upsetting and horrific moments.
Alice – Sharp Objects (2018)
Along with this memorable function, Sweeney would make a quick however pivotal look in one other of the yr’s most talked about reveals. Like its identify foretells, HBO’s Sharp Objects is an unflinching adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s debut novel and a jaw-dropping exploration of self-harm and habit. Sweeney seems in a collection of flashbacks that function a reference level for Camille (Amy Adams), the story’s troubled protagonist. Roommates in a residential remedy heart, Alice and Camille rapidly bond over music and a shared understanding of the overwhelming need to mutilate their very own our bodies. Tragically, Camille discovers Alice’s lifeless physique moments after consuming drain cleaner. Consumed with shock and grief, Camille desperately tries to slit her wrists with a unfastened screw from a close-by rest room as hospital employees wrestle her to security. It’s a brutal second.
Snake – As soon as Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
Sweeney’s subsequent excessive profile function can be a small half in one of the vital thrilling movies of 2019: Quentin Tarantino’s As soon as Upon a Time… in Hollywood is a revisionist historical past of 1969 Hollywood that garnered 10 Oscar nominations and two wins. Sweeney performs Snake, a youthful member of the lethal Manson Household cult who’ve laid declare to Spahn Ranch on the outskirts of city. Looking from a unclean display screen door, Snake exudes menace though we don’t but know the true nature of the group’s plans. Sweeney’s character is loosely primarily based on an actual life member of the Manson household, Dianne Lake, who spent two years with Manson and testified in opposition to a lot of his followers. Sweeney doesn’t do something overtly evil on this minimal function, however her seductive and confronting eyes are sufficient to inform us that one thing could be very incorrect on the grounds of Spahn Ranch.
Juliet – Nocturne (2020)
Sweeney’s subsequent characteristic movie look can be in a number one function. 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 collection. Overshadowed by her extra proficient sister, Juliet begins to have sinister visions when she stumbles on a cryptic pocket book associated to the dying of a fellow pupil. This faustian horror movie follows Juliet via betrayal and violence as she weighs love for her twin sister with an amazing need for perfection. In a villainous but relatable efficiency, Sweeney reveals that she will be able to keep the viewers’s sympathies whereas doing essentially the most despicable issues.
Olivia – The White Lotus (2021)
Sweeney’s look on HBO’s The White Lotus would solidify her standing as one in all Hollywood’s most versatile younger stars. Olivia is a privileged faculty pupil on a Hawaiian trip along with her ultra-wealthy businesswoman mom and 2nd era well-known father. Dubbed the “scariest women on TV,” she and her pal Paula (Brittany O’Grady) spend their days doing medication and eviscerating fellow visitors with sharp phrases and thinly veiled insults. However a rift varieties between the cynical pals when Paula begins sleeping with a hunky member of the employees. Not the focus, Olivia vows revenge and begins subtly torturing her pal with snide feedback and viscous barbs. Although by no means outright harmful, Olivia wields her unearned energy like a knife and doesn’t hesitate to chop these round her to smithereens.
Actuality Winner – Actuality (2023)
Hoping to take her profession in an sudden path, Sweeney auditioned and fought for the titular function in Tina Satter’s unsettling HBO docu-drama Actuality. We first meet Sweeney’s Actuality Winner as she watches information protection of James Comey’s termination from her desk at a navy contracting group. Later, she’s stunned at residence by FBI brokers with a warrant to go looking her residence for proof that she leaked a categorised doc proving Russian interference with the 2016 election. The true Winner, a former U.S. Air Power veteran and NSA translator, would go on to serve greater than 5 years in federal jail, the steepest sentence ever given to an American whistleblower. Satter’s movie relies largely on transcripts of a dialog recorded as Winner is taken into custody, reminding us that this lady portrayed within the information as a felony mastermind is surely a relatable 25 yr outdated simply making an attempt to be citizen. Of all Sweeney’s terrifying roles, this can be essentially the most horrific just because each little bit of the nerve-wracking story is true.
Cassie Howard – Euphoria (2019 to Current)
After we first meet Cassie Howard on the debut season of Euphoria, she’s a candy woman eager for the daddy she misplaced to substance abuse. Relationship a university soccer participant, she faces her share of heartbreak, however the ingénue takes a devious flip within the Season 2 premiere when she begins sleeping along with her greatest pal’s ex. Carrying this secret for a lot of the season, Cassie explodes when she watches a recreation of her most painful moments unfold on stage as the topic of her sister’s faculty play. Along with her relationship in shambles and nothing left to lose, Cassie walks down the aisle on a kamikaze mission to break the efficiency and humiliate her youthful sister in return. Although not a villainous character, Cassie turns into an unpredictable and catastrophic drive on this flamable pal group. There’s no telling what her self-destructive eyes will fall on subsequent and who will endure within the collateral harm
Picture Credit score: Fabian Lavino courtesy of NEON
Within the 15 years since her first display screen credit score, Sweeney has perfected the artwork of misleading horror. Whether or not bringing concern to innocuous comedies or taking part in compelling victims in outright horror, Sweeney continually retains us guessing in a single uniquely stunning function after one other. Her magnetic flip as a pregnant nun in Immaculate is each the end result of a protracted journey via the horror style and an thrilling harbinger of roles to return. With two upcoming thrillers presently in post-production and Season 3 of Euphoria due in 2025, it appears the chameleonic actress will probably be shocking us with extra horrific roles for the foreseeable future.
Witness unholy horror. IMMACULATE starring Sydney Sweeney is in theaters this Friday. Get tickets now.