[DISCLAIMER: This was written before the announcement of Melissa Barrera's firing from Scream VI and co-star Jenna Ortega's official announcement of departure the day after. These events disgust and disappoint me and stain my outlook for the franchise significantly, so when you hear me talk about the films being a pretty clean, strong string, that's all coming from when they had been. VI does not promise to be a viable project due to these events and if a film is made under these circumstances, I still won't support it.]
Scream might be the best long series in horror film history.
Scream enjoys several distinctions that certainly make it one of the most interesting and likeable of the horror long-runners: all of its so-far six films are good at the worst and all feel worth watching, the series has genuine respect and love for its core characters and notably has not killed its originating protagonist, and it's a metafictional commentary on horror cinema that's evolved to comment on different horror-genre phenomena Scream has returned into after dormant periods.
Scream is also unique and compelling among slashers for two tandem factors that create a perfect hook for each film: Scream is not and has never become a supernatural universe, so the iconic recurring Ghostface killer is always a fallible, mortal human, and Scream is a whodunit mystery slasher franchise where the hook of each film is just who is wearing the costume and stabbing people each time around. It's an easy way to generate interest in future installments because the threat is essentially static while their identity is a new mystery every time. The fans get to have an iconic familiar killer through each film akin to Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, or Chucky, but there's still variety in the killer and plot because who Ghostface really is and how they're operating is never known to the audience at the start.
This also creates a very dark and compelling version of a franchise antagonist who always returns. Ghostface, by the rules of a realistic universe, is a legacy, a copycat identity in every film after the first, and so every film features a new killer in the old mask. Can you start to see where this strikes at something very real and serious? Indeed, the doggedly metafictional and comedic Scream series can also be viewed as one of the best indictments of true-crime media fascination, and a genuine exploration of survivor traumas and the trials and mechanisms through which survivors are retraumatized.
I recommend you watch all of the films before reading this because I think they're worth your time and I have to go into spoilers regarding most of the Ghostfaces' identities as I meander through this. This is more of a casual discussion than an analytical essay and so I've tried my hardest to package specific points into their own blocks so this feels somewhat readable.
[Content warnings for these films and my review: Themes of survivorship and trauma, allusions to rape and sexual assault, gore (heavier in 4-VI)]
So what is the series about?
Scream as a series
I suppose it's helpful first to just outline what the slasher genre does. Slasher films typically focus on young people or teenagers evading a killer, and tradition has it that the heroic young woman who makes it through and puts down the killer (academically and by horror fans known as the "final girl") will be more tomboyish and virginal than other victims. Formative slasher movies often defy certain expected rules of the story--some have the killer be a woman, some have the killer not confirmed dead by the end, or may not frame the final girl as especially chaste. Still, the enduring perception of the classic slasher film is an innocent young woman fighting against a male and possibly Freudian killer and coming out the survivor at the end. Slashers have been academically analyzed as reflections of contemporary values, thus the virginal coding of the final girl and killing of sexual teens in classic slashers of the 1980s, or the common queerphobic fear of blurred gender depicted in male killers, both trends prominent from the seventies to the nineties...but slashers have a reputation for being more shallow on the whole, and not trying to say much. Scream is primarily known for mocking the clichés of old slashers as its main gimmick, but I think it does consciously say more about the world beyond meta-commentary.
Every Scream film focuses on a killing spree perpetrated by the current killer(s) in the Ghostface costume. The classic M.O. of Ghostface is consistent--they call their victims on the phone while using a voice changer (the voice of Ghostface is always provided by actor Roger L. Jackson) and torment them, sometimes offering the target a losing game with the goal of sparing their life or the life of someone they love. After the phone call breaks down the victim completely, Ghostface emerges in costume wielding a knife to perform the kill. In most of the films, Ghostface is a collective identity shared by a duo (and once, a trio) of conspiring killers, and so sometimes, it's likely that the Ghostface talking on the phone is not the one physically present to perform the kill. In Scream 3, the only film with a solo Ghostface, the killer is always calling while on the scene. Scream was initially a trilogy commenting on classic slasher horror cliches and focusing on recurring target Sidney Prescott, before being revived with an anti-reboot fourth film where the core characters metafictionally battled to keep their starring roles against a younger generation. Scream was revived again after the death of original series director Wes Craven with two films so far by the Radio Silence collective (also known for the film Ready or Not). Scream (2022)/Scream V and Scream VI focus on a younger group of characters led by Samantha Carpenter, who have become the targets of a new string of Ghostfaces. The newer films discuss the modern style of reboot films, and remain in continuity with the old series with the old characters still in the pool of cast members. I think modern Scream does justice to the series even though it's in new hands. (A horror film series that never rebooted, and good films after the beloved original director is out of the picture? Two more rarities!) In each of the films, issues of survivorship and the commodification and spectacle of true crime are present in the discussion.
