In 1997, Scream came out on French screens. Twenty-five years later, this Wednesday, Scream will be showing in French theaters. Attention, this Scream of 2022 is quite new: as its title does not indicate it, it is the fifth part of the horrific saga.
To allow you to discover this new episode in the best conditions – or in case you have not seen the previous films – 20 minutes offers you, as a New Year’s gift, this summary. Something to refresh your memory or get you up to speed. Be careful, the following lines are filled with terrifying spoilers.
Preamble : The Scream saga features a handful of iconic characters. The heroine, Sydney Prescott, is played by Neve Campbell. His psychological profile is not the most worked on in the scenarios. One thing is certain, it perfectly embodies the concept of resilience. Courtney Cox portrays Gale Weathers, a far-fetched journalist with questionable ethics, and she elevates passivity and aggression to the rank of art. The kind of character that we wouldn’t like to count among our friends but that we love to see let off steam on others. David Arquette is Dewey Riley, Deputy Sheriff in the first film. He doesn’t seem to have invented powder or lukewarm water and has some trouble gaining respect, but he always ends up growing up on a fluke or common sense.
Scream (1997)
The story in a few lines: Woodsboro, Calif., Is in shock when two high school students, Casey and her boyfriend Steven, are murdered. Sidney Prescott, a teenager from the city is all the more shaken that a year earlier, her mother, Maureen was violently killed. The girl then accused Cotton Weary of the murder. However, the journalist Gale Weathers is convinced that this one, imprisoned since, is innocent. She even thinks it’s the same person who killed Maureen, Casey, and Steven. Dewey Riley investigates. The mysterious killer, nicknamed “Ghostface” because of his mask representing a deformed ghostly face such The Scream de Munch, makes other victims: the principal of the school, then Tatum, the sister of Dewey. Randy Meeks, one of Sydney’s buddies, may well have laid down the rules for surviving in a horror film (not having sex, or using drugs or alcohol, or saying “I’ll be right back” ), no one listened to it.
The killers are: Sydney’s boyfriend Billy Loomis and one of her friends Stuart. Billy killed Maureen, who was his father’s mistress and whom he holds responsible for his mother’s departure from the family home. Stuart had no real motivation and was above all a follower. The two boys chained up crimes with the idea of indicting Neil, Sydney’s father, whom they kidnapped a few days earlier when the young woman thought he was out of town for personal matters. The criminal duo planned to kill Sydney before disguising Neil’s death as suicide. According to their scenario, the latter would not have supported the death of his wife and would have fallen into a murderous spiral. Sidney ends up killing Stuart, then Billy, with Gale’s help.
If you want to make it look like you’ve seen it, say: “ Scream is an instant classic of genre cinema. The opening scene is a masterpiece in itself: Casey is terrorized by a creepy interlocutor who harasses her over the phone asking her what her favorite horror movie is. This is the premise of his violent death. Casey is played by Drew Barrymore, making a star of this caliber disappear after ten minutes is strong! “
Scream 2 (1998)
The story in a few lines: Sydney is a student at Windsor College when Stab, a feature film inspired by the Woodsboro crime series is hitting screens. During a screening at the cinema, two students are murdered. The media blame horror films for their nefarious influence on society, but when another murder occurs on campus, Gale Weathers realizes the killer chooses victims whose first or last names match those of the Woodsboro dead. . Ghostface murders several other people, including Randy Meeks.
The killers are: Debbie Salt, a journalist whom Gale Weathers has never ceased to look down on and who turns out to be Mrs. Loomis, Billy’s mother, determined to avenge her son. Her accomplice is Mickey Altieri, a student who was part of Sidney’s gang of pals, whose college fees she paid in exchange for her help. A potential psychopath, he wanted to kill Sydney before being arrested by the police and then, at his trial, defend himself by saying that he had been influenced by the horror films of which he is a fan. Cotton Weary, who has once again been wrongly suspected of the new murders, appears during the denouement to shoot Ms. Loomis, who previously had shot Mickey. The latter ends up getting up but is killed by Gale and Sidney who empty their magazines on him. Sydney shoots Mrs. Loomis right in the head to make sure she is dead.
