6th November 2023
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After much anticipation and speculation from fans, Scream is back – and so too is beloved OG Ghostface Stu Macher. Although, in what capacity is left to be seen.
I’ve seen both rumours of him being the film’s antagonist but also a vessel for the killer to terrorise Sidney and the other survivors via the voice changer (we can see this through the brief cameo of Dewey by voiceover, proclaiming “All your friends die”; this defamatory lexis suggests that the killer is weaponising Dewey’s voice perhaps through generative AI, a huge step up from the magical voice changer within Scream 3 by grounding itself within reality. We know Matthew Lillard is in the film via the ending voiceover of “This is gonna be fun”, inferring that he will be reprising his role as Macher).
Regardless, the film seems to be providing an even more aggressive and ruthless Ghostface – arguably surpassing the shotgun wielding killer within Scream 6, with firearms by Ghostface within the costume a first for the franchise – through the promotion’s tag line of “Burn it all down” which is what the trailer culminates in by the end via Stu Macher’s home being burnt to a crisp. Additionally, when Sidney remarks how the killer is just “another asshole hiding behind a voice changer”, he retaliates by saying “Oh, I’m not hiding, Sidney. Not this time”; this infers that we are no longer dealing with a stealthy antagonist but an assertive, fight fire with fire adversary.
The trailer starts with a medium wide shot of a man with his arms spread apart with who we can presume is his girlfriend, wearing a pink hoodie. Immediately, enigma codes are forged by this introduction. Who are these people? Are these the opening kill (how can we be sure, as the motif is that the opening kills are known celebrities)? Is Scream 7 switching up this formula? Do these characters have any relation to the old cast? The man continues walking and it cuts to him turning on the lights, remarking “This is it”. His facial expressions show his excitement at the idea of being here (a high angle long shot shows 2 white bodily outlines, with one making the gesture of wielding a knife).
The woman then states “I can’t believe we’re staying at the psycho killer Airbnb”, informing the audience to some degree of what’s going on. We can presume that Stu Macher’s old house (whether this is the real one or a replica) has become commodified and used as a temporary residence for avid fans of Stab (the meta parody of Scream) and those interested in the Ghostface killings. We hear a flash in relation to the man taking a selfie of himself framed within the white outline and pretending to be dead (this juxtaposes the ominous non-diegetic sound, providing some light comedy to balance out the more stern tone being established). After, it cuts to a fade in of the woman turning on a lamp and a sharp musical sting as the animatronic Ghostface raises the hunter’s knife.
The couple are perturbed but then the boyfriend realises it’s an animatronic, using his hand to guide its direction and stating “that’s so cool”, expressing his deep admiration and realising it’s “a motion detector”. This false sense of security is extinguished by the medium shot of the woman staring at the animatronic as the real killer stalks from afar in the shadows and creeps towards her, presenting an ominous tone. We then hear the diegetic echo of Ghostface’s voice saying “Hello”, cutting to her scream and a medium shot of Ghostface taking a stab at her. A chase sequence then ensues between her and Ghostface, with her ripping off the lamp as a way to subdue him.
Eventually, this sequence seems to result in them being thrown off the ledge but she manages to latch onto the chandelier as Ghostface falls to the ground. She sways back and forth in an attempt to get to safety but she slips and the killer turns around and primes his knife upwards towards her fall; the high angle of Ghostface challenges its typical usage, as usually high angles make the subject appear powerless and weak. Here, he is in complete control, suggesting the film (and the franchise itself) is maintaining its ludic and subversive nature that makes it a staple of the horror genre.
The trailer then cuts to an unknown caller from Woodsboro, as someone in a blue jumper answers it. The individual then asks “Hello?”, where we learn that it is beloved scream queen and final girl Sidney Prescott. An interesting comparison here is that the first words uttered by our main protagonist and antagonist is the interjection of “Hello”, implying that these 2 have maintained an equilibrium and are equally matched for their confrontation. The caller is revealed to be Ghostface who responds with “Hello, Sidney. Did you miss me?”, with a close up of crime scene tape and Sidney walking up to a scene filled with reporters stood behind a barricade.
While it is challenging to decipher because of the shallow depth of field, it seems to be within a neighbourhood of sorts, making me believe that this is set some time after the opening as Ghostface has enacted one of his kills, which holds some link to Sidney (her new husband Mark Evans – played by Joel McHale from Community – is a police officer so we can somewhat rationalise her ability to still retain a rapport with law enforcement).
Then, we are given a long shot of what I believe is based on Dallas, Texas (we can presume this through the iconography of the Dallas Theatre, which contains the intertextuality of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre via a screening on Saturday between 7:00-9:30). The leaves are orange and have descended onto the floor, meaning the film is set in autumn (I imagine it will be during Halloween or close to Halloween to capture the horror aesthetic).