Beware, this discussion might be prone to running off on tangents and affectionate editorializing because I just really love Scream and there's a lot of fun stuff beyond this thematic mining here I think you deserve to know.
Scream (1996)
Scream makes its stance on the spectacle of victimhood clear from the start, with the first film primarily targeting predatory news media in the wake of a killing spree in the town of Woodsboro. It even provides avatars for the entire phenomenon. The media prey is embodied by our protagonist, the (at the time) horror debutante Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). Sidney is consciously built in the classical stereotype of the horror "final girl", being a chaste young woman with a tomboyish name who survives the killing spree, but she's not a flat character (more on her strengths as this progresses). In the first film, Sid is a high schooler, and her mother was sexually assaulted and killed a year prior to the film's events. Sidney identified a man named Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) as the culprit, getting him arrested and convicted. She is obviously uncomfortable when she's approached about the topic by the archetypal media predator: Gale Weathers, a bossy, sharp-tongued reporter in iconic vivid monotone chic who chases after the best stories in the news.
Gale, and why she's great
Gale is portrayed (fantastically) by Courteney Cox and is one of the pillars of the film series, as well as the only individual character to appear in every Scream film to date. Otherwise, it's the mantle of Ghostface, which isn't an individual. Through the series (which, again, she's in every installment of), Gale's defining character conflict pits her between the allure of news buzz and the desire for genuine justice. Gale consistently acts as a hero and survivor...who consistently falls for the unethical siren song of publicity and sensationalizing people's trauma. We love Gale fiercely here, but also, she sucks. She's a big "problematic fave" of a character, and while some people may get genuinely annoyed that she always backslides like that, I actually love that one of the main heroes and good people of the series is simultaneously awful and prone to a destructive pattern like that. Gale is an interesting character!
***
In the first film, Gale has beef with a high schooler; real mature is opposed to Sidney because Gale is campaigning to free Cotton Weary, firmly believing based on her research and her interactions with him that he is innocent of the crime Sidney pinned on him. Gale is none too sweet about accusing Sidney of acting in bad faith with her accusation, which gets her punched out by Sid on camera. Gale is also investigating the current murders by the Ghostface killer, and she allies with Deputy Dewey Riley, a young officer of the law with a stronger moral compass. Ultimately, Gale proves to be a fundamentally good person when she comes to Sidney's rescue at the climax, helping her put down the two killers wearing the Ghostface mask--in a genuinely surprising subversion of the slasher formula, the killer was an identity shared by both Sid's boyfriend Billy Loomis and their mutual friend Stu Macher.
Quick aside to note that Stu is portrayed by Matthew Lillard as the most zanily obnoxious teen boy in that very specific obnoxious-teen-boy way in such a manner that it's so cartoonish and ridiculous that it actually flips back around to being ingeniously plausible and chilling. Brilliant work from him. His performance was so popular that many fans want Stu to still be alive and come back for another round. The new Scream films have even twice referenced the "Stu lives" theory as something people talk about in the films' world, though they haven't delivered on that scenario yet.
Gale's right, and the implications
Interestingly, Gale turns out to be right about her case. Billy and Stu were the ones who assaulted and killed Maureen Prescott, and Cotton Weary, who Gale has stood behind, is innocent. This really rubbed me the wrong way at first because justly or not, spotlights on actual false rape accusations will always end up with the ugly connotation that they stand against validating women's claims in general. I also didn't think Sidney being wrong with a rape accusation mixed well with the theme of her struggling to be believed during the killing spree. Her being right would have resonated with the idea of her being unheard in the Ghostface spree and I was certain the film was going to validate her identification of Cotton under that lens. But I think the film does make it land easier as the series progresses. Despite how others saw it, Sidney is never portrayed to the audience as reprehensible for pinning the blame on Cotton. It's perfectly understandable that a traumatized bereaved teenager would pick a plausible person they disliked out of a desire to have someone to blame for something so horrific. Gale being correct about Cotton also isn't at all framed as her having seen the obvious. It demonstrably wasn't obvious that Cotton wasn't the culprit, so Gale getting it right shows that she's a damn good investigator at the core-- a hugely important defining trait of hers that needed to be established early. Scream 2 and 3 also show that despite his innocence, Cotton is no basket of roses, so it's less to say "he's a great guy falsely accused and accusations should be discounted in favor of men"...and more that he factually just was wrongly accused because Sidney was an emotionally fraught young person, Cotton was plausible enough, and that took his life off-course.
I started to love Sid from the second movie on, but I think analyzing this particular section made me appreciate her portrayal within Scream 1 a lot more. It helped me to see more of the complexity in her grief in the wake of this spree and sort out how the Cotton plot affected her in a way I now respect. I might want to watch it again to see if I find her a richer protagonist this time!
***
Scream 2
Scream 2 follows Sidney with a mostly new friend group in college when a new spree starts up. It's the film that really made me latch onto Sid as a character, as her dramatic weight felt heightened and I was rooting so much more for her after getting to know her from the first film.
