In 1996, it was the Spice Girls who claimed that “friendship never ends.” The same year, perhaps Scream was establishing its own unspoken aphorism: “meta never ends.” Or rather, meta horror. And sure, maybe we thought that 2011’s Scream 4 would be the end for the franchise. After all, it was Wes Craven’s final film before dying in 2015, and it seemed like Kevin Williamson and the original remaining cast were already pushing their luck with Scream 3—which is actually less enjoyable than 4 (and maybe Courteney Cox would agree, considering that’s where her dreaded bangs meme originated from). But no, if Scream has proven anything, it’s that, like its oft-referenced influence, Halloween, there’s always room for “one more” installment. Especially if you reset the number at “one.”
Reteaming again after Devil’s Duel and Ready or Not, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett work the script of James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, Murder Mystery) and Guy Busick (who co-wrote Ready or Not) in a manner that makes Scream (despite being Scream 5) as fond of meta as Scream 4. In fact, Scream seems to be part of the now “every decade” update to the latter, which opened with two “beginnings within beginnings” before we finally get to the “real” duo watching the Stab movie, Marnie (Britt Robertson) and Jenny (Aimee Teegarden).
But before that, we open on another requisite ingenue named Sherrie (Lucy Hale), who tells her friend, Trudie (Shenae Grimes-Beech), the movie she’s decided they’re watching is Saw IV. To which Trudie scoffs, “I saw that in theaters. It sucks, it’s not scary—it’s gross. I hate all that torture porn shit.” Sherrie replies, “How do you really feel? Well, I like Jigsaw, I think he kills people very creatively.” Trudie rebuffs, “But you don’t give a shit who dies ‘cause there’s no character development. There’s just body parts ripping and blood spewing.” Distracted by her “prehistoric” phubbing, Sherrie asks, “Who do you keep texting?” (on a BlackBerry Sidekick, mind you). Trudie shrugs, “I have a Facebook stalker.” Remember, it’s 2011. When Lucy asks why she doesn’t just “delete” him (this being before blocking), the friend says it’s because he’s hot. She goes to look at the picture Trudie pulls up, prompting Sherrie to inform her it’s an old photo of Channing Tatum from his “Abercrombie days” and that, “You’re being punked,” because this seems to be before the word “catfishing” took off (even though the eponymous documentary came out one year before in 2010).
After Trudie and Sherrie inevitably get stabbed amid talking about the “Facebook stalker,” Rachel (Anna Paquin) and Chloe (Kristen Bell) turn out to be watching Stab 6, where Trudie and Sherrie truly “exist.” Rachel decries, “That was so fucking stupid. Pure horseshit.” She adds, “It’s been done to death, the whole self-aware, postmodern meta shit. Stick a fork in 1996 already.” But Chloe isn’t so quick to dismiss, declaring, “I like the Stab movies. They’re scarier. It’s not aliens or zombies or little Asian ghost girls… There’s something real about a guy with a knife who just…snaps.” And when Rachel keeps talking shit, Chloe finally stabs her and says, “You talk too much. Now shut the fuck up and watch the movie.” But, alas, this is just footage from Stab 7, which the aforementioned duo of girls, Jenny and Marnie, is watching. After the scene, Jenny gives her own spiel to an unimpressed Marnie, noting, “Stab 5 has time travel, which is by far the worst.” And, because they live in Woodsboro, Jenny feels that Marnie should be better educated on this subject. To teach her a lesson, she goes upstairs, pretending to have heard a noise, and then calls Marnie on the phone in Ghostface’s voice (always Roger L. Jackson) and says the same thing he does in Stab 6, “This is the last person you’re ever gonna see alive.” Trouble is, after Marnie is “played,” Ghostface really does show up to kill her before Jenny comes downstairs to join the bloodbath.
Scream doesn’t start out with quite such a meta bang, choosing to reboot the opening scene with a new girl embodying the Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) role. This time, her name is Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega), and Ghostface initially pretends to be someone from her mother’s “group” before easing the phone conversation (yes, there’s a light mockery of the landline) into a discussion about horror movies.
As though to make fun of itself for being so anachronistic in the present landscape of the genre, Tara tells Ghostface she prefers “elevated horror,” which is why she cites The Babadook as her favorite scary movie. But Ghostface counters that all those types of “horror” movies are boring, they don’t really do it for him. He’d still prefer to see a character get cut up any day of the week over that A24 or Jordan Peele shit. And then he proceeds to “play a game” with her that puts her friend, Amber (Mikey Madison), at risk as he shows footage of her from the perch where he’s watching outside her window. Getting all the questions about Stab right except for the one that asks who the original killers were (she fails to mention Billy Loomis’ cohort, Stu Macher), Tara invokes the “spirit” and Ghostface pops out to have at her with his knife. But because this is a “requel,” and the rules are different so the stakes can be higher, Tara does not serve as the sacrificial lamb—for she ends up surviving the attack. A major moment of divergence from all the other Screams.
We then cut to, of all places Modesto, California, where Tara’s sister, Samantha (Melissa Barrera), is sitting outside of a bowling alley popping some antipsychotic pills. When her boyfriend, Richie (Jack Quaid), comes outside to join her, he tries to ask what she’s taking. She changes the subject with “humor” by telling him it’s his “boner pills.” In the midst of their subsequent PDA, Melissa gets a call from Wes (Dylan Minnette)—yes, the name is a tribute to Craven—a key member of Tara’s friend group. After hearing what happened to her, Sam rushes to Woodsboro, with Richie eagerly tagging along to “be there” for her. Of course, as we find out, he has his own very selfish motives for wanting to accompany her on the trip.
