Siena Agudong Is The Next Great Scream Queen: Catch the ‘Carrie’ Star Shine in ‘Buzzkill’

In the 1976 film version of Stephen King’s Carrie, Sue Snell is played by Amy Irving, and she’s probably best known for the movie’s tail-end nightmare stinger. In it, Sue dreams of visiting the site of the collapsed White house, and is terrified by Carrie’s hand popping up from the rubble and grabbing her, before she wakes in fright. Irving later reprised the role in a little-seen 1999 sequel. In the 2013 remake of Carrie, Sue is played by Gabriella Wilde, an actress/model who worked steadily for the remainder of the decade but never became a big star. As much as Sue serves as a more sympathetic window into the normies whose existence (and often actions) torment Carrie, traditionally it hasn’t been a particularly plum part.

In the new Mike Flanagan TV version of Carrie, however, Sue Snell gets to do a little more. That’s true of many characters; Carrie has been expanded from a relatively brief 300-page novel and sub-100-minute movie adaptations into an eight-episode TV season that is designed to lead to even more. But Sue, now played by Siena Agudong, feels particularly important in this expansion, which emphasizes her position in between the more disaffected popular kids and a possible friend to Carrie. It’s not all in the writing, either; in fact, after being introduced to the narrative as a major presence, Sue recedes slightly in the last few episodes, as Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton) takes the spotlight as Carrie’s de facto nemesis. One of the main reasons Sue Snell leaves an impression anyway is Agudong, who further shows off her presence and charisma in a Halloween-season Tubi original movie Buzzkill.

Agudong has bounced around various TV shows since her tween years, with roles on shows from Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Netflix, among others. (These included Netflix’s short-lived Resident Evil TV show.) She also played a young version of Mia Toretto, Jordana Brewster’s character, in the ninth Fast & Furious movie, as well as the young hero’s crush in the Kevin Smith comedy The 4:30 Movie. That kind of extensive experience at a young age can make performers feel overpolished and programmatic, but that’s not the case with her Sue Snell, who balances a variety of conflicting emotions.

Sue initially joins in on peer disdain for Carrie in the famous scene where the sheltered girl first experiences menstruation and doesn’t realize what’s happening to her; then regrets her actions and attempts to navigate a reach-out friendship with the girl; then is distracted by her own stresses involving her relationship with Tommy (Joel Oulette), the high school boyfriend who she starts to sense may not be her long-haul partner. It’s familiar stuff, but Agudong plays it all with an openness that never feels like she’s going through the teen-drama motions. Even her reduced presence in the back half of the series plays as realistic, because she so convincingly hints at an inner life that doesn’t revolve entirely around the events unfolding in the orbits of Carrie or Chris.

Agudong’s character in Buzzkill isn’t quite so naturalistic. She plays Nora, a college student and sorority sister who drunkenly witnesses a murder at a house party. Though the police take a suspect into custody, Nora becomes increasingly convinced that they have the wrong guy — and that she can find the real killer if she allows “Drunk Nora” to take the wheel and retrace her steps, while her sorority sisters have the mandate to stop her from drinking. (She was supposed to be the designated sober sister on that original fateful night.)

It’s a great hook, with notes of Memento, The Hangover, and the Jackie Chan Drunken Master series, where being just the right amount of tipsy is the key to leveling up your fight moves. The movie never quite capitalizes on this potential; it’s a little too aggressively haphazard and TV-movie-ish in areas that should be simple, like the use of space (it takes place primarily in the sorority house) and the planting of clues. Agudong, however, is delightful in it, bringing to mind another lofty touchstone: Anna Faris playing an extremely stoned young woman attempting to get through a day’s worth of important errands in Smiley Face.

Buzzkill isn’t as full-tilt (or just plain as funny) a comedy as Smiley Face, but Agudong still gets to do a lot of fun nonsense in various forms of inebriation. Playing drunk, much like playing a popular high school girl, can quickly grow tediously familiar if the actors keep reaching for the same tricks. But Agudong finds different notes to play within her gimmicky premise: Irreverence, defiance, guilt, and slapstick haplessness. Sometimes she’s playing multiple versions of herself in the same scene, examining her drunken memories from a more observant angle, an apt metaphor for the self-examination that often comes during a young adult’s college career. Agudong commits so hard to Nora (and Drunk Nora) that she barely registers as a Scream Queen, even though having Buzzkill and Carrie out within weeks of each other should certainly qualify her as such.

Agudong seems intent on developing her range; she executive-produced Buzzkill, and over its end credits on Tubi, she pops up to advertise a clip from Sidelined 3, her next Tubi original that concludes a rom-com trilogy of YA adaptations. It seems a little low-rent given her Carrie breakout, but other streaming YA romance trilogies like To All the Boys and The Kissing Booth helped launch some big careers, so it’s conceivable that Agudong will soon bid farewell to Tubi originals. (She’s already set for the Chris Hemsworth-starring Extraction 3 on Netflix.)

In the meantime, Buzzkill offers access to a future star for free — an unabashed showcase for several different versions of Agudong’s talent. It might be one of her final such vehicles before her career grows into its next phase.

Stream Buzzkill on Tubi

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.