Scream fans also learn here that even though Gale is a badass, wicked smart, and often heroic, Gale Weathers is always going to Gale Weathers, and after the first film, she channels her inner Truman Capote and writes a colorful true-crime book about the killing spree. This book becomes a best-seller and spawns a popular film franchise, Stab, an in-universe "based-on-a-true-story" horror franchise retelling Scream itself. Stab proves to drive multiple future Ghostfaces, and becomes pop culture that makes future characters familiar with the historical events of the preceding films by way of their depictions in the popcorn adaptations. It's the next layer of metafiction in the franchise, and the filmmakers clearly had a lot of fun making a bad version of their movie for Stab. Anyway, Gale chose to profit off the Woodsboro murders with a tasteless novel, which is not ameliorated by her being a survivor herself. She also chooses to spring Cotton Weary on Sidney with a surprise live interview encounter, so she rightfully earns on-camera punch #2 from Sid. Gale has absolutely no chill and that's not really a compliment.
Stab is hauntingly gross and dangerous
The in-universe Stab franchise itself is also pretty disgusting as it turns a real murder spree into cheap slasher entertainment for horror fans, all while the victims' families and direct survivors of Ghostface still live. It's worse because the Stab films have turned Ghostface into a horror icon in-universe. This means the masks and costumes end up everywhere and the protagonists can't know whether a costumed Ghostface is a Ghostface killer, and it's also easy for a killer to disguise themselves in the crowd...or for a death to be seen as a show. Scream 2's opening kill scene takes place in a rowdy theater showing of Stab where Ghostface kills someone right in the seats. Nobody realizes early enough because they're not the only Ghostface mask in the crowd, and the death of the victim looks like theatrics for the showing at first. It's a horrific portrait of true crime being so desensitized, disrespected, and normalized that it becomes easy to replicate without being noticed. Real true crime stories have fueled sensationalized or inappropriately sympathetic films, podcasts, and television shows in our real world and they continue to be prevalent. I'm glad at least that we have mainstream media like Scream telling us the reality: these stories being famous entertainment is gross and worrying.
***
The Stab franchise is not yet the motivation for the killer in Scream 2, though the two Ghostfaces are intentionally making a "sequel" killing spree to parallel the way a sequel horror movie would function. (Each Scream film comments on what it metatextually is in the context of horror film and film series, so Scream 2 has a lot of discussion of the conventions of horror movie sequels which the copycat killing spree will be invoking.) This time, the Ghostfaces are a student, Mickey, who wants notoriety, and the leader, Billy's mother Nancy Loomis, out for revenge for her son. Sidney is already pretty well traumatized from her first run, but it's horrific for her to be faced with the return of Ghostface, an identity worn by killers she saw (and saw to) being dispatched before. Despite the Stab film not driving Mickey and Mrs. Loomis's goals, Stab can be blamed as the chief mechanism through which Ghostface returns to haunt the franchise. Because the killer's costume has become a marketable horror icon and because Sidney is still alive and famous as a survivor, any rando who wants to kill has a famous target in her, and anyone who has it personally out for Sid can wear the easily-bought Ghostface mask to make her emotionally vulnerable. We see this manifest in another way in the "re-quel" Scream movies, where younger character Samantha Carpenter takes up the protagonist role. Her repeated targeting by Ghostfaces starts because she is the daughter of Billy Loomis and thus she has that link to make the identity an appealing guise to target her with, too.
In other horror franchises, the central killer always returns because they are or are aided by some form of the supernatural and because they're too iconic to get rid of forever. That latter aspect is certainly true for Scream, but the narrative reasons for the perpetual return of Ghostface are much more poignant and scary in a non-magical universe. In Scream, the central killer will never go away completely because there will never cease to be dangerous people who see the Ghostface-connected hero as an attractive target for their urges. There's nothing supernatural. It's just purely the paranoia of living in a world with so many people. We love Gale in this house, but she has significant blame to bear for enabling the M.O. that turned Ghostface into an undying threat. Gale actively sensationalizing the inciting killings helped to make sure the killings would never stop.
It's a strong commentary on why killers do not deserve notoriety. Not only does making them famous hurt the victims and their families, but it inspires other dangerous people with a dearth of empathy and creativity to harm others with the infamous M.O. This is why some in the real world advocate for the news to censor details surrounding killers who sought infamy through numbers. Publishing their names gives them fame and it allows people with disturbed or ignorant perceptions to treat the criminal as a celebrity. Even a catchy nickname...like, say, "the Ghostface killer", can give the public something to latch onto and form an idol. The films fairly effectively re-create this dangerous phenomenon of idolizing the killer by making an iconic killer in its story for real-world horror fans to latch onto. Maybe that's an issue, or maybe it's genius. (Maybe it's just a movie, too, but I'm less inclined to agree with that one. Every story has implications.)
Could legal action eradicate Ghostface?
