Neve Campbell makes fear look like something a person has to live with. Her steady, unshowy work gives the Scream films someone to care about, even when their scripts have stopped earning the concern.
Fi1m perspective
Neve Campbell checks a door and chooses where to sit in Scream 7 (2026), small precautions that tell us how Sidney Evans has learnt to live. The character has been frightened often enough to prepare for it without announcing the fact. Campbell lets those habits do the explaining, and Kevin Williamson gives her room to do so. We rate her for this sort of plain, attentive acting, which makes even a familiar horror heroine worth watching closely.
Her breakthrough as Julia Salinger in Party of Five (1994–2000) came before the film roles in The Craft (1996) and Scream (1996). The latter remains the clearest place to see what she contributes. Wes Craven gives Kevin Williamson's knowing horror room to be funny, and Campbell makes sure we still worry about Sidney. She can stand alongside the more unruly Matthew Lillard without looking as though she has wandered in from a sober drama. The script does occasionally delay a fright to explain how horror works, but Campbell keeps Sidney's fear convincing through the clever talk.
She continued as Sidney in Scream 4 (2011) and Scream (2022), then returned for the seventh film after missing an instalment. In Scream 7, the attention to doors and seating makes the character's experience visible without asking Campbell to deliver a speech about surviving. Williamson gives her those useful moments, but the film has little of the original's sharpness about horror. We can barely recommend it even to the faithful.
With Courteney Cox's Gale Weathers, Campbell has the ease of an actor who no longer needs to establish how two people behave together. We were pleased to see them together in Scream 7, because their shared scenes had a life the surrounding exchanges lacked. That pleasure made the weak writing easier to tolerate, which is useful to the sequel and hardly a reason to recommend it. Campbell remains attentive to Sidney even when the script has run short of ideas. Start with Scream (1996); save the seventh for the point when her presence matters more than a sharp script.
Biography
Neve Campbell is a Canadian actress. Born on 3 October 1973 in Guelph, Ontario, she began her career with roles in Canadian television series including Catwalk (1992–1993).
She gained wider recognition as Julia Salinger in the Fox drama series Party of Five (1994–2000). Campbell became internationally known for her leading role as Sidney Prescott in Wes Craven's Scream (1996) and subsequent entries in the franchise, including Scream 7 (2026), in which she is credited as Sidney Evans.
Her other film credits include The Craft (1996), Wild Things (1998), Panic (2000) and Skyscraper (2018). On television she has appeared in House of Cards (2013) and The Lincoln Lawyer (2022–present).
