[Editor’s Note: Spoilers ahead forSCREAM]
TheScreamfranchise is as much about who is doing the killings as it is about how, with its whodunit format serving as a compelling mystery where anyone could be the killer. The franchise has also always served as a time capsule for horror movie history, with each film offering some timely commentary on the tropes, trends, and sensibilities of the time they were made, making the why even more important than the who.
Now that the fifth film in the franchise,SCREAMis out, the only one not involvingWes Craven, you might be wondering who is behind the latest Woodsboro killers, and why they are wearing the Ghostface mask this time around — after all,the film’s best posterliterally tells you “the killer is on this poster.” If this is you, then I have only one question, do you like scary movies?
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So, who dun it?
In case the film title being confusingly the same as the original’s wasn’t clear enough,SCREAMis a big, bloody love letter to the first film in the franchise, down to and including having two killers wearing the Ghostface mask. This being a “requel” — what the characters refer to a film that’s both a remake and a sequel — it makes sense that the killers would be inspired by the original murderers, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). This time, we don’t get the protagonist’s boyfriend and his best friend as the killers, but the protagonist’s boyfriend and her sister’s best friend as killers, Richie (Jack Quaid) and Amber (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’sMikey Madison).
Why did they do it?
As mentioned, one of the things that makes theScreamfranchise so iconic and special is how each entry serves as a time capsule for a particular era in horror, and thankfully,SCREAMis no exception. From the opening scene, whereJenna Ortega’s Tara answers the iconic “do you like scary movies” question with a sharp comment about the “elevated horror” trend, the film poises itself to be a timely encapsulation of every development in the genre the past few years, from the rise in arthouse horror movies, to legacy sequels (or requels), to fan entitlement and toxicity.
Indeed, the film not-so-subtly uses its fictionalStabfranchise to poke fun at real-life legacy sequels being torn apart by fans for simply trying to be a bit different. At one point, the film’s new take on Randy — aptly, his niece Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) — explains that the latestStabmovie, unsubtly the eighth installment in the franchise, was directed by “theKnives Outguy"Rian Johnson,who apparently took the film in a legacy sequel route that fans were not expecting, and ended up as a highly ill-receive movie that certain corners of the internet felt undermined the entire franchise, ruined their childhoods, and personally literally stabbed fans in the back — sounds familiar?
This takes us to our obligatory third act killer monologue. Amber and Richie confess they are not simply trying to kill people related to the original murders, they areStabsuperfans so angry with the direction the movie-within-a-movie franchise took once it ran out of real events to adapt that they decided to stage new killings in order to be adapted into a new movie that can bring the franchise back to basics. Rather than looking for glory as killers, like Billy and Stu, they want to turn the new Sidney, Sam (Melissa Barrera) into the killer, being that she is — wait for it — Billy Loomis' daughter. Their plan is to be the sole survivors of a (rather dull, to be honest) fan-fiction wherein the daughter of the original killer went mad and hunted down a bunch of the original victims' relatives, hence proving once and for all that fans are the real victims here, dammit!
In some ways,SCREAMis the perfect companion toThe Matrix Resurrections, a movie that similarly interrogates what a sequel can and should be in today’s landscape as it relates to fan expectations and creators' wishes.SCREAMfollows every trope in the legacy sequel book even as it pokes fun at them, from the forced involvement of the legacy characters, to the new characters being just stand-ins for the originals. To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t come off as pandering or insulting to the idea of a legacy sequel, but it does know where to draw the line.
In keeping withScream’s goal of being a capsule for horror movie history, the newSCREAM’s thesis is that this era of horror (and movie history, really) has been defined by fan entitlement and the terror of making movies based on properties people have a passion for, how difficult it is to please anyone, and the dire consequences to anger even one guy online. Even though Amber and Richie fail to be immortalized in a newStabmovie,SCREAMhas immortalized this moment in history in a perfectly gruesome, and hilarious way.