I feel like it's probably about time that somebody in Scream tries to take the grander matter to court, since Ghostface killings are a persistent and dangerous problem enabled by the success of the films and the costumes. It should have probably already caused way bigger problems for Stab and the manufacturers of the "Father Death" costume that became Ghostface, but even if it hasn't, I feel like Sid and Sam might have a case regarding the production of the films and costumes inspiring acts of murder and that it's dangerous to keep the film franchise alive and to manufacture the masks. I don't think you could recall the masks, but because it's literally the truth that these media are inspiring and supplying killing sprees in this universe, there could be a legal way to shut down the Ghostface train, if not immediately. Ending the films could very well create a brief uptick in Ghostface crimes as we get more murderous fans trying to create Stab in real life, but halting the production of the costumes would gradually make it harder for aspiring Ghostface killers to follow that M.O. driving them. At the same time, that would contribute to the dangerous cult of notoriety around the films, giving them an infamous status as being shut down for their murders, and the masks would become collector's items even if they weren't touched by a killer, so that could make it worse.
Furthermore, the classic ol' free-speech arguments could probably render attempts to end Stab and the costume for public safety moot because that's censorship and those proven dangers have a right to exist for the sake of expression or something....ugh. Maybe there were already lawsuits in the Scream world that flopped on those very grounds. Wouldn't surprise me.
Really, what feels so authentic and bleak about the Scream world's Ghostface problem is just how impossible it is.
***
Scream 3
Scream 3 features a hair crime Courteney Cox and the estate of Bettie Page would have been well within their rights to sue over a third Ghostface killing spree seemingly focused around Sidney's late mother Maureen. Sidney, Gale, and Dewey have now survived two Ghostface sprees, and Sidney lives secluded in a house by herself with lots of locks and minimal outside interaction. Understandable. She is still using her time very heroically and unselfishly by being an operator for a women's crisis-aid hotline. (Sidney is the best.) Gale and Dewey begin investigating the third string of murders. Through the series, Gale and Dewey have an on-and-off romance where Dewey brings out the best in Gale to a point, and then he gets driven away when she's the worst again. In this film, Dewey and Gale have split recently, and Dewey is dating the woman who plays Gale in Stab, Jennifer Jolie (herself played by the always-welcome Parker Posey). That's off-topic, but I can't help but talk about the great parts of these movies. The film unpeels that Maureen Prescott had a child with another man, and that child is the director of Stab 3 who'd evidently rather make a third killing spree to base the film off rather than film an original script. It is interesting to ponder that the franchise has outpaced real killing sprees, such that fictional stories are being spun from true-crime source material to satisfy demand. As if the disrespect couldn't get any worse! Still, feeding the movie franchise with real crimes is absolutely not the way to go. Scream 3 is more about Hollywood corruption and perversion in strong ways, with the killer resenting being an unloved child from a rape conception caused by a studio head, but the film still focuses on Sid having fallen into a state of fear and isolation that has prevented her from having a life and relationships--the logical but unhealthy reaction to her traumas. She's still faced with symbols of her past, with a memorable sequence even pitting her against Ghostface in a film set re-creating the house where the first film's climax was located, but she's still very tough and effective and gets the job done.
3 also features a prescient criminal tactic that was well enough ahead of its time that it was just sci-fi ludicrousness then: Ghostface here has access to a universal voice-changer device, making it impossible to tell whether phone calls are coming from friends and family or Ghostface until it's too late. For 2003, this was pretty hard to swallow as plausible and the films probably dropped that idea afterward because of it...but I'm betting on a potential VII bringing that idea right back because it'd parallel 3 and now the tactic is possible and it's a real concern. AI technology is able to realistically mimic voices once it has an audio sample, and AI voice mimicry has been used for deceptive phone calls to scam people and even fake ransom scenarios in the pursuit of money. Ghostface could absolutely resume the voice-theft thing in a film set in 2024, because that's a real thing we should worry about now and it could create lots of tension about scenarios where characters worry they're being recorded for their voices.
3 has the least to say about itself as a third horror movie and is definitely the weirdest-feeling of the movies, but it's still good.
One last question: Would Sid have treated COVID isolation like a walk in the park given her experiences isolating at home in this film? Or would lockdown have become a serious trigger for her, reminding her of when her debilitating fear caused her to withdraw from the world? It's not clear if the pandemic occurred in the Scream universe, and likely it didn't given that there are no references to it in the new films, but if it did, I hope it wouldn't have upset Sidney with unpleasant reminders.
Scream 4
Scream 4 features Sidney now being a published author of her own memoir, which is interesting.
Throwing your own voice into the discussion?
