Grading the Franchise: Scream

Grading the Franchise is a recurring feature at Cinecaps Digest where I review an entire film series. Today, it’s the slasher-comedy Scream series.

By the 1990s, the slasher sub-genre was all but dead, choking on the fumes of overlong catalogs from heavyweights like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. There was the occasional throwback, such as Candyman (although when considering its supernatural elements, it really just had one foot in and one foot out of slasher movie territory, much like the Nightmare on Elm Street pictures), but the slasher movie late-70s/early-80s heyday was long gone, and its fans had mostly moved on.

Then came a scrappy little movie called Scream, released at the end of 1996 (a risky time for such a release—Christmastime audiences usually want to feel merry, not scaredy). It did underwhelming business its first weekend, but then did something that almost never happens to a major motion picture given a wide release right away: it actually made more money the second weekend and continued to grow after that, ultimately sticking around in cinemas for several months thanks to word-of-mouth about its fresh blend of gruesome scares and subversive humor. Its success led to a quick green-light for a sequel, which proved to be nearly as popular at the box office (and among critics), leading to another sequel a few years later, and a belated fourth over a decade after that. With director Wes Craven being deceased, and the series having transitioned to the realm of television series (unseen by me), it seems unlikely that a fifth movie will ever be made (but don’t be shocked if there’s a remake ten years from now), which is just as well since, like most franchises, quality trended downward all the way with these movies.*

*Update: The latter half of that sentence has aged poorly, since not only has a fifth film come out now in early 2022 (a “requel” simply titled Scream), but it ended the franchise’s downward trend in quality, too, being a mixed bag that’s still the best follow-up since Scream 2. The new review has been added at the bottom.

*Second Update: a sixth Scream movie has also been added, and it’s back to downward-trending business.

Here are the graded films in the Scream franchise:

Scream (1996)

Directed by Wes Craven. Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Akeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, Rose McGowan, Drew Barrymore, W. Earl Brown, Joseph Whipp, Henry Winkler, (voice) Roger L. Jackson. [R]

High school student Campbell and her friends become the targets of a motivated mass murderer slicing up the small town of Woodsboro; the twist here is that these savvy teens have seen enough horror movies to know the “rules” for how to survive (no guarantee that any of them will consistently remember to follow them, however…). Hip, blood-soaked contemporary horror film revitalized the slasher genre, updating it for a new generation haphazardly defined by glib irony. Kevin Williamson’s self-aware script and Craven’s veteran directorial skill serve the material well; it’s an imperfect concoction, to be sure, with the occasional cheap scare tactic, head-shaking implausibility, and a tendency toward overkill during the final reel, but it’s overall a sharp, funny and sporadically suspenseful venture into genre cross-breeding. Though later rehashes and self-parody has diminished the impact, its opening sequence still ranks as a true virtuoso of horror filmmaking. Followed by three sequels and a television series.

75/100

Scream 2 (1997)

Directed by Wes Craven. Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jerry O’Connell, Jamie Kennedy, Liev Schreiber, Elise Neal, Timothy Olyphant, Laurie Metcalf, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Duane Martin, Omar Epps, Jada Pinkett, (voice) Roger L. Jackson. [R]

Survivor of her hometown slayings Sidney Prescott (Campbell), now a college student, once again finds herself the target of a murderous lunatic: a copycat killer wearing the same “Ghostface” costume as before. Aside from a few tweaks, no one messed with the formula; sequel delivers pretty much exactly what one might expect, though it lacks the freshness of the original and the scares are milder. Fortunately, the satirical elements are just as keen, and thanks in part to the existence of a movie-within-the-movie (Stab) based on the initial killings, there’s more opportunity for sneaky meta-commentary, particularly from video store geek Kennedy. Returning characters are given even greater definition here, but there are precious few standouts among the “fresh meat” (O’Connell’s dutiful boyfriend is particularly bland). Includes a handful of cameos, such as Luke Wilson, Heather Graham and Tori Spelling.

67/100

Scream 3 (2000)

Directed by Wes Craven. Starring Courteney Cox-Arquette, David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Parker Posey, Patrick Dempsey, Scott Foley, Emily Mortimer, Deon Richmond, Josh Pais, Matt Keeslar, Lance Henriksen, Jenny McCarthy, Patrick Warburton, Liev Schreiber, (voice) Roger L. Jackson. [R]

On the set of the sequel-within-the-sequel based on the killings from earlier Scream pictures, someone is icing the cast in the order in which they die in the script; what are the chances that the survivors of those earlier movies will show up and try to figure out who the killer is? Inspiration is running thin at this point (didn’t Craven already do a similar premise with Freddy Krueger in New Nightmare?), and the filmmakers seem aware of this by leaning further into the irony, wisecracking and meta-humor side of things, which is just as well since the stalking/stabbing scenes are tepid and repetitive, and the mystery is a complete wash (really, anyone could have been revealed as the culprit and it would have made just as much sense with a few revisions to the illogical motive). As in prior Scream movies, a list of “rules” are laid out, this time in regards to the final chapter of a trilogy—too bad none of them actually end up applying to this film! Posey is a hoot as the actress playing Cox-Arquette’s reporter character; unfortunately, she’s the only one who really stands out in the cast, but at least medical science advocates can feel satisfaction watching McCarthy get skewered. Cameos include Jamie Kennedy, Roger Corman, and a few amusing surprises.

