Abigail Star Melissa Barrera Hid A Dracula Easter Egg In Her Character’s Name

That wasn’t the only change that Barrera brought to her character’s name. “Abigail” marks her third time working with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, following her breakout starring role in “Scream,” which she reprised for “Scream VI.” Still, she didn’t want to just sleepwalk her way into their next project. “I didn’t even mention it to them at all,” she says. “I never wanted to be like, ‘Hey, cast me because you know me.’ I went through my team and I was like, ‘I wanna audition for them.'” 

When the directing duo heard she was interested, though, they were keen to make another movie with Barrera. She got the lead role — a character who, in the script, went by the “rat pack” name Sammy. That was a problem, since Barrera’s character in the “Scream” movies is called Sam Carpenter, and audiences might have mistaken “Abigail” for a very wild left turn in the “Scream” franchise. To avoid confusion, the name Sammy went to Kathryn Newton’s punky hacker character, and Barrera’s tough ex-military medic was given the pseudonym Joey. With that minor speed bump out of the way, Barrera says it was smooth sailing:

“It’s such a privilege when you get to just make movies with friends. And that’s what they [are], they’ve become like my family at this point. And there’s such a shorthand, like, they know how I work, they know how they need to talk to me to get what they need out of me. And I can basically read their minds. I know when they love something, I know when they don’t like something — it’s just become so intuitive between the three of us that it’s super fun.”

“Abigail” arrives in theaters on April 19, 2024. Tickets are on sale now.