Gale's first book caused a huge mess, but now Sidney has gotten an audience with her own word on the record. Despite the two being survivors of the same sprees, Sidney clearly wins any moral/perspective contest between them. I think this proposes an interesting way to fight back against exploitative true crime media--publishing your own story to set the record straight in a more grounded or humanistic manner. I understand that some people will always have more media access and media power to push out a flashier story with more success, but I like the idea of more stories from the victim's perspective to help combat the everpresent plague of sensationalist mess. Published victim stories, particularly from the famous or wealthy, are often accused of being opportunistic and dishonest (for a massive case in point, Mommie Dearest, a whole fiasco about which I truly have no verdict), but ideally, any victim having an honest platform leads to a better picture of things. Another pitfall of this avenue is depicted, though, as we see Sidney's publicist has absolutely no real care for the dark subject matter Sidney poured her soul into writing about. The apathetic publicist ends up as one of Ghostface's least likeable victims in 4, serving, I think, as another warning and condemnation about the perils of crime narratives in the public sphere. Put your voice out there if you're a victim because that can help, but don't expect everyone to care.
***
The film progresses as a prescient satire on reboot movies, with a younger cast of new equivalent characters struggling to carry weight in a film where the originals are still around. By the time of Scream 4, horror continuity reboots and remake films expecting us to accept a fully new cast were common, and commonly pleased nobody, so Scream sticks to its originals and refuses that method of re-entering the public eye by instead writing a story where a "reboot" cast is denied the spotlight in favor of the originals. (Note that the aforementioned publicist, as an unethical story-chaser, may be deliberately framed as the "younger Gale" per the film's theme of dismissing a reboot narrative with the next generation of equivalent characrers. As such, she is made less likeable than Gale and killed to nobody's sympathy because we don't need the next Gale as long as the original is still there.) A reboot in the same continuity as the original films, and the nostalgic legacy characters sharing space with the new cast, would eventually become the standard formula for reboots, so Scream (2022) exists within the film framework that 4 predicted! The lead Ghostface in 4 is ultimately revealed to be the "Sidney" equivalent of the younger generation--Sid's cousin Jill Roberts, who seems the most haunted by the spree for most of the film until she's revealed as the mastermind. By this film, we see Sidney at a state of being more hardened by her experiences, but having to face a horrible betrayal through her couisn. Scream 4 felt like a worthy return to the series with strong meta-commentary and a great villain.
Scream (2022) or Scream V
This film knowingly follows the obnoxious reboot or "re-quel " trend of directly copying the original's title and focuses on Samantha Carpenter, the daughter of Billy Loomis. Sam struggles with psychosis in the form of intrusive violent thoughts and hallucinations of her dad, and doubts her morality and stability primarily due to her lineage. It's her, her sister Tara, and their friends' first rodeo with a Ghostface, so the core trio of the original films is around to help out. Dewey unfortunately doesn't make it through the movie, so only Sidney and Gale join Sam and co. at the finale. Here, Sidney has fully reached the point of being done with this--she's entirely unimpressed by Ghostface's taunts and sweeps the house like a professional. At the end, we get some notes of the survivors' generations supporting each other. After learning, like Sid, that her first Ghostface was her boyfriend and another friend, Sam asks Sidney and Gale if it gets better, and they talk about how it's not easy but things do change and you do get stronger.
What's up with Stab now?
The film also gives us a clearer update on the current content of the Stab franchise, which seems to have devolved into the schlockiest spectacles possible. Stab Ghostface is now an over-the-top killer with flashy weaponry and one-liners; a villain who the audience is clearly meant to enjoy. James A. Janisse and Chelsea Rebecca, friends of Radio Silence, even cameo to parody their YouTube channel Dead Meat in a scene showing a video where they complain about how far Stab has fallen. The decay of Stab is also what motivates the killers in V, who want to put the films back on track and inspire a reboot that puts the series back on the rails with more classic "source material". Interestingly, no character discussing the fall of the Stab series acts like the older films were anything but innocent, unobjectionable entertainment.
This continues to show the contrast between the real and in-universe franchises, with Stab being the worst possible version of what the real films are. Scream reboots without having been constantly present and dragging itself out with sequels that tarnished its brand, and the series not losing its way is one of its greatest appeals. And while several re-quels stitch themselves to the first film of a franchise and retcon a series' worth of middling to poor films in the process, Scream simply didn't need to do that because all of its films are worth keeping in continuity. So naturally, the Stab franchise is thus a series that refused to rest and lost its quality in the urge to provide quantity. Scream earns the right to say it's not that. I think the dark state of Stab also helps to illustrate that Scream's contrasting strong consistency does right by the message of the films. If Scream devolved into campy spectacle like Stab, then it would do disservice to its salient real-world commentary. Scream instead keeps the real side present all the way through and it makes the franchise's ethos very strong. Stab, meanwhile, has crossed so many lines of absurdity and strayed so far from reality that it's possibly no longer offensive to the true Ghostface victims--which means it's probably the most offensive to them it's ever been.