52/100

Scream 4 (2011)

Directed by Wes Craven. Starring Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Emma Roberts, Courteney Cox, Hayden Panettiere, Rory Culkin, Erik Knudsen, Marley Shelton, Alison Brie, Anthony Anderson, Adam Brody, Nico Tortorella, Marielle Jaffe, Mary McDonnell, (voice) Roger L. Jackson. [R]

One more trip to the well (at least one too many) for Craven and crew, including original scribe Kevin Williamson. More than a decade has passed since the last Ghostface murder spree, yet the surviving cast members still decide to have a little reunion at the site of the original massacre—guess what happens—and this time, the killers have “reboot” in mind while also going high-tech with digital recording and social media presence (oh, those millennials…). Material is feeling pretty tired at this point, with the requisite referential humor, irony, and bloodletting among a group of fresh faces, leading up to another third act villain reveal followed by talk, talk, talk—somehow, the psychopaths were smart enough to set up all these bait-and-switches, red herrings, and alibis, but too dumb to get it over with while the getting’s good. Final film for director Craven; Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell make cameos. Title is stylized onscreen and in promotional materials as SCRE4M.

44/100

Scream (2022)

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett. Starring Melissa Barrera, Jack Quaid, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Neve Campbell, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mikey Madison, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding, Sonia Ben Ammar, Dylan Minnette, Marley Shelton. [R]

If you’re ready to complain about yet another entry in a horror franchise dispensing with the numbers and subtitles and just straight-up swiping the original film’s name (à la Halloween, The Thing, Candyman, all those bone-chilling Weezer albums, etc.), be aware that the filmmakers did it on purpose—this fifth Scream outing knowingly sends up the concept of “requels” (combination reboot and sequel), and sticks it to toxic fandom while they’re at it. This crew is better at those send-ups than the scares, which are hard to come by here; indeed, the stalk-and-slash scenarios lack the trickery and payoffs that Wes Craven brought to the first couple of films, although they don’t skimp on the up-close gruesomeness (a slow stab all the way through the side of a victim’s neck may inspire squirms). In brief, a new serial killer in Ghostface garb is wreaking bloody havoc—potentially motivated by the latest widely-reviled Stab movie-within-the-movie—and the franchise’s “legacy characters” (Sidney, Dewey and Gale) come back to town so they can flush out the psycho and be able to sleep at night. Self-referential and (at times) even a little nostalgic, the film struggles to raise the stakes in a meaningful way, and throws in enough red herrings to qualify as an additional layer of meta-commentary. As it was in the original, the chaotic climactic staging (where anyone can disappear and reappear at will as needed) dilutes both the suspense and in-film logic, but it’s also a little refreshing to see the protagonist (Barrera) become as bloodthirsty as the villain when fighting back. Floats the possibility of passing the torch onto a new generation of largely indistinguishable Woodsboro-orbiting characters, but as the movie effectively reminds us, Arquette has always been the true heart of the franchise, and moving on without him, Cox, and Campbell would likely be a fool’s errand. Cameos include a couple of Scream franchise veterans (Skeet Ullrich, Heather Matarazzo) and YouTube horror vlogger James A. Janisse.

58/100

Scream VI (2023)

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett. Starring Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Dermot Mulroney, Hayden Panetterie, Courteney Cox, Liana Liberato, Jack Champion, Josh Segarra, Devyn Nekoda, Tony Revolori, Samara Weaving, Henry Czerny, (voice) Roger L. Jackson. [R]

More of the same in this “sequel to the requel” within the Scream franchise, returning to numbered entries, which kinda negates the rules “twist” offered up by Jasmin Savoy Brown’s horror movie buff (I know it’s weird to use the phrase “Jamie Kennedy did it better”, but, um…Jamie Kennedy did it better); she warns that even recurring characters are at risk because IP branding sells more than star power, yet there seemed to be an awful lot of survivors at the end… Such is number six’s take-no-bold-chances approach, as the action moves to NYC and sometimes opens up to the bigger real world, like the slaughter of a few randos in a convenience store, or an attack orchestrated in a crowded subway car, but the rest is old hat—more psychos obsessed with the past and the Stab movies are picking off people in the orbit of the survivors of the last picture, all of them (besides legacy survivor Gale Weathers) so immemorable, I didn’t recognize anyone from a movie barely a year old, and had to do a quick crash-course reminder on Wikipedia. Despite those previously-noted set pieces and a prologue with a twist, déjà vu runs rampant, and the sinking sense that nothing new is going to shake up the formula makes for a disappointing experience. There’s a big Ghostface shrine location in an abandoned theater, full of impossible “memorabilia”, but the location isn’t used in any sort of clever way for the drawn-out climax to forgive its tiresome conception, and it’s too easy to guess who the killers are this time (Slasher Movie Rule #17: Anyone attacked and killed offscreen is almost certainly still alive). There’s no one to fill the absence of David Arquette’s deceased Dewey, and neither Melissa Barrera nor Jenna Ortega are fit to replace the casually-written-out Neve Campbell; some effort is made to make Barrera, daughter of original serial killer Billy Loomis, into a potential headcase sociopath waiting to snap, but that idea quickly fizzles out every time the threat arises. The box office success all but guarantees a seventh one is on its way, but I see no reason to be encouraged that the once-novel twist on the slasher genre will be refreshed back into relevance. Just like when Jason “took” Manhattan, Ghostface-in-the-Big-Apple was filmed in Canada—at least Voorhies managed a one-shot in Times Square.

42/100

Check back in tomorrow for the next daily update!