Why the Scream Franchise Still Works | Meta Horror, Culture, and Ghostface Explained ft. Ben Wright

How did Scream manage to mock horror and reinvent it at the same time?

In this deep dive, we break down the entire Scream franchise and explore why Ghostface remains one of the most culturally relevant horror icons. From Wes Craven’s original meta blueprint to the modern commentary on fandom, sequels, and media obsession, Scream proves that horror evolves when it reflects its audience.

Including Special Guest Host: 

Ben Wright from Hot Takes Film Club
https://www.instagram.com/hottakesfilmclub/?locale=en

In this analysis, we explore:
What makes Ghostface different from other slasher villains
Why meta horror increases tension
How Scream critiques toxic fandom and media culture
The evolution of trauma and the final girl trope
Why Scream still feels modern in the 2020s

If you want more from the movies you watch, subscribe for weekly film analysis that proves your favourite movie has something to teach you.

Timestamps
00:00 Why Scream still matters
02:10 The original 1996 impact
05:40 Meta horror explained
11:15 Audience complicity and media consumption
17:30 Final girl evolution and trauma
23:45 Sequel commentary on fandom and toxic culture
31:10 Ghostface as a symbol
39:20 Why Scream feels modern
45:00 The future of the franchise

Key Takeaways
Scream reinvented horror by turning the camera back on the audience
Meta commentary can increase tension rather than reduce it
Ghostface is less a villain and more a cultural symptom
Horror evolves alongside media literacy
Self awareness in storytelling reflects generational anxiety

Keywords:
Horror Movies, Scream Franchise, Ghostface, Film Analysis, Wes Craven, Meta Horror, Slasher Films, Movie Podcast, Pop Culture, Thriller Analysis, Final Girl, Horror History, Film Criticism, Media Commentary, Franchise Deep Dive 

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Why Scream

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What if horror movies were never about the killers, but they were more about artists? Screen tracked how many escaped identity over 30 years of cinema. And we're talking about it today with our special guest, Ben Wright. Hey everybody, it is Aaron here from the Phantom Portals podcast, and I am joined by Ben Wright, who is a seasoned guest on the Phantom Portals podcast. We were saying before he is back for the sequel. How are you today?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me back again. I'm excited to talk about this because it is only five days at the moment of recording away from the new Scream movie being released. So that's why I'm yeah, excited to be talking about it.

Hosts’ Horror Histories

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Yeah, exactly. Right. And thank you so much for like suggesting the topic. And we were saying before we recorded how I'm a little bit of a whoof when it comes to horror movies, and it's no secret to everybody that listens to the podcast that these are usually not my go-to sort of movies. But you reached out and and wanted to have a chat for Scream 7 that's coming out. And you know, we naturally just said, let's let's make a uh show of it. And I started to watch one, two, three. And yeah, so in terms of the Scream movies as well, I found that usually I would blanket and say that I'm not really a horror fan, but I've found that like 90s horror is kind of my jam and more like the later 2000s and 2010 sort of horror for me is a little bit more bleak, and that's the kind of horror that I don't really like. So I've found like elements within the genre that I'm comfortable with, so to speak. Where do you sit on the horror sort of scale, Ben, in terms of your usual viewing? Is it a favorite genre? Is it a cozy sort of watch? What where do you sit?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Well, it's definitely a cozy watch because I guess I'm one of those freaks that likes to put on uh some freaky stuff and then drift off to sleep. In fact, I was telling some of my friends the other day that sometimes if I can't get to sleep, I will YouTube sleep music for villains because I want something a bit darker, because I don't want all this like nice airy fairy stuff. But yeah, where I sit on horror, I think maybe when I was growing up, there were a few people who were obsessed with the core three of Michael Myers and um Freddie and Jason, and they never really vibed with me quite so much. And I think it was that 90s horror that really hit the right time for me. Maybe they were kids that sort of had parents that uh got them to watch those films when they were younger, and that's why they were close to their heart, whereas I was the one who was introduced to horror in that 90s era. So yeah, I think just like you, I think the 90s era kind of hits for me. But also the the movies that have come, this elevated horror that they describe as now, and things like you know, the Barbaduke and it follows, and a lot of deconstructions of grief seems to be a big trend of the recent horror. And so I do like the fact that horror offers many layers that you can work through. And I think Scream is sort of the beginning, starting a period of time where you start to see them sort of doing that, but also looking at horror as a genre in culture itself.

Awards, Respect, And Modern Horror

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, and I think I was speaking to Jeffrey Reddick, who was the mind behind Final Destination earlier in one of the podcast episodes that we did, and he sort of was was very forthcoming in the way that the way the way that horror sort of reflects a cultural sort of significance at the time. And I think I can agree with you in you saying that the horror elements that have been coming out more recently are definitely reflective of that, but also they do dive into some of those those you know universal themes, and that's becoming a more popular genre as well, to the point where I think a few of the horror genre of movies are actually been nominated for awards and things like that, which is you know unheard of really in history.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

It is getting there, yeah. I mean, historically a lot of people have been snubbed in the Oscars because it the horror genre was never really taken seriously, and now with people like Jordan Peel making Get Out and Nope and Us, uh, I think horror has started to be seen as something that is uh is just as impactful as other genres. You know, I guess the Academy is just a little bit slow to slow on the uptake on that one.

Slasher Fatigue Before Scream

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Even when you look at like where actors begin to start their careers, a lot of them gravitate towards a horror appearance first, like for Scream specifically, uh Scream 2. The amount of stars that was in Scream 2, just at the at the budding start of their career or they came back as like an irony piece, it was uh it was amazing to see in in just that scream two sort of space. Definitely a really evolving like place in in Hollywood, but I think it's also got a lot more to say than just like hacking and slashing and some scary things in the dark corners of your room. So but let's start to dive into Scream and specifically like the cultural context around horror when Scream first came out, because director Web Wes Craven was no amateur when it came to horror, and also Kevin Williamson, the the writer, was also quite adepted at horror, but then they came to Scream with a different sort of lens.