***
Why I Struggle with Scream V
I think this film is okay, but, like Scream the first time, I couldn't latch on too hard to the protagonist, and it is hard to go along with a film setting up a new generation of characters in earnest directly after a film which said that story concept was a waste of time and that the old cast are the only ones the audience will and should care about. (I do really admire Sam being a character who lives with a mental illness that's often considered scary or villainous and is nonetheless depicted as relatable and heroic, even if I wasn't super attached to her in this film overall.) The biggest issue for me was that some of its meta-commentary about re-quel reboots came directly at odds with effective, impactful drama. When we're told that the formula of re-quels kills off the legacy cast to make space for the new characters, are we really supposed to feel it fully when the film intentionally indulges in that pattern? I love Dewey to bits and actually shed a tear when it turned out he survived at the end of 2, I was so happy, but I couldn't cry for his death scene in V because it felt so telegraphed and mandated. Dewey and Gale's relationship shift felt lifted right from one of the re-quel examples directly cited in the film's meta summation scene, so there were no surprises on those grounds, and Scream V told us not to expect the legacies to live, so their story felt too predictable and hard to feel for. For a series driven by the audience's love for the characters, turning heavy drama into points on a meta checklist hurt the emotional impact to me because the tragedy, which should have been the biggest gut-punch of the series for me, just felt inorganic. I also found aspects a bit repetitive. The identities of the killers and the location of the climax indulge in the original Scream a lot, and I'd prefer, throughout the film industry, to see series revivals that feel less like echoes or remakes. I get it's a commentary on entitled fandom and the problem with nostalgia-driven reboots, with the Ghostfaces believing in taking it back to the roots at the cost of novelty, but that story structure doesn't address the notion that divergent stories are actually more compelling and interesting for us to watch...and the intended meta-irony of the nostalgia is undermined later by the fact that VI afterward will indulge in its own nostalgia echoes only for the audience's benefit. I can't say the film is poorly made, but V might be my least favorite of the series just because its script's meta elements took some of the emotional investment out and some of the choices felt contradictory or repetitive in the context of the greater series. I still really like all of the films, though! As they go, V is a pretty darn high low point for me to perceive in a series.
***
Scream VI
Scream VI features a really interesting fakeout opening where the Ghostface kill occurs...and then the killer takes his mask off for the camera and we follow him home, learning his name is Jason, he's a classmate of Sam's sister, and he had just murdered his film professor over a bad grade as a trial run to feel what killing was like. He gets a call from his roommate, who is planning to be Ghostface alongside him, and in the narrative perspective of a Ghostface for the first time, we see how easy it is for them to blend in and how depraved any ordinary-looking person passing by can be. Of course, the person on the phone with Jason is actually the film's real Ghostface and the abhorrent wannabes are both dead before the plot begins. Still, showing multiple Ghostface teams active at once and the chilling psychology of an "amateur Ghostface" helps to show the worrying possibility of copycat killings growing in scope once a killer becomes famous enough. Jason and Greg came close to starting a completely disconnected copycat Ghostface killing spree, unmotivated by previous survivors in the slightest. There's nothing really stopping multiple Ghostface sprees from going on at the same time...beyond a focused script from the writers. The implication is enough, though. Ghostface killings don't have to be cyclical. They can be everpresent.
The rest of VI follows Sam after rumors spread that she was the Ghostface killer in the past film all along, with random people antagonizing and ostracizing her after social media proliferated conspiracy theories about her. Gale Weathers also wrote a book about the last film's spree (because of course) and for it, she gets filmed punch #3 of the series--she dodges Sam after having ridden that train twice before, but Tara gets her from the other side right after.
Scream VI is maybe the best true-crime indictment of the series, actually
The film does a good job of discussing how social media and true crime have intersected and how it's a breeding ground for conspiracy theories from armchair investigators and vigilantes who want to take crime into their own hands without taking statements from the people involved or investigations into account. [Yes, investigations and arrests can be corrupt and motivated by arrest quotas, police power trips, bigotry, and prison revenue. No, that does not make the average TikTok scroller qualified to declare the real circumstances of a missing-persons or murder case.] While the "Sam is Ghostface" conspiracy theory was knowingly, falsely spread by the VI Ghostfaces specifically to implicate her in their own spree, it doesn't take away from the fact that social media is a dangerous breeding ground for unfounded accusations that foster a "guilty until proven innocent" mentality.
True-crime is also discussed with the shrine to the Ghostfaces. The new killers are the vengeful family of Richie, Sam's former boyfriend who was one of the Ghostfaces before. He was obsessed with Stab and the crimes the movies were based on, so he collected memorabilia from police auctions, including the knives and costumes of all of the previous Ghostface killers. These are then used by the new Ghostfaces and left at the crime scenes as calling cards--not for the police (the detective is the lead Ghostface), but for Sam and co. to see when the detective shows off the evidence. It's a scary way to illuminate the disturbing phenomenon of true crime fandom, and to show how the notoriety of Ghostface has continued to breed more Ghostfaces. On top of the Jason and Greg subplot at the start of the film, VI unpeels the depravity of treating true crime and murder like entertainment, fandom, and personal identity really well, all without the primary Ghostfaces being motivated by the Stab films in any way.
