‘Your Monster’: First Images Finds Melissa Barrera with a Beast!! Check It Out!!

If you’re a Scream fan, then it’s been a crazy couple of weeks. With the abrupt firing of Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega leaving the franchise in late November, the horror community has been left in shambles. However, despite Barrera’s days in Scream being over, that doesn’t mean she’s leaving the genre any time soon, as her new horror comedy Your Monster is about to make its debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Now, with the new year right around the corner, the first batch of images teases the spooky forbidden romance.

The story for Your Monster is as follows, “After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming, monster living in her closet.” The four new images of Tommy Dewey’s Beauty and the Beast-like monster gets accustomed to his new reality while also getting very intimate with Barrera’s Laura. The main image in question is a mashup of genres seeing the Scream actress dressed up like The Bride from the Universal Monster classic The Bride of Frankenstein. On the other hand, Dewey looks ripped straight out of the ballroom dance scene from Beauty and the Beast. Your Monster‘s based on writer-director-producer Caroline Lindy’s 2019 short film of the same name, so it’s going to be exciting to see what Barrera brings to the film. Especially with the more comedic tone, as horror fans really haven’t seen that side of the actress yet.

Barrera is More Than Just ‘Scream’

While Barrera gained a ton of well deserved notice in the masterful 2021 film adaptation of In the Heights, it was Scream (2022) which put her on the map as one of Hollywood’s next big stars. Her portrayal of Sam Carpenter in both that reboot and its sequel Scream VI showed off her complex emotional range beautifully. She was one of horror’s newest favorite final girls, but there’s more to Barrera’s genre life than just running away from Ghostface. Her Netflix survival limited series Keep Breathing was one of the more underrated offerings of last year and, if you need a horror film to hold you over until Your Monster comes out, Barrera starred in the Tubi original haunted house film Bed Rest. The latter of which arguably features her best preference to date, while the film as a whole is filled with a ton of well executed scenes of suspense.

Barrera’s Monstrous 2024

First look at ‘YOUR MONSTER’, a new horror movie starring Melissa Barrera.

Premiering at Sundance in January. pic.twitter.com/1jKEsq03uo

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) December 6, 2023

However, looking ahead, Barrera also has an untitled Universal Monster movie (rumored to be Dracula’s Daughter) coming out in April 2024, alongside Your Monster, from her Scream directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet. Despite the Scream franchise’s terrifying collapse, Barrera has a big scream-worthy year ahead of her. Your Monster doesn’t have a release date yet, but it will be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January via their Midnight selections.