As the “legacy” characters start to come out of the wood(sboro)work, we’re met first with Dewey (David Arquette), who now lives in a trailer, and seems to be as alcoholic as The Woman in the Window, or even The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window. To soothe himself, he watches his now ex-wife, Gale Weathers (Cox) on her New York-based morning show (who does she think she is, Jennifer Aniston?)—only to be interrupted by a knock on the door from Samantha and Richie. Allowing them in against his better judgment, his immediate appraisal is that Sam should never trust the love interest.
In Scream 4, such a rule is thrown out the window when it turns out to be family you can never trust, just as it was the case in Scream 3. Except Scream 4 has it hit closer to home in terms of blood thickness by using Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts, just four years before she would star in Scream Queens), Sidney Prescott’s (Neve Campbell) cousin, as the mastermind behind the new generation of murders. A rash that prompts Dewey to remark to Deputy Hicks (Marley Shelton), “One generation’s tragedy is the next one’s joke.” Or, if not joke, something rife for being repackaged as though it’s new again.
But Scream 4 wasn’t so long ago, and yet, Scream borrows much of its material from this particular installment in terms of killers’ personality and motives within the context of collective twenty-first century sociopathy. Something that also appears very blatantly in Grady Hendrix’s recent novel, Final Girl Support Group. For Jill and her accomplice, Charlie Walker (Rory Culkin), it all comes down to wanting to manipulate the narrative for fame. In Scream, the same goes for the two killers working in conjunction with each other, but this time, the franchise’s commentary is on toxic fandom rather than toxic means of attention-seeking (which were quite prescient for 2011). Hence, the applicability of the original movie’s tagline, “Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.”
Emphasis on that word “love,” which can so often toe a fine line toward hate. When you “love” something so much you would do anything to make it be exactly how you want it to be. Even kill specific parties to curate the perfect narrative for a new installment in the franchise. But, in the “fan’s” mind, they don’t see themselves as anything like poison for violently defending the thing or public figure they love. To paraphrase Richie, “How can a fandom be toxic if it’s an expression of love?” Well, there are so many ways, really—serial killing being just one. The deranged lack of concern for others that Scream 4 perfected with lines like, “Two girls, butchered. Payday! I was so not feeling Woodsboro. I was like, ‘Lame PR move, right?’ Well, fuck me—wow. Best idea ever” returns with full force to the ending of Scream, a denouement that seeks to take out Sidney Prescott once and for all. And yet, if that were actually “permitted,” there would be no Scream anymore, just as there’s “no Halloween without Jamie Lee Curtis.” So the writers offer up another legacy character instead.
Because Williamson’s greatest writing accomplishments have been Dawson’s Creek and Scream, it’s only right to interweave the former into the latter whenever possible. In Scream 4, the Dawson’s Creek trope of someone climbing out the window is present, with Sidney walking in on Jill and her ex-boyfriend, Trevor (Nico Tortorella), and noting, “You remind me of…me.” Again, with the meta-ness. In Scream, Tara is watching a season one episode of Dawson’s Creek called “The Scare” (itself possessing a plot that alludes to Scream) in which Jen (Michelle Williams) and Joey (Katie Holmes) both have their reasons to be afraid of ominous stalker types. As the episode plays while she’s all alone in her hospital room, the lights go out and her own personal “scare” ensues.
The nod to Sidney Prescott being the equivalent of Laurie Strode shows up in Scream 4 as well, with the co-chair of the Cinema Club, Robbie (Erik Knudsen), saying, “Beyond Jamie Lee Curtis, beyond Linda Blair. I mean, this is the ultimate.” This being announced after Sidney agrees to make a cameo in exchange for Gale trying to extract information on “new rules” of “the game.” Sidney observes Robbie documenting everything from his web cam headset, inquiring, “You film your entire high school experience and, what, post it on the Net?” He replies, “Everybody’ll be doing it someday, Sid.” Well, not quite that. But livestreaming on social media is fairly close.
This callout foretells Gale realizing, “He’s recording the murders. This time, he’s making the movie.” This, too, pertains to the entire concept of Spree—and the associated desire for “getting attention” at any blood-soaked cost. Elsewhere, Scream also reuses Scream 4’s same knowing dialogue of, “I’ll be right back… Shit, you’re not supposed to say that, are you?” and “New decade, new rules. You know, these days, you might come back, find me dead.” By highlighting that the characters are as self-aware as the audience thinks it is, Scream can then always end up turning meta on its ear.
When Charlie is asked at the Cinema Club, “Who do you think is behind the murders?” his answer is, “Well it’s a Stab fanatic, clearly. Working on less of a shriek-quel and more of a scream-ake… ‘cause all there are now are remakes.” This feels like a retroactive amuse-bouche to the monologue on requels that Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) gives. And, as the niece of Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), she surely knows something about the subject. A fact that will manifest in the most meta stabbing scene of the film, franchise and maybe of all-time.
With the eventual “reason” for “rebooting” Ghostface revealed, it’s clear that, in every new decade, Scream is capable of reinventing itself for the fresh batch of horrors that will mirror current societal trends and fixations. And so, to respond to Rachel’s demand for “sticking a fork in 1996,” well that’s just impossible when meta horror never ends. Especially from a franchise that paved the way for being “elevated” in its commentary about human nature. Which it still manages to do with “old school” slasher methods that don’t capitulate to what the likes of Hereditary or Midsommar has established is the new norm for the genre. Nonetheless, by the end, Tara would like to remind Ghostface that she still prefers The Babadook.