Scream’s Meta Breakthrough

Postmodernism And Horror Tropes

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Uh yeah, so the culture that Scream came in at was I mean, 1978 was uh when we saw Halloween, the first Halloween movie, which introduced us to Michael Myers. And then over the subsequent decade or so, we had the introduction of Freddie uh in Nightmare in Elm Street and Jason from the Friday the 13th movies. Um and they became kind of like the core icons of Slasher Horror for within the 20-year period prior to Scream being released. Uh and what I looked into was like I didn't realize how prolific they were in such a short space of time. Halloween, sorry, uh Friday the 13th had nine movies made just in the first one came out in 1980, and so they had nine movies made before the end of the decade, which if you can imagine that now. I mean, there's been an 11-year gap between this new Scream movie coming out and the oh, sorry, uh the new run of Scream movies in in 2022, and then the previous one was in 2011. So there was these huge gaps there. Here, they were just knocking them out. And also, we had seven Nightmare on Elm Street films that were made before Scream came out. The Halloween movies obviously have done very similar kind of figures uh during that 20-year period of time, to the point where you ended up getting uh, you know, the initial fright and the initial fear of the concept started getting watered down. And even by like Nightmare on Elm Street 4, you started getting rapping Freddy. Like you got him teaming up with uh with uh a bunch of I I can't remember the name of the band that was uh doing it, but it was a rap band and it was sort of dipping into that kind of urban culture that they were interested in during that ATP's period of time. Yeah, it's like everything just started getting watered down and everything started getting a bit more absurd, and people started going like, oh yeah, it's just a bunch of it's just someone coming in with a big machete or you know, fingers or you know, any of that, and they just slash them up and they just got kind of a bit bored of it. And it also became a bit of a joke, you know. Uh the leprechaun movies you were saying about people who got a star in horror movies. Jennifer Aniston was one of the people who got a start in horror movies through leprechaun, and then it was leprechaun in the hood, you know, tapping into the urban culture again. So it's just everything just sort of became kind of funny, and it started it started recognizing that it was a kind of funny situation. It wasn't really tapping into that original core idea. Because it was really just about, oh, these were successful. This we didn't expect this to happen. So let's just make more and more and more. So by the time we got into Scream, I mean, you know, there were jokes of plenty, people weren't really taking it seriously, and that's where Scream kind of hits with this postmodern angle on it, where there it's a movie that acknowledges these other movies and this history of horror that came before it and sort of subverts it in that kind of way.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah, it's it's very self-aware. And I found that when I was watching the initial trilogy, so Scream 1, 2, and 3, that's where my journey has started. And I will I do intend to watch the others before number seven comes out, and it's actually getting to the point where I think I'm gonna go and watch it in the in the cinemas because I've I'm really enjoying them. But but yeah, you're right. I think that it's really self-aware, and that's one of the defining characteristics of the Scream series, to the point where they, you know, at the time they would be listing actors and movies that were coming out during the year that those those films were coming out, so 96 or 97, just scream one and two. There was even like some subtle meta references with Courtney Cox and Friends. There was a few of those that I picked up in terms of you know mentioning the actors Jennifer Aniston or David Schwimmer playing, was it Dewey or something like that in one of the stab movies?

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, they they reference it in Scream 2 that he plays Dewey. Yeah, and uh it was Gail Weathers says that there were naked pictures of her online, or someone says there's naked pictures of her online, and she says that wasn't my body, that was Jennifer Aniston's body. Yeah, a lot of a lot of inter textuality at play just in the dialogue alone.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, and and and I also saw it with some of the actors when they were actually previewing the the trailers and things for Stab One in in the movies, you know, they would use like Luke Wilson to play Billy Loomis in one of the trailers as well. So that sort of meta atmosphere is one of the defining characteristics. And you know, it hadn't been done before, as you as you say. And there is a fine line to walk, I think, as well, because when when you are poking fun at like those sort of elements of horror that it creates this environment where the creators know that the audience is self-aware in that space, and they're not sort of treating them like a like an idiot in that way, but they're also saying, Hey, we know that you know these tropes, but we're also going to try and scare you by subverting them, or then also like leaning into them as well.

