The excitement around the Scream franchise is infectious. New entries are major events in the horror community, and the discourse dominates all the horror social media sphere, igniting debates, predictions and feuds. I myself made a point to revisit the entire franchise backwards from Scream V all the way back to the very first, legendary film.

All I can conclude from that exercise is that the franchise is comprised of missed opportunities and fascinating moments. Perhaps the main thing that diminishes in return as the franchise progresses is the commentary on horror cinema.

Also, I can report that Scream VI is an excellent horror film, if not my favorite Ghostface reveal or meta-commentary.

HEAVY SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

January 8. 2022 – Scream 5, or simply “Scream“, is set to debut on January 14th. To celebrate, I’m reposting a 2011 article from when this blog was on Open Salon. This article earned me an Editor’s Pick (soon replaced by a much better article from another OSer). Edited from the original because my writing is trash.

“Scream 4” is opening this weekend, and oddly enough, I’m looking forward to it.  The burnout I had from dotcom era excess and self-referential teen horror is apparently gone.

Those were fun and weird and empty days, the late 90’s, full of partying and aimless misdirection.  I’m not sure I’m more “directed” now, but a big part of aimless misdirection is watching any movie you want, whenever you want.  This in turn led to the incessant consumption of the films in the wave of teen horror inspired by Scream.

We all know about the self-referential part of the Scream franchise.  All the genre tropes that the character of Randy deconstructs so cleverly set the stage for a 90’s horror renaissance that ran with slick production, knowing in-joke genre winks and a glut of up-and-coming It boys and girls.  It even managed to infect one of the top long-standing franchises of the genre from which it drew (Halloween H20).