Hayden Panettiere loves being known as a bonafide scream queen. She jumps back into the world of horror with her latest film, Amber Alert , but knowing how to deliver a bone chilling audience experience is a skill she never would have learned without director Wes Craven . “With [ Amber Alert ], we had to tackle how to build anticipation, and I learned from the best during my first horror movie [ Scream 4 ] with Wes,” the actress, 35, exclusively told Us Weekly .
“He taught me things knowing that I had never done horror before. Like, the speed of your walk. [You have to] slow it way down even though it might feel uncomfortable.
” Panettiere pointed to a moment in 2011’s Scream 4 when her character, Kirby Reed, approaches the closet where she thinks the crazed serial killer Ghostface is hiding. Although she initially recalled feeling like she was moving in “slow motion,” she quickly learned from Craven why it was so effective. “It gives that perfect timing that you have to find to get the right reaction out of the audience, that scare, that jump,” she explained.
While Craven died in 2015, Panettiere has taken his mentorship along with her in all her projects, including her return as fan favorite Kirby for Scream VI last year. Final girls, Panettiere said, are always “really fun to play” because it means stepping into the world of a character who is in a “heightened emotional state.” Amber Alert has plenty of those jump scare moments Panettiere has perfe.