Final Girl, Rules, And Subversion

Wes Craven, Williamson, And Origins

Culture Clashes: Blame The Movies

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah, so what you've actually hit on there is is postmodernist theory. And I don't obviously it's a very broad theory, it goes into art, it goes into philosophy, it talks about culture, um, but when you narrow it down into the world of film, you have these periods of time, and each one of them are essentially a comment on the previous era. And to give a a really simple, very simplistic approach to it just for the sake of time, if if film was created at the beginning of what was called a modernist era, a traditionalist era that came before it might have been your sort of mustache twizzling, tie the woman to the to the train tracks, and then a big hero comes along and uh saves the day. It's a very clear-cut role. The modernist era started having a bit more introspection about what the protagonist is doing. You know, you started seeing the sort of emergence of an anti-hero, protagonist who might do things in a little bit of a different way in order to ultimately achieve the goal of good defeating evil, but it ultimately was a good defeating evil kind of role. I mean, and and again, for context, this is very much an American film approach to these concepts. And when Scream came in, you you had them essentially going, okay, well, the postmodern era essentially was recognizing that you had to kind of deconstruct the era before it, but you like in terms of the morals and values that were in play. And during the 90s and and through that postmodern era, you start getting a very nihilistic approach, which is where Scream excelled because you had kids hearing about a murder that happened the previous night, and they're just laughing and joking and making jokes about did you leave liver in the mailbox? Because I heard you live her in the mailbox, you know, like that kind of thing. And it it sort of spoke to a very jaded teen culture of the time. But it was also a period of time where you started seeing film itself playing with the form. But like, you know, a movie like Memento would be quite a postmodern movie because it's changing the structure of how movies are done. It's not just beginning, middle, and end, it's actually we're gonna show you the ending and we're gonna work all the way backwards, going in reverse order and just mixing up the format. And Scream was one of those kind of movies that although it didn't change film form in the way it told the stories, it very much was acknowledging the film culture and how that was impacting the characters in the film. And yeah, so when you're talking about tropes, I mean the film itself, the original film obviously uh speaks of I think the line is a big-breasted woman running up the stairs when she should have been running out the front door, kind of thing, is talking about these the final girl tropes. The final girl trope very much came from Jamie Lee Curtis in in Halloween, uh, and that's that sort of sparked the concept. And then you see it in a variety of films of just the the last survivor, and it was normally a girl because I mean you can go back and look at the the weird combination of appealing to teen culture while also shaming them for their sexual activity. Like you could talk for days about that kind of thing, and that's another one of the trips which she's actually brought up in the first film where um Billy is trying to get a Sydney to into bed, and and as a marker of watching a horror film, you're like, oh no, this means Sydney might get killed. And Randy, the the film nerd in the film, even makes comment of it as like you cannot sleep with anyone, you can't lose your virginity because that means you're gonna be the next target. And it is yeah, it is this like role of tropes that they they play around with in the Scream franchise, lesser so as the movies have gone on, and I think that's a more complicated topic to talk about in in that sense. But um, but for the time in the 90s, that it just hit that postmodern era and nicely, and it was going like, you know what, kids aren't taking these horror movies seriously anymore, and the people making them aren't really taking them seriously anymore. And what's interesting actually is um that you mentioned Wes Craven being the director of uh the first four screen movies before he passed away. He actually made a nightmare on Elm Street, which was called The New Nightmare. And in that film, he was actually trying to play with meta commentary and and recognizing that it was all, you know, that it was kind of part of a filmmaking process and that kind of thing. And that didn't quite go quite as well, probably because people were just kind of a bit tired of seeing this Freddie Krueger character. So it's interesting that after a lot of convincing, uh, he ended up taking on another stab, if you will, yeah, at a at a meta commentary. And and that's where Kevin Williamson came in. Because actually he he said that he was adept at horror. He wasn't, he hadn't proved proved himself at this point. He was, he wrote the film in about three days, from what I remember correctly. He wrote it over a weekend because he was needed to pay his rent. He was three months behind on his rent, and he just needed to go away to a nice isolated place and really knock out the script. And he just started just looking at the kind of world, you know, how culture had kind of moved on from where these horror movies had begun, and was like, okay, well maybe we can maybe we can play around with that and see how to to make some kind of fresh new thing. And I mean, the the other angle of it is is obviously these horror movies in culture itself that were saying, oh, well, these movies they're influencing children to do violent negative acts. And I believe what really cements Scream as a postmodern film is, as opposed to the era that we're in now, which I can sort of show you the contrast of, is the line that Stewie says at the end of the first Scream film, which is uh no, Sid, don't you blame the movies. Movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative. And it is it was a commentary of just going, no, fuck you, don't blame the movies. Like there are psychos out there, and if they want to emulate movies, that's just because they're already psychos, kind of thing. And yeah, and that was really that was really them reflecting upon culture. What we've actually moved into now is a meta modern era. It's a it's a flowing term, but it seems to be in the term that has risen to the top because we're kind of in the era and we're trying to interpret it as it happens instead of looking at it in hindsight. And now we're in an era where films are actually thinking about how film itself is impacting culture. So, in in that kind of contrast, you know, you've got movies like The Fable Mans, which essentially is like an autobiography, semi-autobiography of Steven Spielberg. Um, you've got Babylon, you've got a bunch of movies that are recognizing film's influence in the world of culture, or the culture that we have now. But you know, that's why Scream is a postmodern movie, because it's saying, nope, we're not gonna be self-reflective, we think you're wrong, and we're gonna make a comment about that directly answering the kind of talk that was being had in government around that kind of time.

Sydney Prescott’s Arc In 1–3

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah, and I I think um in terms of that culture that we're talking about, it goes on to like my most valuable takeaway for this movie where we talk about how media does evolve over time, but our identity to that media also can change because of the film. But you know, the film can be a reflection of that as well. But I think the important thing is that we we sort of question that relationship and the stories that are being told and how it's shaping us or strengthening us. And in terms of this scream franchise, you're right, because each one that I watched, one, two, and three, you could tell that there was a definite focus or a message I'll put in quotes that they were trying to portray to the target audience, like you said, the first one being that movies create sort of violent people. And then I feel like in number two, they kind of doubled down on the fact that that uh sometimes movies or TV shows in that era in 1997 were monetizing people's trauma, or like it it moves into like a new wave of especially in the third one in in that was released in 2000, it's like the actual institution of control around Hollywood. So I feel like like those three from the ones that I've seen is really reflective or or shows like a I don't know if it's reflective, but it it's definitely like a poignant statement to make in this genre of horror. And I think it really hits that target audience because as you said, in the in the early 90s you have this teenage culture that's sort of starting to move away from the traditional norms. And yeah, I just think it really hit them sort of straight in the sweet spot.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, I mean, it's a complicated thing for the screen. If we're talking about the first three films, and I mean realistically, the first three films, it was it was designed to be a trilogy. One came out in that, well, not originally, it came out in 1990, very quickly made a sequel, which came out in 1997, which actually had a lot of trouble during the production because it was in that era where the internet was starting to take form, and so therefore there were actually leaks of the script, all the excitement of it, and then the the scripts got leaked. So it actually evolved and the killers actually changed from the initial draft because of that leaked script.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yeah, they made comments about that in number three as well, didn't they? Like Yes. Yeah, they said there's three different scripts, and obviously the person has got a hold of the script, so yeah, very good.

