‘Beware Boiúna’ Star Jessica Rothe Talks Her Prolific Return to Horror and Retooling ‘Happy Death Day 3’

Jessica Rothe unpacks her five-film horror slate and reveals she spent time breaking the story for Happy Death Day 3. The scream queen unpacks her five-film horror slate: “Horror is where the most exciting storytelling is happening right now.” Jessica Rothe has found her way back to familiar waters. Christopher Landon’s Happy Death Day movies coronated Rothe as a scream queen and final girl at the end of the 2010s, but in the early 2020s, she opted to challenge herself outside the friendly confines of horror. She explored a wide variety of dramas — romantic, medical, sci-fi and crime — as well as an HBO Max half-hour comedy pilot and a dystopian action-comedy.

But by the mid-2020s, the current had carried Rothe back to the genre that embraced her the most. 2026 bears the fruit of that return, with five horror films — Affection, Imposters, Beware Boiúna, River and Pathetic Fallacy — either released in theaters or premiered at festivals. “I did want to explore other genres. I wanted to stretch myself in those ways. But I am so happy to be back in the horror space, because [horror fans] really take care of their own,” Rothe tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Horror is also where some of the most exciting storytelling is happening right now. The five movies that have