Scream Series Wrap Up

Aside from the original these frickin’ Screams aren’t what I expected or remembered exactly.  They’re all the same goddamn movie to kind of a criminal degree.  With that said there are a few items we should discuss before wrapping this shit up.

One question at the top though, how did Ghostface come to be called Ghostface?  In the first and second films the Halloween costume the killers use is labeled Father Death on the package.  It’s curious that this name wasn’t adopted by the fans, although Ghostface does sound cooler.  Well according to the internet Rose McGowan in the first film uses the term Ghostface and I guess it stuck with the community because as far back as I can remember this is what anyone has ever called this character.  There’s a loose The Shape/Michael Myers connection here with the villain having multiple names and the fans choosing for the world which prevails.

Ok, a very silly trademark of the series is Ghostface’s pratfalls.  When he takes a spill look out, he goes flying.  And don’t be fooled, this is the movie laughing AT the character and I don’t care for it that much.  I wish the stumbles weren’t so cartoonish and happen so often.  You could argue this makes sense because it’s hard to see in the mask and your mobility is somewhat limited in the full costume and I buy that to an extent.  If he gets tripped up for a moment that’s ok but having him go airborne and land on his ass almost every time is too much.

And this leads to another aspect that I kinda scratch my head over which is the insistence that these films are part comedy.  Part 3 is perhaps the closest but overall this sentiment doesn’t exactly come across.  It’s probably all the meta stuff they’re referring to but not all of it lands.  Plus the way these are shot and edited doesn’t imply setup, joke, setup, joke.  It’s presented straight up like you would expect.  In the end there isn’t that much more comic relief than your normal horror picture.  So I always thought it was weird when the filmmakers talk about the series like it’s a yuck a minute with intermittent deadly serious slayings.

Ghostface is played by someone different (or multiple people) in every movie making him fairly unique in the slasher realm.  He’s not a supernatural entity like Jason or Freddy and he’s not supposed to be the same person like Michael Myers and he’s not a possessed creature like Chucky.  He’s a new guy in the costume each time out.  Of course this poses a problem because it seems every other person Sidney comes across is utterly insane with an unquenchable bloodlust.

In each episode it’s revealed at the end that there are two killers working together to terrorize their victims.  The only time they diverge from this is in 3 where one guy flies solo.  The novelty of a dastardly duo is refreshing the first time but gets tiresome quickly.  They should’ve played with this more instead of almost always sticking with a pair of slayers.

The killers are extremely tech savvy too.  One of the big things they do is clone other people’s cell phones to lure victims into traps.  I wouldn’t have a problem with this gag if they didn’t use it so damn much.  The sequels especially lean on this crutch to manipulate characters to get them where they need to be too often.  However, by far the heaviest use of this cheap trick is in the TV show (we’ll get there).  None of the characters ever wise up to this shit either.  You’d think across five movies they would get leery about the texts and emails they receive but nope, the authenticity of any message is never questioned.  Thankfully the magical voice changer from 3 that can alter your speech to sound exactly like anyone else’s is the one and only time that stupid thing shows up.

Moving on, the first film has a rich backstory that’s hinted at and explored somewhat in the first sequel.  Syndey’s mother was murdered by someone who’s sitting on death row due to Sidney’s eye witness testimony.  Turns out it wasn’t him.  I’m not saying I need that movie but well, that’s a movie.  To go that far with a character’s past is impressive and usually relegated to personal notes between the actor and director.  This easily could’ve been left out because it’s not crucial to the motive of the killers.  Billy Loomis is angry because Sidney’s mom caused his parents marriage to break up so he kills her (offscreen).  Fine.  But having a third party erroneously take the fall for her murder isn’t necessary.  It could be an unsolved case and Sidney could still be pissed at Gale over how she covered the story.  Anyway, I love that they went the extra mile to officially make it a part of Sidney’s DNA.  A lesser film would’ve balked at the idea.

Speaking of Sidney, man, she has some of the worst goddamn luck in the world.  Killers keep finding her.  Over five movies she faces no less than nine multiple murdering psychopaths which is like kind of a lot (two of them are blood relatives of Sidney no less).  I guess this is her plight for fingering the wrong guy who she thought murdered her mother?  She must endure a lifetime of numerous maniacs who want to turn her life into a living hell and her body into Swiss cheese?  Sure that’s a bad thing that happened but it wasn’t malicious, it was a mistake.  Damn.