***
I definitely enjoyed VI more than V, similarly to how I liked 2 more than 1. Sam comes into her own as a character to really attach to just like Sidney did, with both benefiting from their previous films to make them more familiar and intriguing. I also found Sam's mental health struggle to feel more dire in this film now that she's indulged in her dark urges to brutally dispatch Ghostface before. I thought the suspense sequences in VI were also very strong, and I liked the Ghostface reveal, even though that still closely paralleled the second film. It was also great to see multiple costumed Ghostfaces attacking at once for the first time, and the justification is built in--this group has access to the entire catalog of past Ghostfaces' costumes, so they can easily have more than one person in costume at once! The biggest flaw with VI is that there was nothing specific it could say about itself as the second film in a re-quel franchise (horror or not), so the summation of the "new rules at stake" repeats a lot of what was discussed in 2 and V and none of the threatened higher stakes are even delivered upon? I mean, I'm glad, because I like these characters a lot now and it means they're not turned into inorganic dramatic deaths for a sequel meta body count, but if the characters and true-crime commentary weren't so strong, I'd wonder what VI even existed to comment upon. It's kind of like 3: coasting on worthy social commentary that's not reflective of film meta-trends because they really have nothing new and substantial to say about the metatext. I have no idea what Scream VII could say about itself as a third film in a re-quel trilogy...though maybe it could discuss and invoke inconsistent plotting and tonal whiplash a la the mess of the creatively dissonant Star Wars sequels? Or just abandon the meta gimmick altogether; there's enough going on in these movies that I think it'd be fine retiring it. If VII is made as a finale to the series, that'd work great to hammer in the idea of "this is not a movie", anyway, serving as the final statement on the gravity of what Ghostface really is.
There's no other real place to say it, but one thing I miss from the original cast's story is the sense of time passing. We watched Sid grow up through the first three Screams, plus 4 and V, and the time gaps, even between 1 and 2, felt meaningful for the original leads and the storytelling to show a group of survivors and their lives in different stages. The new trilogy releasing entries so quickly is fun for more movies, but there's less of that feeling of seeing the new main characters progress through life as new people during every Ghostface spree.
On Ghostface
Ghostfaces' portrayals feature several aspects that I think are interesting to muse on.
For starters, almost all of the killers have a personal connection to Sidney or Sam. Yes, that's done because it's generally no fun watching a movie series with one protagonist where the villain suddenly has nothing to do with them, and the mystery and motive are a hook of each film's plot...but isn't it also a good reflection of how so many crimes are committed by people who personally know their targets? Only three Ghostfaces in the series are shown to be targeting strangers just for the thrills--Mickey in Scream 2, who's just the muscle for a fellow Ghostface who has a personal motive, and Jason and Greg in Scream VI, who are independent wannabe Ghostfaces that ultimately only take one victim because the main Ghostface kills them in the opening. Every other Ghostface is in the lead's social circle or extended family, or a former Ghostface's family. That's significant, and it feels more appropriate for a series in a realistic world because most crimes are derived from personal connections rather than random urges.
Another important aspect is the way the films consistently discredit the Ghostfaces' motives. Never has any Ghostface been depicted as justified in their actions, and they're only barely sympathetic when you can actually see where they're coming from. Sidney has to cuss out Ghostface in 3 for not taking responsibility for his life, and she hangs up her phone call with Ghostface in V, absolutely uninterested in hearing a rant about a motive that won't justify anything. The motives of the Ghostfaces range from "sympathetic and completely misdirected" to "absolutely absurd" to "the protagonist needed to kill you yesterday you absolute garbage", and universally, they're painted as unstable, unjustified, and fully wrong for what they do. There's no romanticism or allure offered to any of the Ghostfaces unmasked. They're fully horrible people crossing the line, and that aids the true-crime commentary by pointing out that famous murderers aren't justified for the things they've done, and they don't deserve pathos...or awe.
Ghostfaces also take true-crime killers down a peg through their sheer fallibility. Ghostface, regardless of identity, is just a mortal human, so they're often depicted as pretty goofily clumsy rather than being collected and imposing the whole time, and every Ghostface dies before the end of their film to emphasize that the killers are ultimately just people at the end of the day--not heroes, not demons. Maybe Ghostface is an idea, but you can still keep killing that idea. Even though they keep coming back, there's a reassurance that Ghostface can always be put down because humans are nothing more than human. It's the ultimate way to frame them as pathetic, and it's why, even though a Ghostface being jailed or escaping and surviving to a sequel would be compelling narrative shakeups, letting no Ghostface survive their film makes a good statement. It'd be interesting to see if and how the films actually delivering on the "Stu lives" theory would avoid mythologizing or lionizing one of the killers after so many films worked to discredit and humiliate them.
