*SPOILERS ARE AHEAD*
The Scream franchise has become one of my favorites this past year. Scream Five was the first one of the bunch that I saw when it came out last year. I loved it; I never saw the twist coming, and it even had me suspecting one of the two final girls to be the killer at the end of it (before the reveal, of course). I watched Scream right after that on the same night, and then it took me a while to see the others, but I finally watched them all in preparation for Scream Six this year. The music in Scream Six was phenomenal, and the intro was one of my favorites; It was second place to Scream with the classic Drew Barrymore phone call and third to Scream Four with its movie-within-a-movie fake out kills.
Where It All Began
Scream premiered in 1996, starring Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, Courtney Cox as Gale Weathers, and David Arquette as Dewey Riley. The first movie takes place in Woodsboro, California, and follows teenager Sidney Prescott a year after someone, presumably a man named Cotton Weary, brutally murdered her mom. Sidney and her friend group start getting targeted by a masked killer, later dubbed “Ghostface.” The kills start happening with their classmates, Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) and her boyfriend Steve, who both die in the opening sequence via a very iconic phone call. This is where Gale Weathers and Dewey Riley come in to help. Gale is an investigative journalist, and Dewey is a local cop trying to help Sidney and her friends out. The friend group consists of Sidney, Tatum Riley (Dewey’s sister), Stu Macher (Tatum’s boyfriend), Billy Loomis (Sidney’s boyfriend), and Randy Meeks, a local film nerd establishes all of the rules for surviving a slasher. Everyone’s a suspect. It’s revealed in the end that Billy Loomis and Stu Macher are the killers. There’s this whole iconic monologue scene and insane reveal that you just have to see for yourselves. Sidney is a total boss, and with the help of Gale and Dewey, ends up outsmarting and killing both Stu and Billy. The three of them, and Randy by some miracle, walk away alive.
Scream Two, Three, and Four all follow this same structure. There’s a new group of friends, but it’s always the core three (R.I.P. Randy in Scream 2), there’s always a twist, a long monologue, and the killers are always related. What’s cool about Scream Two is that they start the Stab storylines. Stab is a movie based on the original Woodsboro killings that happened in the first movie and built a massive fanbase in the Scream movies, just like Scream does in real life (very meta). So Stab Two follows the events from Scream Two, Stab Three with Scream Three, and so on.
Scream Five and Scream Six are different, though. Both movies follow sisters Tara and Sam Carpenter, played respectively by Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera. The film starts with the killer calling Tara while she’s home alone. She gets severely stabbed, but somehow doesn’t die. This event makes Scream Five the first movie where nobody dies in the opening scene! Tara does have to be hospitalized for the majority of the film, though. Sam, Tara’s older sister, returns to Woodsboro after five years when she hears the news of Tara’s stabbing. After Sam visits Tara in the hospital, you discover that she’s not only seeing visions of Billy Loomis encouraging her to be violent, but Billy Loomis is actually her biological father. I know right, whaaattt? Well, long story short, Sam found out that her mom cheated on her dad with Billy Loomis, then when she confronted her, Sam accidentally spilled the beans in front of her dad, causing him to leave. Instead of dealing with her guilt, she left Tara and their mom as she felt they’d be better off without her.
The movie setup for Scream Five is very similar to the first Scream. The friend group this time consists of Tara, Wes Hicks, Mindy and Chad Meeks (Randy’s niece and nephew), Amber Freeman, and Chad’s girlfriend, Liz. Mindy, just like her Uncle Randy, establishes the rules of surviving a real-life horror movie. Another little Easter egg to note is that Wes is Sheriff Judy Hicks’ son! Who is that, you ask? Judy was a police officer with Dewey in the fourth Scream, looks like she got promoted for film number five. Legacy characters, including Sidney, Gale, Dewey, and Judy, all return for this film. It’s such a nice homage to the first movie full of tons of easter eggs, “jump-scares”, meta slasher movie references, and greats kills.
Subverting Expectations
A common thread between all the Scream movies (other than all of the killers hating or having some relation to Sidney Prescott or the original Scream/Stab franchise) is that they excel in subverting expectations. Sure, there’s obvious foreshadowing, but are you really going to tell me you guessed every single killer? Every single motive? The way it would all be revealed? Maybe you have, I don’t know! My point is that regardless of “predictability” when it comes to the killers or cheesy lines, there’s always something fresh from these movies. They also do an excellent job regarding fake-out jump scares because they know that’s what you’re expecting. Prime examples of when they do this well are with Wes in Scream Five in his kitchen, on the subway in Scream Six, and in the hotter-colder scene in Scream Six.
What makes Scream so “Niche.”
Honestly, the whole point of the franchise is to make fun of slasher horrors and, in turn, itself! The Stab franchise also always mimics its preceding Scream equivalent, Gale always writes a book about their experiences from the previous movie and gets slapped for it, the kids will always sit in a circle talking about horror movie tropes (like the final girl and survival rules), all while making multiple references to other horror classics including Psycho, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Saw, etc. The franchise will also, in every single movie, make it known multiple times who the killer is. Watching them back, it’s always very obvious when you see how many hints they drop. I.e., the killer’s always on the movie poster, and it’s usually the first person you suspect (at least in my case). However, everything feels so intentional and well thought out that it’s not only easy to suspend my disbelief, but also enjoyable to watch.
The kills in the movies never fail to make my jaw drop with how unique some of them are (Anika’s death in Scream Six falling off the ladder was brutal). The friendships between the core three (Sidney, Gale, and Dewey), and the core four (Mindy, Chad, Sam, and Tara), are very well done, along with the slow build-up of Gale and Dewey’s romance throughout the franchise.
Scream Six and the Future of the Franchise
I don’t know where they will take Sam and Tara’s story next, but they definitely seem to be hinting at Sam possibly following in her father’s footsteps. I know there’ll be a great end to the “requels” as Mindy calls them, but I have a feeling this next movie won’t be the end of this franchise. So basically, to sum it all up, my order of the movies from best-worst would probably be 1, 6, 4, 5, 3, 2. As much as I love the second one, I feel like the meta-ness of Scream 3 just tops it all. I still love certain elements of the second movie such as the introduction of the Stab franchise within the movies, the development of Gale and Dewey’s love story, and Jada Pinkett Smith making an appearance in the opening scene.
All in all, I’d recommend this franchise to just about anybody. Some of the kills in the recent movies are more bloody, but you’ll still be able to stomach them. I personally hate jump-scares, and even though the two recent ones have more than the originals do, Scream never only depends on jump-scares to entertain their audience. I’m just saying, if you’re kind of into horror, but don’t don’t love gore or jump-scares, this franchise is definitely a good starting point. And to answer Ghostface’s famous question, my favorite scary movie is Scream, and I hope you’ll give it shot.