If you want to make it look like you’ve seen it, say: “Admittedly, this second part is not up to the first, but it is a continuation of good behavior, which does not stink of opportunism. What’s interesting is that this feature film is meta on different levels: the plot of Scream 2 refers to that of Scream and in parallel, there is also Stab, the film within the film, which brings a very pleasant touch of self-mockery. “
Scream 3 (2000)
The story in a few lines: Cotton Weary, who has become a star of the small screen, is set to make an appearance in Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro when he is murdered with his partner. Gale Weathers then goes on the set of the film in Hollywood. The feature film is produced by John Milton and directed by Roman Bridger. Since the latest events, Sydney had been living at an undisclosed address that the killer eventually discovered. She then joined Gale and Dewey in Los Angeles. Other murders take place and the cast of Stab 3 is gradually being decimated. At the crime scenes, the murderer deposited photos of actress Rina Reynolds… who is none other than Maureen Prescot. Sydney’s mother had tried to make a career in the cinema in the 1970s. Invited to a John Milton party, she was raped by several men. The latter have never been prosecuted and the young actress has been blacklisted.
The killer is: Roman Bridger. Maureen Prescot is his progenitor, she had him adopted before leaving Hollywood. Her father is one of the rapists. The young director, who has long been in search of his origins, had finally found the trace of Maureen. She had slammed the door in his face the day he finally had the opportunity to introduce himself to her. Since then, he has never ceased to take revenge. He’s the one who made Billy Loomis commit his crimes. Without Roman Bridger, none of the murders of Scream and Scream 2 would therefore not have been perpetrated. If Sydney ends up stabbing him, it’s Dewey who kills him.
If you want to make it look like you’ve seen it, say: “It is clear that the scenario – which was not signed by Kevin Williamson, the author of the two previous Scream – push the stopper a bit far. At one point we see a video that Randy Meeks recorded for viewing in case he dies. He explains that in the event of a third part, it becomes a trilogy (thanks for the info) and that, in this case, the rules of the horror film set out above no longer hold: even the heroine can be killed. So we tremble for five minutes for Sydney, but not too much either. The outcome is still very WTF. We had to dare. “
Scream 4 (2011)
The story in a few lines: Fifteen years have passed since the first Woodsboro murders. Sydney returns to promote her autobiographical book Out of Darkness (“Leave the Darkness”) when the news falls: two high school students have been murdered. Considered a suspect, she is prohibited from leaving the city. During the investigation, she moved in with her aunt Kate and her cousin Jill. The latter is estranged with her boyfriend Trevor. Dewey is now the sheriff of the city, he married Gale who decides to investigate these new murders. The journalist gets closer to Charlie Walker and Robbie Mercer, two high school students who are fans of horror films, who teach her that a “Stabathon”, a screening of the entire saga Stab, is going to be organized in a barn and that new murders could occur on this occasion. There, Gale is indeed attacked by a masked killer who wounds her in the shoulder. Sydney learns that Jill is spending the evening with her best friend Kirby and is worried. With good reason: the killer strikes again …
The killers are: Jill and Charlie. We first discover that Charlie, who at first passes himself off as a victim of Ghostface, is an assassin: he kills Kirby after she has come to his rescue. Then, Jill reveals to her cousin Sydney to be the instigator of this new series of homicides. She says she is jealous of all the attention Sydney has received, especially from within the family, over the years. The young girl’s plan was to have Trevor accused, by making it appear that he had attempted to assassinate her before taking his own life. Jill would thus be passed on to posterity as a survivor, tasting her moment of glory. As she says, in this age of social media, what matters to her is not having friends but fans. Jill therefore kills Trevor, then Charlie. She stabs Sydney and mutilates herself. When, in the hospital, the teenager learns that her cousin, also hospitalized, is not dead, she tries again to kill her. Sydney is rescued by Gale and Dewey and ends up killing Jill with a defibrillator. Outside, the TV journalists are live. Ignoring the reality of the facts, they speak of Jill as a heroine who survived a massacre.
If you want to make it look like you’ve seen it, say: “ Scream 4 is after Scream the best episode of the saga. The opening sequence is brilliant: it makes the crime scenes follow one another in “movie-in-movie-in-movie-in-movie” mode like Russian dolls. So much so that we learn that in this parallel universe Stab is in its seventh installment (!). The plot still multiplies the references, including with the real world when it is fun with the couple Gale-Dewey while Courtney Cox and David Arquette were married in the city – they divorced in 2013. The scenario tries to hook the zeitgeist by evoking social networks, it is not always very clever or subtle, but we especially remember the fact that this feature film revealed Emma Roberts, who plays Jill, to the general public. We did not take long to find the actress in the credits of the series Scream queens Where American Horror Story… Scream 4 is also the very last film directed by Wes Craven, big name of the horror cinema (The last house on the left, The hills Have Eyes, Claws of the night…) Died in 2015. ”