Hayden Panettiere loves being referred to as a bonafide scream queen. She jumps again into the world of horror together with her newest movie, Amber Alert, however understanding how you can ship a bone chilling viewers expertise is a ability she by no means would have discovered with out director Wes Craven.

“With [Amber Alert], we needed to sort out how you can construct anticipation, and I discovered from the perfect throughout my first horror film [Scream 4] with Wes,” the actress, 35, completely instructed Us Weekly. “He taught me issues understanding that I had by no means performed horror earlier than. Like, the pace of your stroll. [You have to] gradual it approach down despite the fact that it would really feel uncomfortable.”

Panettiere pointed to a second in 2011’s Scream 4 when her character, Kirby Reed, approaches the closet the place she thinks the crazed serial killer Ghostface is hiding. Though she initially recalled feeling like she was transferring in “gradual movement,” she rapidly discovered from Craven why it was so efficient.

“It offers that good timing that you must discover to get the appropriate response out of the viewers, that scare, that leap,” she defined.

Whereas Craven died in 2015, Panettiere has taken his mentorship alongside together with her in all her tasks, together with her return as fan favourite Kirby for Scream VI final yr. Closing ladies, Panettiere stated, are at all times “actually enjoyable to play” as a result of it means entering into the world of a personality who’s in a “heightened emotional state.”

Amber Alert has loads of these leap scare moments Panettiere has perfected, however the fast-paced thriller is a “completely different type of horror” than she’s performed earlier than; it’s primarily based on actual life terrors this time, not a thriller determine sporting a white masks.

The movie follows Jaq (Panettiere), a lady who chases down an Uber driver named Shane (Tyler James Williams) to beg him for a rideshare earlier than his shift is over. Their journey residence turns from mundane to lethal once they spot a automotive that matches the outline despatched out on a current Amber Alert a couple of 7-year-old lady’s (Ducky Money) kidnapping. With regulation enforcement unable to catch up rapidly, Jaq and Shane enter a high-speed recreation of cat and mouse in an try to save lots of the kid’s life — and find yourself placing their very own lives on the road within the course of.

“[Abducted children are] one thing that occurs each day,” Panettiere instructed Us of why she selected to do the movie, noting that she hopes the movie serves as a get up name to individuals who don’t take note of their units. “Individuals are allowed to show [alerts] off now. Typically [notifications are] in regards to the climate, however quite a lot of the occasions it’s an Amber Alert. And if everybody who’s on the highway, and even strolling, took a second to go searching them, even when they’re in a rush, we might rescue these kids being kidnapped.”

Panettiere, who’s mother to 8-year-old daughter Kaya, stated she “completely” feels extra urgency in taking up roles like Jaq now that she’s a dad or mum herself, sharing that there are “quite a lot of subjects and tasks” she hopes to cowl sooner or later” that ship necessary messages to the viewers.

Staying vigilant about baby abduction, nonetheless, stays on the high of the checklist.

“It was necessary for me to do that film as a result of it’s going to alter folks’s behaviors and the way they deal with themselves in these conditions,” she defined. “I do know lots of people don’t even wish to watch the information lately as a result of we wish to block out the horrors which are taking place world wide and never consider them as being actual, however they’re. So I pray that everybody who sees this film, if they’ve turned off that alert on their telephone, turns it again on, and subsequent time they see that, they only take a second.”

Panettiere emphasised how a lot of a distinction just some seconds could make.

“If each single particular person in each different automotive round you probably did the identical factor, we might save kids from by no means coming again, from loss of life, from torture,” she continued. “This isn’t a joke. These are actual issues that individuals are able to doing. And it makes you sick.”

Amber Alert is now out there in choose theaters and on demand.