Jenna Ortega has officially evolved from a Disney princess to a scream queen. In just a few short years, the Gen Z star has left her mark in horror with successful movies (both in existing franchises and helping to kickstarting a new one), while also helping revitalize Tim Burton’s career as his muse in two highly popular titles.
Though Ortega had already appeared in big movies like “Iron Man 3” (in a small role as the Vice President’s daughter) and had a recurring role on “Jane the Virgin” a decade ago, it wasn’t really until after the pandemic that Ortega broke big, especially in the horror landscape. It helped, of course, that Ortega appeared in four horror films in 2022 alone. She was a protagonist of the “Scream” reboot alongside Melissa Barrera, subverting the franchise’s iconic kitchen murder scene by surviving her encounter with Ghostface. Then she appeared in the horror comedies “American Carnage” and “Studio 666” (the latter starring alongside Dave Grohl), and she co-starred in “X,” the very successful (and very good!) horror film by Ti West that birthed an entire trilogy. All this before we get to her work on the stupidly popular “Wednesday” series, or the surprise hit of this fall, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which Ortega helped update for a younger generation.
The actor has carved herself a spot in the 2020s horror sphere, and it so happens that Ortega is a big horror fan — or at least has a rather big knowledge of the history of the genre, as seen in her eclectic choices in favorite horror movies.
