By Tristan Young
A girl home alone, a phone call, and a burning batch of popcorn. Scream 1996, directed by horror icon Wes Craven, has one of the most revolutionary opening scenes of all time. The camera is face to face with one of the biggest girls in the 90’s, Drew Barrymore. With the marketing, and the trailers, the audience thought that the movie was starring Barrymore – when in actuality, Barrymore goes through a brutal chase, fight, and killing, creating the world renowned Casey Becker.
The movie then follows Sidney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell who is grieving her mother’s death. And with the one year murder anniversary just around the corner, people near her keep dropping like flies. Throughout the film the audience begins to love Sidney’s best friend Tatum Riley, acted by Rose McGowan, Tatum’s dorky brother, Dewey Riley, portrayed by David Arquette, Stu Macher, played by Matthew Lillard and even Sidney’s boyfriend Billy Loomis, portrayed by heartthrob Skeet Ulrich. However, the star of the movies aside from Campbell has always been the one and only Courteney Cox, as the ‘tabloid twit’ Gale Weathers, who has a personal history with Sidney and her mother’s murder.
This movie created a new world of horror – what could’ve simply been seen as a slasher film, had an incredible script, written by Kevin Williamson. The reason this movie caused a turn in the horror genre is because viewers were exhausted with slashers – the classics Halloween, Slumber Party Massacre, My Bloody Valentine, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and A Nightmare On Elm Street (also directed by Craven), so Williamson came up with something new, the idea of two killers. While this twist has been used in older film noir, Scream breathed a new life into the trope, creating an unforgettable twist that left the film in audiences’ hearts.
Scream had a great turn out, with a phenomenal script and one of the most accomplished horror directors of all time, (Even though it was a begging process to get Craven on the film.) Scream was green-lit for more movies. Thirty years since the first movie was released, now in 2026, there are 7 Scream films, the most recent released in February of ‘26.
Just a year after the release of the first movie, Scream 2 hit theaters. Keeping the magic of the first one, centered around Sidney and Gale with a reveal of two killers at the end, it was seen as a good sequel. Ratings dropped when Scream 3 was released in 2000. With a combination of a subpar script, the film relying on comedy, the killer being one person instead of two, and of course, Courteney Cox’s awful bangs, Scream 3 became the runt of the franchise.
However, 10 years later a Scream 4 trailer dropped, and was then released later in April of 2011. Starting a new generation, stars Emma Roberts and Hayden Panettiere, the audience was not hopeful for a good film, thinking the Scream-team were dragging out the franchise and that the movie was a cash grab. What was received is the most clever and thought out movie since the first. With a surprising twist, the core three, Sidney, Gale and Dewey working together, the best motive killer since 96, and the purely iconic acting of Sidney’s niece, Jill Roberts, played by Emma Roberts, Scream 4 was a hit. Jill, who was the grand leader of this ‘ghostface operation’ was set to survive, and plans for Scream 5 were in the making. Jill was going to become famous, the next final girl as big as Sidney, and through her life of fame she would get a call from ghostface, blackmailing her into killing again. The audience is still gutted that the original plans for Scream 5 never came to fruition.
Scream 4 was the last movie Wes Craven worked on, and after he passed in 2015, the audience assumed the Scream franchise was over. The audience was wrong. In January of 2022, Scream 5 starring Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, and Mikey Madison hit theaters. Set up to be a trilogy, following two sisters (Barrera and Ortega), the first installment was released. The audience accepted it, it was tame, but still somewhat disappointed. In 2023, Scream 6 was released; this movie was not well received, and the audience prayed for a better Scream 7. Scream 6 was a mess – there were too many new characters, three killers, and the movie was missing its original final girl, Sidney Prescott, due to the producers refusing to pay her what was earned.
Walking away from that defeat, operations for Scream 7 went underway. However, in November of 2023, Melissa Barrera spoke out about the conflict happening in Gaza. Her using her platform to spread an opinion that she believed, got her fired from the Scream franchise. Who knew that speaking your mind cost you your job. Ortega left in solidarity of Barrera, and the producers were left with no lead actresses. The Scream 7 that was released had a bad script, uncoordinated ghostface’s and truly felt like a cash grab. Following Sidney and her teen daughter, Tatum, played by Isabel May, the audience received a trashy slasher, which is what viewers originally thought Scream 1996 was going to be. It’s safe to say, the Scream movies have decreased in quality.
Since the second movie, there has been a very meta underlying plot in the Scream movies. A joke said in Scream 1996, Sidney saying they would make a movie of her trauma and cast Tori Spelling (A 90’s joke of what people now call a nepo-baby) turned into a reality. The ‘Stab’ movies are to the characters, what Scream is to the audience. ‘Stab’, which notoriously is just a bad movie of what has happened to Sidney, Gale and Dewey, has a major plotline in Scream 5. The motive for the ghostfaces was to bring back the good ‘Stab’ movies, by giving the creators a good slashing. Obviously the ghostfaces were unsuccessful.
Scream, one of the most iconic horror movies of the 90’s and of all time, has turned into a franchise of stupid slashers, which was what Scream was created to avoid, and make new energy. The audience is left wondering, what would Wes Craven think about these movies?