Trauma, Compassion, And Choice

SPEAKER_00 18:00

I think that might have been Wes just feeling a little bit irritated and deciding that it would be kind of fun to put that in there. Yeah, that was actually a movie. The third movie was one where Kevin had stepped away because uh because Kevin Williamson, who wrote Scream, also wrote I Know What You Did Last Summer. He went on to have a directing debut of teaching Mrs. Tingle. He had his fingerprints on a lot of 90s culture, including Dawson's Creek, which is kind of a bit timely, obviously, with uh James Vanderbeek um passing away recently. So yeah, he was he was really embedded in that that 90s youth culture. But the third film was impacted by another thing which had happened in the real world. It was released in 2000, so that means they were filming it in that sort of 1999 to 2000 kind of period of time. And in 1999, obviously, there was the Columbine killings. So they had again another script disruption because they wanted uh the idea was that they were going to uh there's some talks of bringing Stu back and there being like a cult of ghost face and all this kind of stuff, but they had it centered around a sort of school theme, and at that point it was just you you couldn't do that. So it was interesting because Scream 3 is almost like a um maybe not so subtle warning of like all the Weinstein conversation that we had in in 2016, because it is about how Hollywood can take in someone young and impressionable and and chew them up and spit them out. You know, it was a about a woman that became pregnant and had a lot of shame around how she became pregnant because it was probably a sexual assault situation, and then she wanted to go live her normal life and tried to you know leave the baby somewhere to be raised separately, and then that's what leads to um this person growing up and wanting to get back into her life, and she just wants to keep complete separation from that, and obviously that evolves to the finale for that film. So yeah, the the films themselves ended up being wrapped up in culture and in a lot more of you know, things from real world impacting the film and and and then the film sort of impacting the real world in different ways, you know, that with with the rise of um in film itself, the rise of a teen slasher, kind of like the way Halloween sort of revolutionized the um the horror genre from being like sort of psycho and and the birds and Hitchcock kind of things, and then moving into a youthful teen slasher. Scream very much sort of revolutionized that on the film side, but then culture itself was also impacting the way these films were being uh created.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Sydney survives every era of this sort of media evolution that occurs in number one, number two, number three. That's all I've seen so far. I assume she she survives through the rest, because I think she appears in number seven from what I've looked at the car. But um, yeah, yeah. What what do you think she sort of represents in this cultural space? I know that she's very much tied to that final girl representation, but she goes through a little bit of a journey through one, two, and three in terms of the way she reacts to the situation that she has been a part of through those movies as well.

Ghostface As Whodunnit Engine

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, so Sydney's got an interesting kind of relationship with an audience. You know, she starts off as the typical final girl trope. She's an innocent, she's very young. They have the little joke about will you settle for a PG 13 relationship as she flashes her boobs to Billy, and and then by the end of it, she decides, okay, now I am going to decide to grow up and I am going to lose my virginity, and I'm going to do it to the person who ends up being the killer. But then in two, I think you really get to see the depth of that character in two. You can see that she's gained some confidence as the events of Scream were something that had happened in her past. And you see that in the beginning of the film because someone calls up and says, you know, do you like scary movies? And she knew that she was going to get those calls because of the stab franchise, which is introduced for the first time as movies in universe which were based on the events of the first film. And she knows that's coming out, and she knows that's going to have an impact on her life. But she just looks at caller ID and tells this person to go away. So you can See her as being like quite a confident person, but then as soon as you find out about the deaths of uh Maureen and I can't remember, I think his name's Phil Stevens. So the idea is yeah, sort of emulating the characters from the first film. As soon as she finds out that there have been these deaths and that actually maybe there is someone out there actually killing people, you start seeing this vulnerable side to her. The trauma is starting to impact her relationships with people. Even though she was quite a cautious, you know, more solitary person, you know, she starts this with confidence, but you can see that getting eroded. And then throughout that movie, you see, I mean, by the time you get to the end and you know who the killers are, you look back and you can see how the killers have been manipulating her, creating paranoia. Is it the boyfriend again? You know, have you just fallen in love with someone who's actually a serial killer? Are you just doomed to repeat this cycle over and over again? Which is actually interesting because that was the original plot. That was for Kevin. Was it Kevin? I forgot his name now. It was the boyfriend in the Derek to to be the killer, which I I I very much enjoy the way it ended up evolving into Mrs. Loomis and Mickey. We'll talk about the killers later, but in that, just this sense of paranoia and gaslighting throughout that movie and seeing how that impacts her was a huge part of who Sydney was going into three. And in three, she's someone who's decided to close off her environment. She's decided to be a essentially a a um what would you call it?

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Like a therapist on the phone kind of deal.

Killer Motives Across The Series

Toward Seven: Returning To Form

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah, kind of like youth line or sort of just like a an emergency safe space to to call through to because she's obviously she's obviously a quite caring person. She wants to give back, but she's she wants to isolate herself by living in this property which is way out of the way of any of the major hustle and bustle of any local towns and things like that. So you can see that the the fact that these events have happened twice to her have made her a very closed-off person and a very paranoid and very scared person. And for all the faults of three, I mean you could talk about the quality of it, and and you know, I do think the the events of Columbine, unfortunately, did sort of create a um a turbulent filming environment for for that film. What they did with Sydney was was absolute gold, giving her this ability to meet the killer at the end and realize that this person has actually been interwoven and intertwined into the previous films. And and for those who I mean, if for those who haven't seen the films, too late, there's gonna be spoilers. So, like you find out that it's actually this that her mother was the person I was talking about who was abused in Hollywood and who had this illegitimate child and shunned the child away from her. So the killer ends up being her half-brother. And you find out that when he turned up into Sydney's mother's life, it was before the events of Scream, and because he was shunned away from being a part of this family, he felt isolated and started going slowly insane from that. And because she can see how that killer was sort of the origins of her mother's death and Billy and Stu attacking her in the first two, and Mrs. Loomis and Mickey in the second, and how it's all sort of interwoven together, she really gets to this point where she can say that she feels safer and she's put all of this to bed. Um which, as we know, you know, there's other movies that come afterwards, but ultimately that those three movies really do give her a great arc. And the interesting thing about where Sydney sits in terms of culture is the queer community of attached themselves to Sydney, or they they have a strong bond and relationship with Sydney because of this sense of going through a lot of hardship and a lot of people coming to get them and that kind of thing, and then rising from the ashes and finding themselves and becoming a more well-rounded and and calm and confident version of themselves. So yeah, Sydney's Sydney's connection to culture is really comes from a relatable trauma that you get to see come to a pretty calm close by the time you get to three. And and in terms of obviously, because there have been more movies, she's in four, she's in five, she's not in six, which was more to do with contractual issues, arguments she was having with the studios at the time, what Neve Campbell was, and then she is going to be back in seven, you see her as a much more confident person who's had enough of this shit and she's willing to like storm into buildings and chase down the killer instead of being this victim. And so even though those films do sort of close off her story, they're really closing off her story of victimhood and allowing her to be a much more character with a lot more agency in in the later films.

