Long gone are my days of beauty reviews and rambling personal essays; if my latest blog posts are to be believed, my tiny part of the internet is now exclusively for my thoughts on upcoming Scream installments.
And I'm not mad about it.
In case you live under a rock or your TikTok algorithm isn't as gory as mine, the next installment of the Scream franchise is out next week. As a Scream fangirl since my teen years (in the 00s, I'm still young enough not to have watched Scream when it first came out thankyouverymuch) I've watched every single trailer and read everyone else's thoughts on what's going to happen.
Whether you want me to or not, I'm adding my thoughts to the noise.
Thankfully the marketing team for Scream 6 has scaled back the trailer. Last time, the trailer gave far too much away. More than half my predictions were correct and even though my original suspect pre-release wasn't the killer, I still correctly guessed the killer halfway through the film. Not because I am amazing, but because between the attacks you saw in the trailer and the attacks so far in the film...there weren't really many people left.
We don't have that problem this time and all my predictions for Scream 6 are complete guesses.
Let's get into them.
Samara Weaving isn't the opening attack...Gail is
Most commentary online believes that Samara Weaving - who can only be briefly spotted in the trailer - will be the opening attack. I absolutely see why this is likely, and may well happen. But I think they might do a reverse Drew Barrymore and give a well-known scream queen like Samara a more prominent role that just hasn't been publicised (I think she might be the person Sam is talking to about her darkness).
But who is the opening kill? Well, we see that Gail definitely gets attacked in the trailer. AND OMG HER FIRST PHONE CALL WITH THE KILLER! Gail has never really been a target of Ghostface; she inserts herself in the chaos for journalistic purposes and then ends up saving the day. She could literally leave the whole thing alone and the killers probably wouldn't care to find her. But since she is now the only returning character from the original film, she'll be a much more intentional target. I'm looking very forward to seeing it!
But she'll survive, since we saw her in other trailer shots and press photos. She's also now the only long-term legacy character so the film studios probably want her to survive.
Stu isn't in it
I loved the original concept for Scream 3, where it turns out Stu Macher survived the events of the first film and was orchestrating the new murders from behind bars.
That would have worked back in 2000 because not a lot of time had passed since the first film. Now? Too much time has passed and we've had four films where no one has made any passive comment about him being alive - and no I don't count that easter egg in Scream 5. It's believable that the characters in Scream 2 didn't mention him, but to not mention him at all even when his old house was used in Scream 5? California also has the death penalty. If the TV didn't fry him, the state did.
Worth remembering: even in Scream 3 he was never going to be Ghostface. He was going to a Roman Bridger-esque character orchestrating it. Not physically doing it himself.
Kirby isn't the killer
One of my incorrect predictions last time was that Kirby wasn't coming back either. Turns out she's alive and well! I've read though that she's effectively taking on the storyline that Sidney was meant to have, but then Neve Campbell decided not to return.
I believe she might be a victim though, with a gory kill.
Detective Bailey or Dr. Christopher Stone is one of the killers
Why do we need two new middle-aged men introduced for this installment? Middle-aged men are hardly the staple of a typical Scream cast. Dewey was a young cop who lived at home in the first film!
One of them is up to something.
I'm inclined to say Detective Bailey since 1) he's on the poster and 2) how would you be able to create the Ghostface shrine like the one in the trailer without some kind of access to the case files or inventory? He also works with Kirby, a Woodboro survivor, so maybe he's also some creepy mega fan.
The other killer is one of the new cast and I don't have a scooby
All Ghostface killers to date have been new characters. While it would be interesting to see them have a returning character put on the mask, I can't see what the motive could be for any of the returning characters. Maybe someday we'll get this set up, but I don't think it'll be this time.
The only new character I'm ruling out is the guy in the trailer who appears to be Sam's new boyfriend. They did the boyfriend thing in Scream 5 and the original Scream. They also tried to make the boyfriend a red herring in Scream 2 and Scream 4, so let's just leave the boyfriends alone for a while.
I do think this might be the film where we have three killers: one middle-aged man orchestrating, and two younger characters carrying out the killings. The idea of three killers has been a popular idea in the fandom for a while and with a high number of new characters in this film maybe Scream 6 will be the one to branch out.
I also don't think it's Sam. She'll use her darkness to defeat the new killers, but I doubt she's the killer.
But please flesh out the characters this time
This is less a prediction and more a request (I know they've finalised the film, leave me alone). My main gripe with Scream 5 (aside from the warts-and-all trailer) is that the characters all felt a bit lifeless. In the original film, you felt like you really knew all the main characters. We just didn't get that vibe in the fifth installment.
It's a shame because strong characters have been one of the reasons why this franchise has stood tall above other slashers. A lot of slashers have their masked killer and the final girl as their two stand-out characters, with some forgettable side characters. Scream has always made an effort to develop multiple characters, which is why their sequels don't get tiring. And, honestly, that is why they'll be okay without Neve Campbell returning as Sidney - Gale has always been just as much a final girl!
Chad's a goner
Out of the four returning characters who were introduced in Scream 5, Chad is the least fleshed out and least popular with fans. He lifts right out. Sorry!
