Neve Campbell is another person on this month’s list of honorees I am extremely familiar with. In fact, my knowledge of her goes back to her very first credited TV appearance, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-her appearance on The Kids in the Hall. Actually, I think she’s a bit more prominent than that; if I remember correctly, she plays a character who turns out to have murdered a creepy old man for leering at her and pawing her all the time. I didn’t see it when it was brand new, not being Canadian, but I’m pretty sure I saw it before Party of Five aired, much less Scream.

I’ve probably never seen her episode of My Secret Identity, her first TV appearance, where she’s uncredited as “student.” Presumably she’s at best a glorified extra. Still, she’s talented enough so that I’m sure she came to people’s attention quickly. She does a pretty good job in that Kids in the Hall sketch, if she’s the character I think she is. Oh, she’s mostly there to be pretty in a short skirt—and she does that well enough, goodness knows, but hey.

But, yes, my heart is with The Craft. I love this movie despite its flaws, goodness knows. The idea that suddenly not being scarred is enough to make Campbell’s Bonnie into a bad person is a little disheartening; Nancy’s descent into madness makes more sense to me. (I cannot fault Rachel True’s Rochelle at all for wanting to get revenge on the racist, and the fact that the movie does is its greatest weakness.) The girls are a lot more shallow than the movie seems to realize.

Still, I’d rather watch The Craft on loop than finish the Scream movies. I like the first one well enough, and then the second one kills off my favourite character, and I just don’t have the spoons to continue the series. I get what it’s doing, and its choice to make Campbell the star when you’re expecting it to be Drew Barrymore is bold. Well done. The movies as a whole just don’t work for me.

Campbell is a powerhouse in Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, and I want there to be more musicals so someone will cast her in a role worthy of her. I’d like her to take a role like Bonnie and show what could really be going on inside her head. Just because I don’t like either of Campbell’s most iconic roles—I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a full episode of Party of Five, to be fair—doesn’t mean that I don’t think she’s a talented actress who deserves all the success she’s had and then some.

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