Family Stakes And Inherited Fear

Tech, AI, And Voices From The Past

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Yeah, I think that's absolutely true because the final scene that you see her in in number three is is when she goes to lock the door and put the code in, and obviously the door clicks open again, and she's quite happy to go and watch a movie with her friends with that door being left open. But also, I think, you know, that's metaphorical for the Scream franchise, you know, the door is left open for another one coming through. In terms of her the final act of number three as well, I thought it was very interesting. And I don't know if I'm I'm picking up the right sort of cinema cinematography cues here, but before it was like revealed at the end where where she sort of held her half-brother's hand while he sort of passed away for the first time before he came and jumped back as they do in the trophy. Like, I thought that was a very sort of compassionate way and really highlighted the fact that Sydney has gone through a lot, a whole lot of growth. And despite all the pain and the and the trauma and the suffering that she's gone through at the hands of this person, she can still then be understanding to this person here who's also suffered and come on the other side of it. Because just before that, I feel like they did like a flip or a reversal, because there was a moment where the the killer at the end of number three was then like searching this basement for Sydney, who was like in hiding, and then you see the close-up of her like pulling the tools down, and then she jumps out from out of the counter and stabs him in the back very much like Ghostface does. So I think that that was almost a clever way to say, you know, Sydney could could go one of two ways, and then the close with the sort of the holding of the hand is like, and honestly, I'll I was waiting, because I I know nothing about Scream and how it continues on, but I was waiting for for one of the main three to actually sort of become a killer or a ghost face killer. But then Sydney sort of says in in number three, she says, you know why people kill bad people? It's because they choose to. And and that's that was a line that sort of stuck with me to say, okay, this person's uh sort of self-realizing the journey that she's gone on, and to the point where now she's at the end of it and can leave that door open, and as you said, leaving her victimhood behind. So I, from a position of not having seen the rest, am personally interested to see where they take her, and then also very interested to see what they do with her in number seven. Um we might talk about number seven a little bit later because I know that in number seven, she does sort of like she's a parent in number seven, is from what I've seen. So before we we go on to talk about number seven, I want to highlight uh obviously the the star of the franchise, other than Sydney, is is Ghostface. So Ghostface is a very iconic mask. Even having not seen Scream, I knew that that mask was from Scream, but I think it does a very important thing where for a franchise, and you know, through Final Death talking about Final Destination, one thing that they didn't have in Final Destination was like a marketable killer to s to to you know sell merchandise for. But obviously, this is a very popular like ghost face. And I feel like what Ghost Face represents is important because it can change in every movie, but it also ties the movies together through a centralized villain. So I feel like that's a very creative space, and it's almost like the same way that they say about superheroes, you know, Spider-Man or Batman could be anybody because it's the symbol that matters, and it's the same thing with Ghostface, and he really represents the cultural problem, you could say.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yeah, the the evolution of the motives behind the killers have always been quite a fascinating element of the Scream franchise. But what what it actually does is by having this ghost face character, you don't have a Freddy Kruger, so you just know who that is, or it's Jason Voorhees as a you know, it could be anyone, which means that the movies become a bit of a murder mystery, a bit of a whodunit kind of situation, which is not something that you had from previous slashes, because you just know who's coming around to kill them. They're more of a why sometimes, you know, especially the first ones, is like, well, why is this killer coming after us? But you know, Scream has the why and the who, and it creates that paranoid feeling of like, oh well, it could be any one of the friend group.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Because you're constantly picking and trying to guess, and I will say I never guessed a single one. No, but was very bad at it.

Gail Weathers’ Complicity Question

SPEAKER_00 30:27

I don't think I ever do. I've been talking to a lot of Scream fans recently about who the killer in Seven's gonna be, and ultimately the more I think about it, the more I don't care. Because I kind of want the ingenious level of manipulation that I've seen in some of these films. And I don't, you know, I have I do think that the first two are my favorite. I think two is definitely my favorite even over one, but that's because it has that extra layer of of meta to it and the stab, the introduction of like the stab movies and how that influences the world in which they're playing in and talks directly about tropes. But yeah, in terms of the killers, I mean Stu Marker, loves Stu Marker, uh Matthew Lillard as Stu Marker, just a bit of a loony, probably like just lured into this idea by Skeet Ulrich's uh character of Billy Loomis. You know, like his name's Billy Loomis, and like which, you know, for those who don't get the reference, Billy would be a reference to, and I it's a guy upstairs, what is it, the peeping tom one? I can't remember, is it Dark Christmas? Uh, I can't remember now. And and Loomis is uh the doctor from Halloween who's trying to get Michael Myers back into uh you know into custody. Like it's right there. It's like uh he even says in the movie that he was watching The Exorcist or something like that, and and that made him think of his relationship with Sydney. It's like it's all right there, and yet you're just sort of like, ah, these these kids are weird.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

I think they they do that as well by actually catching him and like sending him to prison, and then he gets out, and it's just like, well, obviously he's innocent because they let him go. So they play on it too. Yeah.