Perhaps the only other person who gets it worse is Dewey.  This sonuvabitch gets stabbed badly in 1 causing nerve damage and then gets stabbed again in 2 in an even more brutal fashion.  Then in 3 he gets sliced in the arm and the crap beat out of him by Ghostface including various blows to the head and a tumble down the stairs.  In 4 he takes the least amount of damage but still gets knocked around with a nasty metal bedpan hit to the skull.  Additionally there’s the emotional turmoil he has to deal with in each installment over his love/hate relationship with Gale.  Mercifully in 5 Ghostface finally guts this fucker and boots him out of the franchise for good.  Jeez.

And all this shit, all the murders and deception and everything, stem from Sidney’s mother, Maureen, sleeping around with a bunch of guys.  Like fifty fuckin’ people die because of this!  And the franchise is still going!  What?!  That begs the question then of why does anyone besides Maureen need to die?  What do all the other victims have to do with her promiscuousness?  Not a damn thing really.  The sequels sure as hell don’t make sense in this regard and not even the wonderful original adds up if you think about it for more than half a minute.  Maureen’s daughter, Maureen’s daughter’s friends and the high school principal need to die because she was boinking some dude(s) on the side?  Why?

Weirdly as the narrative continues to unfold across the films it only gets less interesting despite some Saw level plot reveal zaniness (not counting the TV show which has its own universe of whacked out bends in the path).  Here’s my vote for the two craziest twists.  One is the introduction of Sidney’s long lost brother in 3 who Maureen got pregnant with during a search for stardom in Hollywood in the 70’s (it’s unclear if she was raped or not).  And, hold on to your hats, turns out this asshole nutjob sibling orchestrated the events of the first film from behind the scenes.  Sheeeeit.  Smash cut to eleven years later in 4 and Sidney’s niece is a fuckin’ lunatic with a grand plan of taking over the spotlight from Sidney by killing her and pretending to be the lone survivor of a new round of murders.  The two end up hashing it out in the ICU while recovering from life threatening injuries.  Sidney uses a defibrillator to zap her opponent’s head as a stopgap then shoots her in the chest.  I know you’re thinking these turns sound amazing but the repetitive tediousness of the other ninety five percent of the runtime makes me not care by the time we hit the finale.

Watching all the Screams in a row like this was eye opening.  Sadly my ultimate takeaway is this is kind of a shitty franchise honestly.  The original has earned its masterpiece status for sure.  I don’t think anyone’s gonna argue with that.  Those sequels though, woof.  None of them are very good which makes me think the whole thing has been coasting on the genius, success and now nostalgia of that first one.  Other horror franchises get flack for being the same thing over and over but at least the Fridays, Nightmares, Halloweens, Chainsaws and the like have either awesome visual style, vivid characters, unusual intriguing stories, supernatural elements, incredible effects work, kick ass production design or hugely entertaining performances.  It’s difficult to create a continuing saga for the Screams because the sequels don’t contain any of that.  They’re totally straight forward horror whodunit pictures that take place in the real world with a sorta goofy Scooby Doo quality to them when the killer finally takes off the mask to unveil him/herself.  I think the sequels would’ve worked better if they were episodic and involved a different set of characters with a new backstory and scenario each time.  But guess what?  They kinda did that.

In carrying out my due diligence I watched the entirety of the TV show that ran from 2015-2019 for MTV and VH1.  The first two seasons follow the same characters but the third is a completely new cast of characters and setting.  The structure and feel is one hundred percent identical to the films except the character names and town name are different and for seasons one and two the killer’s mask is an alternate design (they went back to original recipe Ghostface for season three).  This is the format they should’ve gone with all along for the sequels.  The inane stories are bad fan fiction soap opera bullshit anyway so at least now we’re in the right medium.  And didn’t the biggest soaps back in the day have a murder mystery storyline at some point in their decades long run?  Think about it, in every Scream sequel there’s a killer on the loose, a large pool of suspects, everyone is related to everyone else somehow, most characters have a hidden secret, new family members are produced out of thin air when the plot gets stuck, it’s perfect.  Stretching the killer’s exceptionally overcomplicated idiotic plan over ten or so smaller bites works better than condensing it down to two hours.  If you’re a fan of these movies you’ll probably dig the show.  It’s trashy and absurd and filled to the brim with drama and it gets surprisingly gory.  It’s so much more enjoyable than the sequels.

But Scream’s legacy is long and remains firmly in the cinematic realm for its core audience.  It’s touched a lot of people at this point and (somewhat puzzlingly) has cemented itself as a titan among horror franchises.  There’s more to come too and unfortunately shows no signs of peeling off the mask, putting down the knife and becoming an actual ghost.  It makes me wanna yell loudly in a shrieking manner.