How“ Scream 7” Explains Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega’s Absence — and Where Neve Campbell Was in “Scream VI”
How“ Scream 7” Explains Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega’s Absence — and Where Neve Campbell Was in “Scream VI”
Jack SmartFri, February 27, 2026 at 11:20 PM UTC
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(Left-right:) Neve Campbell in 'Scream 7'; Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega in 'Scream VI'Credit: Jessica Miglio/Philippe Bossé/Paramount Pictures -
The new Scream 7 features Neve Campbell reprising her role as Ghostface target Sidney Prescott after skipping out on 2023’s Scream VI
Melissa Barrera, who led the horror franchise’s fifth and sixth installments as Sam Carpenter, was fired from Scream 7; she and Jenna Ortega, who played Sam's sister Tara Carpenter, do not appear
The new movie, set in an altogether new location, uses returning characters including Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers to make passing references to the previous installment
Warning: this piece contains major spoilers for Scream 7
Neve Campbell retakes her final girl duties from Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega in the new Scream 7. But how does the new story explain the Carpenter sisters’ absence?
That question has loomed large for fans of the franchise ever since news broke that Barrera and Ortega weren't going to be in the latest film, in theaters now.
Their characters had been the centerpiece of the fifth and sixth installments, which revived the slasher series 11 years after Scream 4 underperformed at the box office. But after Barrera was fired in 2023 over social media posts about the Israel-Palestine conflict and Ortega subsequently exited, the franchise pivoted back to Campbell’s Sidney Prescott.
Original creator and franchise writer Kevin Williamson stepped back into the driver's seat to make the change, collaborating with Guy Busick on the script and replacing Christopher Landon as director.
Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera in 'Scream VI' (2023)Credit: Philippe Bosse / Paramount Pictures / Everett Collection
Rather than continue the action in New York City, where Scream VI took place, Busick and Williamson moved everything to Pine Grove, Indiana — a fictional small town with parallels to Sidney's original suburban home of Woodsboro, Calif. The shift makes it easier to explain why Sam (Barrera) and Tara (Ortega) are nowhere to be found.
Once the murders start going, two other members of Scream VI's “core four" — Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown, as Woodsboro-born twins Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin, respectively — show up, arriving with Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers (now the only character to appear onscreen in all seven movies) as the journalist’s scrappy interns.
That move helps bridge the gap in story and continue the momentum from the previous two installments, with Chad and Mindy making references to both their stabbings and also their lineage to Sidney's high school friend Randy Meeks (played by Jamie Kennedy in the first trilogy).
There's even a joke in there about Mindy's poor track-record of guessing Ghostface's identity.
Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding in 'Scream VI'Credit: Philippe Bossé/PARAMOUNT PICTURES
Sam, meanwhile, is mentioned once, though not by name. While discussing who the possible killer could be, Mindy jokes "Billy Loomis had a secret love child, so who the f--- knows?"— a reference to Scream 5's revelation that Sam was the daughter of the character played by Skeet Ulrich in the first film.
Otherwise, the Carpenter sisters do not factor into the action of Scream 7.
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Neve Campbell and Joel McHale in 'Scream 7'Credit: Jessica Miglio/Paramount Pictures
As for Sidney, her absence from Scream VI — which was famously over a pay dispute — is explained in Scream 7 with multiple meta winks to the audience.
Living a quiet life with her police officer husband Mark (played by Joel McHale) and their three kids, Sidney has worked hard to put the past behind her. Despite being a true-crime icon and bestselling author of her own memoir about the killings, she shies away from questions about what happened. She won't even talk about it in detail with her eldest daughter Tatum (Isabel May), despite Tatum being the same age Sidney was when the Ghostface encounters began.
But when the killings start piling up, Sidney is forced to address what happened to her. And when Gale confronts her about why she disappeared, Sidney admits she feels guilt over not being there when the newscaster was attacked by Ghostface in the Big Apple,
Turns out, Sidney's absence in Scream VI winds up being the motivating factor for one of Scream 7's three Ghostfaces: Anna Camp's Jessica, neighbor to the Evans-Prescotts.
In a meta-textual wink, Jessica laments that she feels betrayed that Sidney went against the fierce fighter mentality she displayed in her book by running away from the last killings. And she's angry that other people, like the Carpenter sisters, were the main characters instead of Sidney, the ultimate final girl.
That's what drives Jessica to kidnap Tatum in the final battle, rather than kill her outright. She's hoping that the trauma Tatum will experience by watching Jessica kill Sidney will allow for Tatum to become the next final girl for a whole new generation.
The cast and crew of 'Scream 7' at the Los Angeles premiere on Feb. 25Credit: Eric Charbonneau/Getty
How fans ultimately respond remains to be seen.
Critics have given the Spyglass Media and Paramount film a low Rotten Tomatoes score, but audiences have turned out in previews, where it’s already made $7.8 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Experts are forecasting the picture will make between $40-$45 million this weekend, the outlet reported, which would give Scream 7 the best three-day launch of the year to date.
Scream 7 is in theaters now.
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