Hopes For Power, Legacy, And Eight

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Well, when I when I watched it with my partner, because I've been given her a uh a full scream education recently, uh, because we're gonna go and see seven together. She was surprised by the fact that there were two killers as well. And it it's fun because the killers are doing things that in movies you'd be sort of like, oh, it's movie magic, you know, like how did Jason manage to get from over there to over here within like, you know, how did he move that fast? Can he teleport like what's going on? It's this concept of like, you know, are they more than human or more than just these heavy big creatures, you know, can they do more? But like it managed to play with that kind of trope by having more than one killer. So there was killers that were just popping up in different locations. And as you said, about audiences becoming smarter as you go along and recognizing these tropes, you're watching Scream and you're just sort of like, oh yeah, well, I guess that's just sort of how horror movies work. And you don't really think about the fact that it actually plays into the fact that there are two killers at the end, which has become pretty much a mainstay trope of of the Scream franchise, apart from three, which ended up just being one killer. But, you know, there's a lot of the conversations about that and how it was possible for him to be able to do some of those things. But yeah, each each of the killers, so like in two, you have Mrs. Loomis and Mickey. So Billy and Stu were obsessed with the movies, and you know, they have that line that I said, don't you blame the movies, and and that was very much them being the psychos who were influenced by movies. Whereas what I find interesting about the killers in two is Mickey wants he doesn't he wants to be caught and he wants the trial. And that's his explanation is like the real entertainment is when the trial happens, and he wants the trial and all the attention that comes from that. Mrs. Loomis has just got old-fashioned revenge, as she says. I love the way Laurie Metcalf plays that character.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

She's got very like crazy eyes, I'll say. Like the way that she was sort of staring down. So you could tell that she was a mother that was scorned. I I like that as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Very good movie. Yeah, exactly. And then obviously by three, we spoke about the the killer of Roman Bridges being Sydney's half-brother. It was a nice way to sort of tie the movies together in this sort of trilogy butt bow. But then the the killers since then have actually they've evolved away from the movies themselves, and it's actually gone into topics of toxic fandom, the money-making machine which waters down these movies, and you know, now we're at the seventh movie. You know, if if the Friday the 13th we're making nine movies in 10 years, you know, like he's talking about how things get watered down and the stab movies in universe get watered down, and there's like there's some people who are enraged about that, so then they want to bring it for something, yeah. Yeah, they want to bring it back to the origin and do a bit of a reboot kind of thing, you know. Like it's got a lot of comments about things. I I'm not gonna talk about six because six literally at the beginning of the movie says fuck the movies, and so it just it goes off, and yeah, it's not the best one, but yeah. But seven is really gonna be a return to form because it will be obviously Wes Craven passed away after making four, but Kevin Williamson, the writer, is actually directing this one and writing it as well. So that will be a little bit like the way Halloween, I can't remember when that came out, 2020 or something like that, and the newest one. The newest of the trilogy that they made was retconning. It was, I think it was just one, and then it was the one from 78, and then they were just like uh, and then many years later he's back. They're not retconning in seven, but they are very much sort of bringing it back to the core elements um that made the Supreme movie so exciting. Um but we'll talk about that in seven.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yeah, I I think we'll we'll talk about sort of seven now, but I I do agree in terms of the way that these movies have come out. And you know, 2002, the the screen movies sort of really came about again, and talking about that screen boot culture, that was at the same time as like the Star Wars reboot came out, and it was really sort of reminiscent of the fact that they're really playing into that meta again. And then, you know, this number seven coming out as well, it it brings back those characters that we were talking about from from Nev Campbell and Courtney Cox as well. David Arquette, I think, is coming back as well as Dewey Riley a little bit there from the cast. But yeah, in Scream 7, I think Sydney goes on a little bit of a new journey because what I'm reading here, it says that you know, she started a new life and her darker spheres are realized in the point that her daughter becomes the next target of this this goes faced killer. And you know, they're they're back again with a with another Who-Done It horror mystery. So let's talk about your expectations for number seven, but then also what sort of tropes or cultural inclusions do you think they will play upon to really draw back to that scream fandom and and what we all love about that trilogy in the initial stages of it?

