The Exact Moment ‘Scream’ Movies Stopped Making Sense
One of the defining horror movies of the 1990s is Wes Craven’s Scream. It spawned a massive franchise, but that doesn’t change the fact that the sequels stopped making any sense a long time ago. Perhaps this issue would have been solved if the screenwriter had more time to work on Scream 2.
Why would characters from the ‘Scream’ movies keep using the Ghostface mask?
Part of the reason why people love 1996’s Scream so much is its twist ending. We learn that the masked slasher Ghostface was two killers working together. They are both disposed of, and the audience goes home feeling good. Roll credits.
In Scream 2, someone takes on the Ghostface identity and starts offing college students. It feels a little odd that someone would want to be Ghostface, considering that the original Ghostface murderers were killed. Notably, the villain from Scream 2 also dies horribly.
The problem with Scream 2 only gets worse with each passing Scream movie. By the sixth entry in the series, it’s become all too clear that anyone who takes up the mantel of Ghostface is just signing their own death warrant. Why would anyone think being Ghostface is a good idea? While the Scream movies are known for their use of metafictional humor, they never bother to joke about this glaring problem.
Why the ‘Scream’ franchise will not fix this issue
Of course, there’s a real reason why we see so many Ghostface killers. The mask from the first film became iconic. It’s impossible to go outside in a crowded area on Halloween without seeing at least five of them. Audiences want to see those masks in each movie, no matter how contrived that is.
Furthermore, Hollywood is always thinking about merchandise. The people who make Scream movies want to sell Scream masks. Who knows if there would be five Scream sequels and a television show if not for the popularity of Ghostface costumes? If the movies stopped using the Ghostface identity, those masks might fade from the public consciousness.
The writer of the 1st movie and its sequel bares all
During a 2022 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Scream writer Kevin Williamson discussed the origins of Scream 2. “There was always conversation about it during the filming of the first one,” he recalled. “I remember when I was on the set, they were playing this game: ‘Why don’t we hire Kevin to write a sequel, just in case?'”
Other forces were skeptical about the prospect of a sequel. “And then the agents got involved, and they were like, ‘No, you can’t write anything, let’s wait until you know the success of [Scream],'” he recalled. “And then, of course, it came out to low numbers. But we had gotten a couple of good notices, and they started just papering those reviews out, and the press kind of went: ‘Oh, what’s going on over here?'” The film was a sleeper hit, and a sequel went into production.
“When I sold the first Scream, I had a treatment [for the second],” he recalled. “I had the whole Sydney-goes-to-college. A lot of it changed along the way, but it pretty much stayed intact. Yeah, I wrote really fast. I was down in North Carolina, working on Dawson’s Creek, and I remember just sitting here, just panicked and frantic, trying to write Scream 2.”
Sceam 2 came out 12 months after Scream. Perhaps if Williamson and company had put more time into it, they could have avoided the Ghostface contrivance.
