The HALLOWEEN and SCREAM franchises have a lot of parallels. To name a few, both revolutionized the slasher genre to audiences of different generations back in 1978 and 1996, both share references that go back to PSYCHO (1960) and both feature the most prominent reigning Scream Queens to date – Jamie Lee Curtis and Neve Campbell.

Variety made a Zoom “crossover” to happen last week, although it wasn’t the first time they shared a screen. In the dark comedy DROWNING MONA (2000), they were suspects of killing the horrid title character of Bette Midler.

The reunion had lots of memorable moments where they shared their experiences as franchise leaders and hearts:

The Weinsteins

Lots of fans are celebrating the end of an era of the Weinstein controlling the creative direction of the movies – but the actresses are celebrating much more. Before the #MeToo movement, which had Rose McGowan as one of it’s greatest activists, both of them worked with the disgraced movie producers in the SCREAM Quadrilogy (1996-2011) and HALLOWEEN H20 (1998) and HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION (2002).

“Obviously someone was making a lot of money — it was not me,” said Jamie, “and it was only in the latter years – the ‘H2O,’ the 2018 ‘Halloween,’ which, by the way, we made for scale.”

To which Neve added “There’s always the promise of back end. And then, of course, it’s drowned in publicity and costs and all the reasons they say, ‘Oh, actually no, we didn’t make the amount of money that we’re claiming we made in all the press, so that we don’t have to give you that,’ unfortunately. It was the Weinsteins.”

The sequential looks and smirks they share conclude the story for all of us: It was bad.

Action Figures

One of the things Jamie Lee Curtis is really proud of, from the HALLOWEEN movies, is an action figure of Laurie Strode made by NECA TOYS. Seeing Neve’s cute reaction to that, took this site to ask for a Sidney Prescott to the company, that actually replied on Twitter:

Favorite scary movies

The two actresses absolutely hate scary movies, in spite of being the most recognizable faces of the genre, and, well… Curtis is daughter of PSYCHO‘s Scream Queen, Janet Leigh. In several interviews Campbell has stated THE CHANGELING (1980) is the scariest movie she ever watched, but Jamie brought THE EXORCIST (1978), which was a traumatizing experience for her 15th birthday.

Kevin Williamson

Kevin Williamson is a beloved character in the lives of most of us – if you are here, it is a proof of that and the result of his brilliant mind. But to them, it is even more. Jamie Lee will always be remembered as SCREAM QUEEN not only because of her filmography, but because Williamson underlined it in SCREAM and relaunched it in 1998 with H20.

“I wish Kevin Williamson was here“, summoned Curtis, “To say ‘how does it feel’ that 25 years later, or 40 years later, in my case, two women are having a conversation about a character you created“.

The last time with Wes Craven

“Wes passed away. But, my last experience with him was actually wonderful. He was in town and called. He had said ‘that he was a fan of Elvis Costello and we happened to have a friend  who had tickets at the pool‘”, tells Neve Campbell.

“So I was able to get tickets to all four of us”   – Neve and her husband John Joseph Feild, Wes and his wife Iya Labunka – “and had this beautiful night together, under the stars, and had the opportunity to say how grateful I was. And he knew he had cancer at the time, and was super super special“.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyller Gillett

After the emotional testimonial about Craven, Jamie transition the talk to the subject of the new directors that are helming this new chapter, to which Neve replied:

“So, I’ve been really apprehensive about doing another one (…) I sort of felt it would be too difficult to do it without Wes. He was the master of this films (… ) But when time has passed and when these two directors came to me… They actually wrote me a letter, they say basically they were directors because of these films and part of this was because of Wes Craven“.

Currently, Jamie and Neve are working and holding up the sagas that launched their Hollywood careers. While Jamie waits for the premiere of HALLOWEEN KILLS – to open in October 2021 – Neve is about to start filming her scenes in SCREAM 5.

Long live the legendary SCREAM QUEENS!