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Yeah, so actually what the what the heart of this story is going to be is a Sydney story, but what Kevin has done, and I think what he's I think from the trailer and the way some of the things I've seen in interviews and the like, there's an opening scene which is in the marker house, and the marker house has become a bit of a uh a mainstay for for a lot of the movies that came after three, and it's turned into a horror Airbnb. It's a bit of a like a oh, there were actual true crime murders here, but then it's also got posters of the movies on the wall. So it's a bit of a movie fandom Airbnb and a bit of a um true crime Airbnb, which is interesting because the marker house is a real house. It wasn't built on a studio set, and they actually used a real house, and it is an Airbnb when they when they choose to open it up. I think they vacate the property. People live there, they vacate the property for a period of time, and they they market it during a Halloween period as an Airbnb. So you can go stay in the marker house and they have things set up there. So it is like it is art, life, life, you know, imitating each other. And the start of it is is probably gonna be set in the marker house with these two people who are horror fans and true crime fans, and they want to go stay there, and that's when the killer strikes. And he says in the trailer that he wants to burn it all down. It is my thought, based on an interview that Kevin Williamson had, where he said he wanted to move away from the meta element, and which is interesting because that is one of the things which made Screen so interesting, and yet I think it's something that throughout the film since then, it's been really hard for them to build that meta element into the movies. It's always been a bit of a weaker point. Do you have a version of things that I can imagine where they could use a lot of that to really tie a neat little bow on all of the movies? But um, I'll talk about that in a moment. But um, but I think by burning down a house, essentially, he's saying, yeah, it's got all the stab franchise in there. I am a killer, so I am gonna kill some people, but I'm also gonna burn down this whole meta angle. And it's gonna be a movie which is gonna be focused on family, um it's gonna be focused on Sydney, it's gonna be focused on, you know, like the fear of something to come and attack you is gonna be very different to the fear of someone coming to attack someone you love because of you, you know, because of your proximity to these people. And so it's it's gonna revolve around that kind of fear.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Yeah, and I think that that has been played a little bit in one, two, and three, or at least two and three, it's been hinted at because the killer often says to Sydney on the phone, you know, everyone you get close to dies, everyone that like your friends with dies. How would it feel to be? And that's sort of a lingering space for Sydney as well. But coming from like a parental perspective and even from like a perspective of knowing what some people go through in their lives, like there's constant conversations around the about the fact that the the things that affected me as a person will not affect my children, like the buck stops with me kind of thing. So there's that message and layer in it as well, where there's also like the protective parent in Sydney and that element of her character that will be explored, which I think is is very interesting as well. But then when we talk about like her her daughter, looking at it from that perspective, that's where we're sort of looking at a character who is uh very much inheriting a trauma, and and it'll explore sort of things in that vein as well. You know, I I because I've only watched the first three, it was very much 90s, 2000, and that sort of fear around the emerging internet and the sort of connectivity of everything. There was just landlines in number one, and then by number three, they were on the mobile devices and they had caller ID and Star 69 and things like that. But then in the later ones, I believe that they've gone into like obviously social media territory and things like that. Like just that the the publicized versions of this sort of violence that's being brought up in these movies is something that I don't know if they could step away from. And it it'd be interesting to see where they go after they burn that house down because I it's like where could they possibly end up in that sort of space if they're sort of throwing it away, but still be a scream movie.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Well, I do I do have a theory on that. I mean, it is interesting that when you think about the fact that the first film came from this angle of saying, don't blame the movies, you know, like there are psychos out there, it doesn't matter if there are movies or not, there's still gonna be psychos, they're gonna do their thing. But when you actually look at the progression of the movies, because of the fandom around the movies, which were based on the real events, which was based on Gail's books being written, and it's like this cycle that happens where she writes a book on it and then it gets tinted to a movie, and then there's a new psycho that loves like you actually kind of can't deny that in the universe of Scream, you might actually have to blame the movies for what I think would be fantastic is I totally understand making Seven a Sydney focused movie. If we took an opportunity to actually focus on Gail for a period of time, I would really like to see her reckon with the fact that actually maybe she is complicit in this cycle. Because you haven't gone into the other movies later. There are there are points where she decides to just go, you know what, I'm not gonna write a book about this one. And she does that in five, but then by six, you find out she did write a book about it, and you just go back into that scream two cycle of like, you said you weren't gonna write a book, and then you wrote a book, and now we've got all this bullshit to deal with. Like, so like she's very culpable for perpetuating this cycle. And I think it'd be very interesting to see her have to confront something like that in what will definitely be a Scream 8 and a probably a Scream 9 as well, because the box office pre-sales for this movie have already boosted its expected opening weekend from a 30 mil to a 55 mil. So, and that's a really good outcome for these movies because it's actually the best opener that they the franchise has ever had, if they reach that 55 million.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Yeah. And I, you know, this is almost a billion dollar franchise for one, and then for for two, like Courtney Cox's character, Gail Weathers. She she she may in fact go through those stages of looking at her her role in in the sort of broader narrative of scream, but I think that also talks to the fact that the the fame and the attention that her character gets from that is very enticing and very addictive as well. And she does come from that sort of perspective of wanting her pluit surprise and really treating people like a little bit of garbage, especially a cameraman, because she wants to get the sh the perfect shot or come to the end of the case. And uh, she didn't like the way that the actress on number on screen three was imitating her, and she was very much at odds with that. So I would like to see some development on her side of the the character as well. I think that was definitely something I'd watch. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Yeah, and and this new movie as well is also gonna be I would love to see a Gale Focus story. I really hope that they they do do that, and I I probably will be pitching one on another podcast in a few months. But but the other thing that this movie is probably gonna dabble into is you know, the return of Stu Marker is has actually been part of the marketing for it because he's not gonna be alive. Like he can't be alive, they can't put him in the marketing and have him alive. Although they've also got the return of Roman Bridges, and we saw him very much get shot in the head. And so, like, they're probably gonna be playing with this AI thing. So, as you said about the technology moving forward, now they're gonna be moving into the AI. And even though, in Universe, if you look at Scream 3, they have A voice changer that would emulate someone's voice like perfectly. They haven't really played around with that in the movies since then. So I do think that this is now gonna use that in-universe fact that someone could do that mixed in with the AI technology to really torment Sydney. It's really gonna bring her back. She's gonna hear the voice of her um her brother. She's gonna hear the voice of Stu Marker. Um there's no sign of Skeet Ulrich um being on this. I don't think I don't think they're hiding that. I think when he says he's not in the film, he's just not in the film. But it's gonna be really much, it's gonna be her looking at her life now with everything everything and her looking at her past and everything sort of converging together there. Yeah, because uh when when you actually look at when you you're talking about family and that kind of thing, she's got like a 16-year-old daughter. I believe she's 16 because Sydney was 16 in the first film, and the killer in the trailer says that she's the same age as you were when all of this began. That would mean that in the events of four, she actually had a daughter then. But in the events uh we don't actually see that she has a daughter or a partner or anything. In the events of five, we get to see her pushing a cram, which may have one or or two children in there, and it's now been confirmed that there is a sort of about a f maybe a five or six year old, two five or six-year-old girls who are also her daughter. So I wonder if we're gonna get to see a moment where if she had a daughter before the events of four, and then the events of four happened, that brings back this trauma into her life. And then it's another 11 years before the next movie comes out, where she does actually have a couple of very young children, because it would be 2022, and so she would have had some babies. I wonder if the events of four, assuming that she has had all three of these kids with the same man, probably caused this delay. And and then she waited another, you know, what, 10 years or so to think, okay, actually, I don't think this is gonna come back. I know it was 11 years between three and four, but is this just gonna be my life now? It can't be my life. I feel comfortable about having kids again. And I do wonder if they're gonna delve into that and and whether or not there was a delay. Because I mean, having a 17-year-old and a couple of you know, five or six-year-olds is it's quite a quite a gap. And I I can imagine that the events of having someone trying to kill you will probably impact your interests in having children.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

So I I would definitely agree with that, especially because you know, Sydney has gone through a lot in number one, two, and three, and then she is a character that does sort of reflect on like where her life is to the point where in number three she sort of isolated herself to protect herself from that space. And yeah, it does show that her character does actually reflect on these things to the point where she she does want to move forward, but she's very cautious of her past in doing so, which I think is like a defining element of her as well. So was there anything else that you wanted to talk about, Ben, before we do our sign-offs for the episode?

