Warning: This article contains spoilers for Scream (2022).
What set Wes Craven’s Scream apart from other horror movies back in 1996 was the meta deconstruction of its own genre. The movie is filled with self-aware nods to the classics of horror cinema. The killers use the same fake blood seen in Brian De Palma’s Carrie and quote Norman Bates from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, while Jamie Kennedy’s Randy Meeks outlines the “rules” for surviving a horror movie.
In keeping with the franchise’s traditions, the new Scream movie – simply titled Scream – is filled with nods to the audience. The self-proclaimed “requel” has references to both time-tested classics like Halloween and modern gems like The Babadook.
Elevated Horror
As satirized in the opening scene of the fourth Scream movie, the fifth Scream movie opens with a high school student eloquently explaining the trends and tropes of the horror genre. This time, Tara Carpenter tells the mysterious slasher-obsessed caller that she prefers “elevated horror” films like The Witch, Hereditary, and The Babadook.
The caller doesn’t understand what “elevated horror” is, so Tara explains that it refers to arthouse horror films exploring deep thematic substance as opposed to cheap jump scares. The term was coined by film critics who needed to validate having positive opinions about horror movies.
Sounds Like Halloween
When Sam and Richie arrive in Woodsboro, Richie pretends to be unfamiliar with the town’s reputation for mass murders, so Sam explains it to him: every few years, a series of teenagers get picked off by a killer in a silly Halloween mask. Based on that synopsis, he instantly compares it to Halloween. She tries to defend its originality, but concedes that it’s very similar to Halloween.
While movies like Psycho and Peeping Tom laid the groundwork for the subgenre, John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 masterpiece created the go-to template for the slasher formula that the Scream franchise lampoons.
Requels
In an early scene, 2022’s Scream brands itself as a “requel.” Pitched somewhere between a reboot and a sequel, a “requel” brings back plenty of legacy characters as fan service while also introducing a new cast of characters and a revamped incarnation of the franchise.
From Halloween to Jurassic Park, Scream namedrops a number of horror franchises that have done this. Characters like Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode and Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott reappear alongside fresh faces.
Psycho
When Wes goes for a shower and his mother Judy goes out to get pizza, she gets a call from the Ghostface killer claiming to be close to killing her son. The killer mentions Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller masterpiece Psycho.
The reference instantly reminds Judy of the iconic midpoint shower murder, insinuating that her showering son is about to meet the same fate as Marion Crane. As Judy races up her driveway to save Wes, Ghostface pops out with his knife drawn and she runs right onto the blade.
Non-Numbered Title
In the lead-up to Scream’s release, some fans decried the filmmakers’ decision to recycle the original movie’s title instead of calling it Scream 5 – or even 5cream – but this inevitable controversy is addressed within the movie itself. YouTubers reviewing the latest Stab movie complain that it’s just called Stab as opposed to Stab 8.
By drawing comparisons to the recent Halloween and Candyman movies, which were similarly titled like remakes while acting as sequels, Scream’s non-numbered title continues the movie’s self-aware deconstruction of recent franchise trends.
Carpenter
While Sidney Prescott has been the lead protagonist of every Scream movie since the 1996 original, the new one is led by a pair of original characters: sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter, whose family was torn apart by an affair with the infamous Billy Loomis. The name Carpenter is, of course, taken from John Carpenter, the hugely influential director of such horror classics as Halloween and The Thing.
Carpenter essentially made the Scream franchise possible by establishing the story formula it satirizes. In the original Scream movie, Carpenter is homaged in the name of fictional horror director “Wes Carpenter,” a meta amalgamation of Scream director Wes Craven and Halloween director John Carpenter.
“I Still Prefer The Babadook.”
Tara’s love of “elevated horror” resurfaces in her quippy sign-off after delivering the final death blow. After taking out the last surviving Ghostface killer, Tara fires off the one-liner, “I still prefer The Babadook.”
Even after living through her own version of a Stab movie, Tara would still rather endure the existential terrors found in the elevated horror films of Jennifer Kent, Jordan Peele, and Ari Aster.
For Wes
Like the original Scream movie, the new one culminates in a big booze-soaked house party. It even takes place at the same house, and Richie comments on the absurdity of the concept: “Who would throw a party during a killing spree?” The twist here is that the party is being thrown by the high schoolers as a memorial service for their classmate Wes Hicks.
Wes, of course, was named in honor of Wes Craven, the late director of the first four Scream movies. The memorial for Wes allowed the filmmakers to put up a big “For Wes” banner in the final set-piece of their reboot, honoring the legacy of the director who made it possible.