In honour of the sixth instalment of the franchise, I am bringing you SCRARCH (patent pending), the full breakdown of the ‘Scream’ franchise. The iconic, self-referential, ironic series of slasher royalty is 29 years old this year, and in many ways offers the foundation to so much of contemporary media. Its influence does not just lay in the horror genre, but parody, thrillers, and teen focused television. And they’re also just a lot of fun to watch.
To quickly summarise the franchise (spoilers throughout, obviously), the ‘Scream’ franchise follows Sidney Prescott as a series of murders occur around her, stemming from her mother and flowing outwards. From her boyfriend, to his mother, to her brother, to her niece, the first four films consistently bring back their “final girl” to endure repeated pain. And stabs. And Stabs (the in-universe films based on these events).
Everything is extremely meta.
The original ‘Scream’ is to horror as Madonna’s ‘Like A Virgin’ (1984) is to pop. Both represent a turning point in tone, style, and subject matter, but due to their immediate influence, feel incredibly of their time. But a cursory search at what was present immediately prior to their release reveals their impact. And in the case of Scream, horror as a genre was immediately turned on its head.
Horror in the 1990s had, by 1996, effectively split multiple, distinct, subgenres that continue to encircle each other to this day. Two in particular matter for this retrospective. The first is the slasher. Through the lineage of films like ‘Halloween’ (1978) and ‘Friday the 13th’ (1980), a distinct archetype of horror films that emphasised a tradition in storytelling and style. Much like ancient myths and legends concerning old women and faeries stealing children (Hansel and Gretel to Baba Yaga), slashers exist within the range of societal fears.
This isn’t an academic deep dive on horror and its socio-political influences, so lets just move forward.
While ‘Scream’ obviously draws upon the slasher subgenre, there’s another lineage at play, and that’s horror as prestige. As early as ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ (1968), the modern critical take on horror has been both fascinating and a little disappointing. The horror genre can be industry defining as the only genre with consistent box office receipts. It has provided some of the most defining iconography Hollywood had ever seen, as with ‘Psycho’ (1960). It can be an avenue for some of the greatest performances of all time, like Toni Collette in ‘Hereditary’ (2018). But outside of this random pocket in the early 1990s, it was not a genre the industry liked to present the big awards to.
‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991) is the obvious big ticket when it comes to prestige horror films. Often treated more as a thriller than a horror film, this is THE defining horror film to win a bunch of awards, namely Oscars. Following the unexpected success of Kathy Bates the year prior for ‘Misery’ (1990), the 1992 Academy Awards saw the Jodie Foster led film take home five trophies, all major awards. The following year, ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ won a handful of technical awards at the next ceremony.
‘Scream’ wasn’t an awards darling, that’s true. But in its scope and cleverness, it is more than a match for the best of the era. This was high horror, a slasher with a brain, and it was clearly where the subgenre had been heading for a while. Or more specifically, where Wes Craven, visionary horror director, had been heading through the 1990s.
The irony poisoning of the 1990s started off as something altogether cleverer and more well-intentioned than you might realise. In regard to Craven, by the middle of the decade he had clearly hit upon something he wanted to explore. Look to something like ‘Wes Craven’s New Nightmare’ for the most obvious example. A film about the film about the fictional monster that becomes real in the fictional world of the franchise in which he appears as himself. It’s a film about media, legacy, and audience expectations. All of these themes would follow the director through his work in the Scream franchise, particularly the first film.
But if the first film represents a legend of the genre elevating his own work, what does the reboot to the franchise tell us about horror today?
‘Scream’ (2022) is, for the most part, the safest option when it comes to returning to this franchise. While we’ll return to ‘Scream IV’ (2011) at another time, let me be clear that this is a film with both more ambition and less interest in the franchise it sits in. We get the obligatory nods to the meta narrative and circle in the new cast, but this is a film that essentially wants to shrug off the baggage.
If the fourth film in the franchise chickened out on the ending by keeping the main cast fully alive, the 2022 reboot finally fulfills the promise of the first two films by killing off one of the core three. Just as Randy dying in ‘Scream 2’ (1997) offered the audience the edge necessary to keep the horror interesting, Dewey’s murder is a chance to throw everyone off their feet.
This is a franchise about slasher films, but the subgenre is littered with films that are indebted to ‘Scream’. ‘Jennifer’s Body’ is a horror film that could not exist without this franchise. That clunky script pulls heavily in tone and style from the work of Kevin Williamson (Diablo Cody, you hack). Slasher films became, in many ways, more obvious teen fodder than before. Or at least, that chunk of the market became oversaturated and samey. This was what, returning again to his franchise, we had to grapple with.
What we get is messy.
On one hand, there’s clearly a new line-up of young, attractive actors who can take over, especially now they’re trying to underpay the old cast. Not everyone is especially suited for their roles, but they’re all pretty game. Sprinkle in some dynastic evil, and you’ve got the foundations for something that could be good.
But the film is so unsure of itself. In attempt to unburden itself of legacy, it fails to replace it with heart. While the original franchise was often silly or overly invested in its own narrative, the three original films build to emotionally touching moments – all of which surround Sydney’s mother. There’s actual, acknowledged, living family in the new film. Unfortunately, it relies on a dynamic that is…incumbered by a lack of skill on one side. But it is one in line with the wider franchise’s interest in legacy as it pertains to family. Sidney is haunted by her mother’s death, is forced to kill her brother in self-defence, and then is almost murdered by her niece out of sheer greed and envy. Sam Carpenter is haunted by her father’s actions, and places herself in immense danger to save her sister.
But again…the meta of it all.
We’ll explore the more Hollywood of Craven and Williamson’s meta-textual storytelling another time. The pair are clearly fascinated with the world they’ve created and the world’s fascination with the world they’ve created. But it’s a particularly 1990s view of itself. By the reboot, they’re aware it’s tired.
Dewey is a broken man, who dies because a group of kids can’t help but murder for fun. Sidney enters almost as an afterthought, and Gale refuses to continue the legacy in itself. It’s a tidy way of moving everyone along from a franchise that is trapped in a self-aware…well, horror film.
The new film, without Sidney Prescott, only has itself to explore now. What is ‘Scream’ without her?