MovieChat Forums > Scream (2022) Discussion > What they SHOULD have done

What they SHOULD have done


Scream 4 left off on such a bad note and the worst movie in the franchise to me, this should have been a closure movie. Instead of having this be the start of a new string of movies, which has gotten so ridiculous at this point, they should have used this to end everything and tie up all those ends with returning characters with Sidney, Gale, Dewey, and then survivors like Joel, Hank Loomis, Mark, Martha, etc. and done good with that angle.

I always felt like Scream 3 missed the ball not having Hank Loomis be the killer and the director of Stab 3 because introducing a brother made no sense given how little time we got to invest in that whole dynamic. Hank is a familiar character and having an established history with Sidney's mother, and given what occurred with his whole family, it makes sense he would have it out for Sidney despite being the cause for the affair, but killers don't think straight when they lose the ones they love. Him being the killer this time around I would have made a given.

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I wonder what happened to Hank. Obviously, we now know he has a granddaughter, so I wonder if he's remotely interested/invested in her future. I actually think the introduction of Sam Carpenter offers an excellent opportunity to reintroduce Hank, although I also see that the actor hasn't been in anything since 2000 (and I'm not a fan of recasts, which is something I believe this franchise has so far avoided, if I'm not mistaken).

As for your general point, I actually like that some side/supporting characters, like Joel, Mark, the two annoying sorority sisters (who would have been certain dead-meat in any other franchise), and Neil Prescott, survived. I don't like the fatalistic (everyone dies) angle. I like that there is at least *some* remote chance that even if you're not a main character you *might* just survive, especially if you keep your head down and maintain a low-profile.

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Introducing Sam was so bad and forced I hate Scream 5 because of it, because it just gives us a layer of backstory that was never needed. Billy did not have a daughter nor was she even a thing until now and we have to buy she was there the whole time. We don't even spent the movie journeying with her to discover she is the daughter, it's kind of already out there who she is and she already knew years before the events of the movie.

I generally hate these last-minute family additions but the journey would have at least been more of a natural way of even bringing in a child and there's a way they could have done it better in my book. But instead of Christina, I would have had the mother be Sidney since we see her and Billy have sex. My thing is always carry on what we SEE and KNOW already, don't be creating never-before-seen or heard about details to the mythology. I HATE THAT. So Sidney being the mother of any child of Billy seems reasonable than an unseen character that didn't even exist. We would have had flashbacks throughout the movie where we follow a de-aged Neve Campbell months following the original where she is pregnant and she hides it. Meanwhile in the present, we follow another story where Sidney is living her life and interested in relocating to her former home after her dad dies that is now on the market and, in a Halloween-like scenario, becomes the target of an escapee patient from a sanitarium who is labeled the real-life Michael Myers and stalks her around.

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I'm in two-minds about your idea. I do agree with your 'carry on what we SEE and KNOW' mantra, and a given-up-for-adoption-child would have been an interesting angle with respect to Sidney, but arguably it would have been a bigger betrayal of the audience than what we ended up with, since Sidney is effectively our POV-character/audience surrogate, whereas Billy Loomis was more of an enigma. Although it was a bit of a contrivance to give Billy a child, it's less of a contrivance than giving our POV/main character a never-heard-of child. Billy can be a mystery. By contrast, we should know everything we need to know about Sidney, and discover new things only as she does.

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Yeah, I can see that. I also realize it would have been a retread of the Maureen and Roman thing so I guess we can scrap that idea. Okay, no Billy Loomis offspring then, but I still like the Halloween angle of it all. My fan script of Scream 5 from years ago had Sidney and Mark with a son who had a genetic killer trait that got into Roman and Jill from her mother side and we learn her grandfather was a serial killer. Sidney is having dreams of her son trying to kill her and Mark and he eventually does brutally stab Sidney, but she survives. His doctor is none other than Jills father who is grooming Sidney's son to killing her. Jills father dons the Ghostface costume to get inside the boy's head, even going out of his way to killing Sidney's dad who is in a nursing home after Sidney visits him. We learn Mr. Roberts is behind everything when the boy is incarcerated and tells him that he will be out eventually and finish the job.

Now this is an angle I would have liked as its fresh and original and moves away from the constant same style of elements the series has been by that point. The story is more personal and relies little on bloodshed as the kill count is significantly low here. Most notably, the killer gets away with their actions...for now at least.

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They should have stopped after Scream 2. That's what they should have done.

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Nah, I like the whole trilogy angle where they went back to the beginning to tie it all together. I just think instead of the whole Roman thing, it should have been Hank who wanted to avenge for his son and wife and eliminate Sidney to ease his mind of the whole Prescott family drama that plagued his family. Leaving a series off at a second installment is just weird to me. Do a third and finish it out properly.

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3 was my least favorite of the 5 that I've seen.

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Scream 3 gets a lot of flack, but I see really nothing wrong with the movie. For a third installment it holds together nicely. The whole Stab 3 angle with the script events being reenacted out in the real-life world I found clever and exploring Maureen's backstory and tying it to the Hollywood setting was also great. I just would have had Hank be there instead of Roman to bring him back and give him more of a role than he had in Scream 1, and so the killer could be a familiar character than a brand new one we meet in the movie.

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Scream 3 is my favorite after the original. I loved Parker Posey's version of Gale and wished she had survived and the "real" Gale bit the dust. What a witch!

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Meh, they both could have lived. Gale is actually better this time around than in the previous movies that Sidney gives her a hug than hitting her this time, haha.

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Yes, they both could've lived. But I actually prefer the films where Sidney is belting Gale though! ha!

Gale was so miserable to the actress who was portraying her. Jennifer ran up to Gale and seemed thrilled to meet the woman she was playing. But Gale was a rude, dismissive witch to her for no reason.

I happen to like Parker Posey a lot, so maybe that's why it bothered me more. If Gale had been mean to an actress I don't like (I could name a few), then it might not have bothered me so much.

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Hey, maybe Gale just didn't want the attention and Jennifer did seem like one of those obsessive fan types that can be overbearing. She also gave off the vibe that she could be a better Gale than Gale herself, which could also be irritating and thus Gale would want to keep her distance.

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You are right, in a way. But Jennifer wasn't a fan. She was actually PLAYING the part of Gale. I have read of actors who are playing real people and they want to know as much about the person as possible in order to do an accurate portrayal.

From the dialog in the movie we learn that Gale never responded to Jennifer. She could have at least acknowledged her in a brief letter. But she didn't. When Jennifer met her face to face, Gale was a total be-otch to her. She didn't even try to be polite.

Obviously I can't stand Gale. I am still sorry that she wasn't dispatched by one of the Ghostfaces and other great characters were.

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