On Sidney
Conversely, as the series progresses, Sidney Prescott evolves into one of the most compelling horror protagonists of all time. She shows awesome guile and determination when tested in the climax of the first film, and then a real pathos and strength when dealing with her trauma during the second film. From the third film onward, Sid becomes fully savvy about her place in a world of Ghostfaces and becomes one of the strongest, most cheer-worthy protagonists in any horror film.
To me, the best thing about Sidney (besides her portrayal by Neve Campbell) is her longevity. Sidney is the only originating franchise final girl to have never been killed. Every other iconic slasher franchise eventually offed its OG final girl once or twice depending on the amount of continuities, but Sidney's been here the whole time, going strong despite it all. Her longevity makes her such an easy character to root for because every film makes her more familiar and beloved as an icon you really want to win, but it also stands poignantly for the message of survival. Sidney does it. She keeps going. She is haunted and stalked by her trauma, but it does not kill her. That's incredibly precious in the horror genre.
Intentionally or not, many horror movies convey a narrative of their leading ladies being destroyed by their trauma, and sure, there's a place for that. But Sidney feels so special because she's still here. She's still tough, she's still Sid, she's still alive. While her absence from VI was contentious and formed under negative circumstances (the studio, not the filmmakers, refused to pay Neve Campbell what she felt she deserved as Sidney Capital-P Prescott, and boy howdy that was not the last horrific disrespect they'd hand a female lead in this series ), I think it turns out to be positively poignant in the way it was addressed. Sidney is explained away by Gale saying she took her family to a safe place, and Gale and Sam agree that Sid deserves a happy ending, to be exempt from Ghostface for once in her life. I agree too. While I don't want the series to end at VI or for Sid to have had her last appearance in the series, that actor departure proposed what might be the most perfect scenario Sidney can expect in this universe--finally being free from Ghostface's ire even if the killings persist. The way she was addressed in VI makes me feel okay about Sid's future. I think the series fully knows that Sidney Prescott isn't done and VI left the door open for Neve Campbell to come back later, probably in support of her/protest against the studio at the very least...but the films also seem to know that Sid simply cannot die to Ghostface. Ghostface isn't even the same person in any two films, so you couldn't make a tragic rivalry where they destroy each other work. Sid dying to or because of Ghostface wouldn't make any dramatic sense and it would sour the series immediately.
I think we know this from VI: in the film, Gale comes with a millimeter of her life from her Ghostface attack, with the killer even pointing out it'd be fair comeuppance for her continually relapsing into the heartless self-aggrandizement that hurts the people she loves. We don't find out Gale will live until the very end of the film where she's not even onscreen, but the filmmakers raise a good point: For as much as we love her, Gale being killed by Ghostface could work. Maybe, subtextually, she only survived that time because the Ghostface wasn't one of the people the audience would say she wronged with her BS. The films have now told us in no uncertain terms that Gale is not protected by any plot armor and her death is entirely on the table. I can sadly accept that...but Sid? No goddamn way. Sidney has to live and there is no possible way to make killing her fit the story. With Dewey, it was tragedy. With Gale, it could be justice. With Sidney, it'd be nothing but an insult to the viewers.
The reality of the Ghostface curse
Had the original Woodsboro killing spree details been kept under wraps, the perpetrators and their M.O. unidentified, and emphasis placed on the losses, the idea of Ghostface probably wouldn't have been spilled into the world. Sidney Prescott would only have one traumatic killing spree to live with, and Sam wouldn't have had any at all. It's not all Gale's fault (it is a lot her fault), since people like to know about the what and why of...everything. So it's standard practice for the news to publicize crime stories, for information on a crime to be publicly disclosed. But that creates a dark kind of celebrity for the most outlandish crimes, and makes for something other people driven to kill will imitate. The Scream series makes a strong case for the value in keeping crime stories low-detail, or at the very least, more sensitive and professional. If the news didn't have a monetary motive to be more sensational or, today, "clickable", if writers didn't seek to profit off of real-life pain, then the idea that criminals can be icons would be much harder to proliferate. Through being a slasher franchise that takes place in a non-magical world, Scream authentically shows us an evil that always comes back because unjust behaviors and dangerous social structures encourage it and allowed something dangerous and potentially unstoppable to enter society in the first place.
Heck, almost makes you feel bad for wanting more Scream movies.
Ideally, one day, Scream would end definitively and permanently. But as long as true crime fascinates people and creates celebrity, the series may never have grounds to end. We shouldn't need Scream. But it's nice to have around for as long as we do.
***
Thus concludes my brain-vomit about one of my favorite horror series! There's a lot to these films I never mentioned (can you believe "Randy Meeks" is being typed for the first time right here? Or that I never mentioned the running gag of celebrity cold-open victims?) but these are the things I most wanted to discuss and impart from my viewings of the films. If you still haven't watched the films, I'm sorry you read all my spoilers, but still give them a shot if you like, because they're still good. Thanks for reading.
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