The Year of Slashers has brought us to the era of metacommentary with Scream. After falling into a rut with repetitive formulas and overused cliches, the slasher had fallen out of favor with all but its most die-hard fans. Wes Craven changed all that with 1996’s Scream.

Scream combined tense murder mystery with dark comedy and metacommentary about horror movies. Particularly the overdone tropes found in the low-budget slashers that had taken over the genre.

Metacommentary wasn’t new in horror, and neither was the slasher parody. What Wes Craven gave audiences was more than the standard fare.  Sidney, Tatum, Randy, Billy, and Stu felt like real characters, at least by Hollywood standards. In fact, despite some shaky sequels, Sidney Prescott remains one of the most capable, relatable, and impressive final girls.

About Character

She’s also the only reoccurring character who doesn’t devolve into a lesser version of their original iteration.  By the fourth movie, Dewey and Gale have been given little time to display anything more than the highlights of their characters. This is largely due to juggling an expanded cast while trying to move their story forward. The later movies pull back on this a bit, but reaching the charm of the original would be near impossible.   

Dewey, in particular, never quite gets the heroic end his character deserves. It’s a beautifully shot finale for him, but even in his final movie, his character can’t shake the trope of “ineffective cop”. All his experience and trauma should have led to a different end.

The Future of a Franchise

Of course, the story isn’t over yet. Scream 7 is due next year. While one would assume fans would be happy about the seemingly more Sydney-focused storyline, the production has been mired in controversy from the start. Radio Silence, a directing group, left due to scheduling conflicts.  Melissa Barrera, who starred in Scream 5 and 6, was fired for comments about the Gaza war. Shortly after, Jenna Coleman left due to the project falling apart due to the original directors and cast leaving.  The project began a major creative retooling, and the second director, Christopher Landon, left.

Then, Neve Cambell announced her return along with Kevin Williamson, the original writer, coming onboard as director. With a stacked cast, including some interesting returning actors such as Mathew Lillard, Scott Foley, and David Arquette, Scream 7 could either be made for the fans or pandering of the highest order. Either way, the script is sure to find new tropes to call out.

Scream and Horror Movie Tropes

Scream pulled off the impossible by calling out the slasher standards while also creating its own new set of tropes. Even though each movie has a new killer, the Ghostfaces all have similar styles and behaviors.  They also have the same voice, Roger Jackson.  Without him there would be no iconic – what’s your favorite scary movie? 

As far as slasher tropes go, there is a mask and a favored weapon. There’s stalking and killing.  But the Ghostfaces depart pretty sharply from the established mold.  

While some kills do take advantage of isolated locations, sorry Casey. Ghostface has no issue killing someone in the middle of a crowd either. It’s part of what makes them terrifying. You don’t have to be a camper at a lake or a babysitter to be a target.

Much like the movies Scream parodies, it has standard elements that occur across all the movies. Some of these are basic slasher tropes: a masked killer that has their favorite weapon, and a list of rules they adhere to.  The Scream franchise manages to highlight the absurdity of horror movie “rules” while creating its own and making good use of the standards.

For a Scream movie to feel right, the characters must first acknowledge they are in a horror movie.   After the bodies start to stack up, they become hyper-aware of what the rules might be to survive. They also work with the knowledge that, mostly likely, someone in their close circle is the killer or killers.  

The Killers

Not that this knowledge helps much in the long run. Scream’s standard of dual killers somehow escapes notice until it’s too late.  Most conversations about the killer refer to them as singular. After five run-ins with multiple killers—only Roman was able to pull this off by himself—I would just start by assuming it’s a least a pair

Even though there are multiple killers with differing motives, the Ghostfaces all exhibit similar behavior, from their crouching, erratic lunging down to the iconic knife wipe. Even though anyone could be under the mask, they all feel like one killer.  

It’s not an easy task to keep your main theme relevant for over twenty years. This conversation has evolved from Randy’s rules, to addressing the glut of early 2000s reboots, and then the “requel” rules in Scream 5 and 6.  The Screams also get bonus points for addressing how teens engage with media and the internet in general.  

In addition to the movies, there is also a Scream TV series. It lasted three seasons, and I have seen none of them.  The set-up should make for perfect episodic television. There was just one small problem: no Ghostface mask, at least not until the third season.  Call me old fashioned, but if you call your show Scream, there best be a Ghostface killer running around.

So, What Makes Scream So Enduring?

Now that it’s going on twenty years, a time when most franchises show their age, Scream is still gaining fans. Scream never committed the cardinal sin of killing off its final girl in a sequel, and ever-changing killers keeps the story fresh. Scream can get a lot of mileage out of people who have a reason for revenge and have a passion for movies.

For many fans now, it was their first horror movie. They’ve grown up with the franchise, just as the characters have. It’s impossible to force or manufacture that kind of loyalty, no matter how much marketing or stunt casting you throw into it. That kind of fandom only responds to good writing, good acting, and great kills. It’s why they fell in love with Scream in the first place.

Scream 7 will be out in Feb 2026.