7 Things I Want From ‘Scream 7’
While the ongoing 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes mean it might be a while before Christopher Landon’s Scream 7 comes to fruition (you can learn more about the strikes and what you can do to support creatives at the links above), it’s an exciting announcement for horror fans nonetheless. While Landon will be taking over directorial duties from Radio Silence, Happy Death Day and Freaky are some of this generation’s freshest slashers, so there’s little doubt Landon will do Craven proud.
Broadly, the recent announcement at least demonstrates that Scream 7 is happening after what seemed like an inordinately long delay. Scream VI was announced just weeks after 2022’s franchise revival, though this news comes over three months after VI shattered box office records when it debuted in March.
Consequently, the internet is awash in rumor and speculation, fan casting and fan fiction, with every horror fan throwing their speculative darts at the board. Of course, as a bonafide Scream fan (even if the internet has tried to strip me of that laurel before), I couldn’t help but do the same. So, in the spirit of the year’s most exciting announcement, here are 7 things I hope to get out of Scream 7.
Legacy Players That Make Sense
This one is a loaded want, dovetailing into several smaller hopes that coalesce into one big theme—if legacy players return, make it make sense. I’ve argued before that Sidney Prescott’s story should be over (and should have ended years before), so despite the fan disappointment that Neve Campbell wouldn’t be returning for VI, it’s time to move on and focus principally on the Core Four. While the legacy cast has anchored old fans while simultaneously acclimating new ones, the new saga is developed enough now—and the young cast endearing enough—to carry this seventh (perhaps final) entry on their own.
Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers finally got a Ghostface call, but her role in Scream VI felt more like fan service than an organic extension of the plot. I love Hayden Panettiere, but FBI agent Kirby Reed is going to haunt my dreams until I die. And, much as it pains me to say, Parker Posey’s Jennifer Jolie is deceased. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Returning faces should intrinsically belong in the world of Scream 7’s story rather than being arbitrarily appended for fans.
Location That Matters
Half of the Scream franchise entries have been set in Woodsboro. The other half have taken the series to exciting new locales, though among them, Scream VI was the weakest in terms of making its setting count. While the apartment chase and bodega encounter were thrilling set pieces, too often, New York City (nay, Montreal), felt more like set dressing than an exciting new venture. Scream 2 feels like a college campus movie, and the finale aside, Scream 3 is bonafide Hollywood. If Scream 7 is going to jet the Core Four off somewhere new (and it should, those winter resort suggestions online sound great), it should make it count.
Stakes (that Matter)
Contrary to popular opinion, both Scream (2022) and Scream VI have stakes, though I understand why fans were frustrated with the latter entry’s hesitance to commit to its own rules. Both Gale Weathers and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) were savagely attacked and left for dead. Both, incredulously, survived their attacks. I can forgive Weathers’ recovery—she’s an icon, after all—but Chad is stabbed a dozen times. It’s a sick scene (as a half-point, more double Ghostface, please), but how he managed to survive the encounter pushes Scream’s already tenuous rules to their breaking point.
In the home video commentary, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett acknowledge being honor-bound to franchise logic—e.g., characters never chasing after Ghostface as he slips away—but eviscerating a character only to have him thumbs-up in the final reel is a bit of a cheat. This isn’t to say the filmmakers need to start dropping bodies like Warner Bros. Discovery streaming content, but if they’re going to tease it, take it all the way.
Scares
Scream 2’s Gale Weathers chase scene is genuinely tense. Nothing in the series has come close to the same entry’s crashed car escape. Both Scream and Scream 4 have scary opening scenes (Jenny Randall’s death is heartrending, okay). Scream (2022) was breathlessly suspenseful leading up to Wes’ (Dylan Minnette’s) death. Scream VI has its moments, though more than anything that’s come before, its meta-commentary came at the expense of scares. It was a little too smart, a little too wink, wink, nod, nod to make much of a human impact. Wes Craven remains a uniquely humanist filmmaker—his characters mattered. For all the intertextuality and humor, he always ensured his characters were at the center. I’ve written about it before, but Scream 7 would be wise to honor the first entry’s original title and get back to being a scary movie above all else.
Finality
Whether Scream 7 is the final entry or not remains unknown (if it makes any money, it most assuredly won’t be), though in either case, Scream 7 should wrap some ongoing stories and let its players rest. Gale Weathers’ story is done. Sidney Prescott’s story is done. The franchise risks jumping the knife-wielding shark if it continues to wrap an arc only to unravel it the next go-round. The Core Four especially deserve an ending. Narratively and emotionally, it makes sense.
Whatever happens here, the best bet is to let these characters rest when it’s all over. Scream as a franchise is abounding with possibilities. The last entry broke with tradition and unmasked a Ghostface ten minutes in. Sure, it amounted to a patty of nothing, but the promise is there. Ghostface could be anyone. And, yes, Scream is unique as a franchise insofar as its main players, not its killer, remain the distinct draw. But to keep Scream relevant, we can’t have Ghostface bumping patients at a nursing home three decades out.
Queerness
Scream is one of the queerest horror franchises around right now. Inceptively, it is a queer project. Yet, for all the queer talent behind and in front of the camera, queerness has been, at best, tertiary. With Scream 7—and with Landon at the helm—the series might finally do right by its audience and reflect the world they know back at them. Just, I don’t know, maybe not kill one of two queer characters in graphic fashion the first chance you get (RIP, Anika).
Consistency
This one might seem small—and truthfully, all of this is—but if Scream is going to bring old characters back, it’s worth maintaining their consistency from entry to entry. This doesn’t mean stagnation, but Kirby Reed in Scream VI was less equipped to combat Ghostface than she was in Scream 4. Gale Weathers had arguably her most poignant scene to date at the conclusion of Scream (2022), avowing to let the film’s killers die in anonymity. By the next movie? She’s not only written a book but done so almost vindictively to tar and feather Sam Carpenter. Why?
Scream is a movie and it’s going to be what it wants to be. Scream stan Twitter might do well to remember the message of 2022—fandom is not ownership. Landon, Williamson, and the entire creative cast and crew are going to make the movie they want to make, and that’s okay. While I maintain these hopes, they’re just that—hopes. Whatever direction or whatever approach they take, at least one thing’s certain—it’s gonna be a scream, baby.
Categorized:Editorials