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Well, I guess I guess no, I think um I'm glad we got to talk a little bit about Gale. I I mean I will say that actually Scream 2 is a Gale movie for me, you know, like it really she she levels up, she's not just uh a sort of antagonist turned friend like she is in the first film, but she's still a bit of an antagonist, but you know, she very quickly you actually see her actively evolve and change, of going like, Oh, I'm not here for the story anymore. I really just want to get this guy. And she she expresses that she feels bad. And is it is kind of sad to see that she just ends up going back into this loop of being like, Okay, I'm a dedicated reporter and I'm here for the story, and I can't be emotionally invested, and then being emotionally invested and sort of you know, either helping by the end or just being involved in in the final scene or or something like that, and then by the next film, she's back to cold Gail again. So I would I do hope that they they do show that legacy for her because we get to see that legacy with Sydney, how the traumas uh impacted her, how she's managed to let it go, how it's made her a more proactive person, you know, the kind of empathy that she has for other people, and then how that feeds into having a family. And yet Gail just sort of goes through the cycle of going, like, I'm a reporter, I'm a human being, I'm a reporter, I'm a human being. And I I I want to see more from that. So hopefully this film will give us a hint of something to come that then moves into eights and maybe nine if they are gonna do a trilogy, and and we get to flesh out her world a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Yeah, she gives me vibes of like avoidant attachment, especially her relationship with Dewey, because you can see through the movie they're like at odds at the start, and then by the end they're sort of hugging on each other, and by the start of the next movie, they've been separated for a while, and there's a bit of bad blood between them because of something that Gail or Dewey had done. And that's a cycle that sort of continues as well towards the end, and then at the end of three, they obviously have that engagement ring appearing in the book. But then also her relationship with Sydney as well is a little bit like that because I didn't really feel like they were friends until number three. Number three, she was really concerned with Sydney's well-being, and when she saw them, they sort of did that awkward hug dance where it's just like, Do we are we two people that do this? And it's like, Yes, we are. Or am I gonna punch you again? Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing. They're very adversarial in number one and two. So, and you know, from the very few horror movies that I I have seen, I think that's very a very different relationship dynamic for the protagonists, the three protagonists, because a lot of the times I've found that they're a very close-knit friend group and they're they're going through this this thing together. But yeah, Sydney and Gail come from very different walks of life, and I think that also makes it a little bit interesting to see both of those characters develop in tandem, tandem across the trilogy.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

So I'm actually yellow between two. You mentioned about like how well you asked me about like how people interact with these characters or how that they have had a relationship with this audience. And in two, there's a really interesting, quite sort of bulgy feminist angle too, and and the way, even just in the way they frame them, because Cotton actually, Cotton Weary, one of the characters who was accused of murder in the first film and exonerated by the second film, and he's seeking his sort of moment in the limelight to make up for his time in jail. He is actually the one to kill Mrs. Loomis in the end. But then what they do is they sort of frame him lower than Sydney and Gail in this trifactor. So it's sort of Sydney and then Cotton and then Gail in the moment when Mickey comes up for the last scare, and uh both of them, you know, shoot the shit out of him. Yeah, that's been a very powerful image for a lot of people. And and it really brings that final girl into a more powerful position, and it it really positions that trope as being less of a sort of like damsel in distress for most of the movie and a much more proactive thing. So I really hope and I really want to see. I mean, frankly, if I could see a situation where Sydney ends up killing one of the killers halfway through the film, and then that just adds a whole other level of mystery because they find out who that person is, but then there's someone still out there killing. And like I I would like to see that kind of level of proactiveness, because I wouldn't say that she came across as proficient with a gun in five. She definitely she comes across as someone who's definitely willing to shoot anything that moves, but that actually that could have ended up killing a a lot of innocent people the way she goes into her house. So I'm hoping that she has a little bit more, you know, a a sort of Ellen Ripley in aliens kind of vibe. You know, like coming back with power.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

And I think she's definitely had a lot of practice in behind the uh the hammer of a gun, so to speak, in across the movies. So yeah, that would be a good one. Now definitely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

Because actually by this point, her kill count will be higher than the kill count of the new killer. Yep. Oh, that's very true.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

So that's a very good point and a great place to leave it, I think. So thank you so much, Fen, for joining me on this discussion and for for holding my hand as I walk through a horror franchise as great as Scream. So we were talking before about my my genre. My sort of niche within the horror genre is definitely he's horror, and Scream is probably, yeah, Ghostface is probably my favorite killer. So did you want to just have a little bit of a plug around like where people can find you, uh, the spaces you occupy on the internet, just if if any of the listeners of the Vandom Portals podcast want to hear more from Mr. Ben Wright?

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Yeah, sure. I mean, it's the same place I was the last episode that I was on. I am just running for my own sheer joy an Instagram page called Hot Takes Film Club. Um, and essentially I will do modern reviews, I will do deep dives into writing 101s and and the way films are structured, and maybe deep dives into why some films didn't quite work out and maybe the way that they could have worked out. And then the other thing that I was doing, or what the way I advertised it up until the beginning of this year, was I've been trying to watch one film from every country. Now I've realized that actually by avoiding certain countries because they're ones I've already done, I'm actually missing out on a lot of really interesting films to talk about. So I've now lifted that attempt to watch one film from every country, but I am focused on essentially watching a movie from anywhere that isn't America, essentially, and probably avoiding maybe a bit of British, because I am British, so it'd be good to sort of highlight some interesting British movies. Yeah, and and so that's Hot Text Film Club on Instagram, and I might move that onto some other platforms, but uh I don't know how how I feel about uh social media at the moment, but so I'll just keep it on Instagram for now.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Yeah, all right. So if you want more from Ben Wright, that's where you can find him, guys. Uh, thank you again, Ben, for being a recurring guest on the Fandom Portals podcast now. We've sequeled Mr. Mr. Ben. So yeah, if you want to find him, that's where you can. And everybody, thank you as always for joining us on the Phantom Portals podcast. Make sure you go out and support local cinemas too and see Scream 7 with as many friends as you can. We want more things coming to the movies, and you know, that's the way that it happens. So definitely go and do that. All right, this is Aaron signing off. I'll see you later, everybody.