This is interlaced with Ghostface’s sardonic declarative of “Nice little town you found, you and your pretty daughter”, telling us the audience that her daughter Tatum (an homage to Sidney’s best friend from the original), which we met in Scream 5 alongside her sister during Sidney’s “run in before [she] take[s] the girls to school” (0:43-0:46), will be a pivotal character within this film’s plot (according to the wiki, Sidney does have a third child but it is unclear where this child will be).
Additionally, we are treated with another homage to the original via Tatum looking out of her window from her bed, perhaps referencing Billy entering Sidney’s window in the 1996 classic (perhaps this self-awareness is designed to make her appear empowering and competent, appealing to female audiences). Ghostface then continues by reflecting on how it “reminds [him] of where [they] grew up” (for fans of the franchise, this will immediately set off alarm bells for diehard fans by heavily implying that Stu is indeed the killer for this film).
In Scream 4, when Sidney answers the phone to Ghostface after Olivia’s death, he accuses her of attempting to profit from the deaths within the films by saying “You’ve done very well by all this bloodshed, haven’t you? Well, how about the town you left behind?” (2011, 36:58-37:03); this enforces the idea that no matter what, Sidney’s attempts to establish a new safe haven for herself and her family will always be in vain due to the past ghosts of Woodsboro who refuse to let her move on.
We are greeted to some of the new survivor cast via Tatum’s friends played by McKenna Grace and Celeste O’Connor. Sidney responds to Ghostface’s attempts to disturb her in a patronising tone, saying “Wow, you sure know a lot about me for another asshole hiding behind a voice changer”, highlighting her arc of characterisation from the initial film which started it all to her indifference towards these threats by Scream 7.
We are treated to a medium shot of Sidney writing in a notepad – supplemented by the iconography of a computer screen which reads “The Little Latte Coffee Co”, which I believe is supposed to be a company that Sidney has now started. This stays consistent with her attempts to further her own development in spite of these tragedies (e.g – partaking in a support helpline in Scream 3 during her isolation, doing a book signing in Scream 4 for her book Out of Darkness about her experiences).
However, Ghostface fights back – with an anti-clockwise rotating medium shot of Sidney’s house, the ominous backing track and Ghostface’s declaration of “Oh, I’m not hiding, Sidney. Not this time” (this shot of the home juxtaposes the initial daytime shot of Tatum leaving, showing how easily circumstances can become dire even outside of Woodsboro).
Sidney is then shown in what we can assume is her bedroom when the lights go out – alongside her husband – as the attic door is removed and Ghostface drops to the floor (I think this scene takes place before Sidney is outside next to an ambulance and facing the reporters, justifying why she would be behind crime scene tape). The phone rings – a recurring audial device within the trailer to emphasise Ghostface’s practice of terrorising his victims with calls – and a medium tracking shot of Ghostface is used as he turns towards the camera whilst it zooms in and the sounds quieten.
Then, a sharp cut to Ghostface armed and ready to strike at Sidney and Tatum until Sidney kicks him to the ground and closes the vault door – holding a metal baseball bat as defence. A medium shot of Ghostface as he rises up to the floor is used, perhaps symbolically representing a resurrection for not only him as a persona but for Stu (if he is indeed the film’s killer). We cut to Tatum crawling through a narrow corridor between the house’s walls, as Sidney whispers “Down to the end”. Now, Ghostface has entered Sidney’s bedroom and turns towards the wall after hearing their scuffle in the corridor.
He mocks them by knocking on the wall with the hunter’s knife, with Tatum and Sidney halting their movements (he then plunges the knife into the wall in quick succession, with Tatum screaming as the stabs nearly reach her). In each stab, there is a hard cut to different shots embedded within this attack sequence, finishing with Tatum crying “Mom” as Ghostface takes one final stab. We then get a hard cut to the on-screen graphic of “This February” (as of this moment, the film is releasing 27th February 2026) and a long shot of a Dodge Charger police car patrolling down the same street we saw initially with the Dallas Theatre.
Tatum tells Sidney that she “want[s] to be a fighter” like her mother, however as a mother, Sidney fears the dangers of encouraging her daughter to take on Ghostface in order to protect her. This cuts to a medium shot of Sidney slamming a door whilst holding a pistol – reinforcing her declaration in Scream 5 to Dewey that she’s “Sidney fucking Prescott, of course [she has] a gun” (1:38-1:41). Once again, the phone continues to ring and we are given a shot of Tatum running from outside her jeep (I imagine she is perhaps going to save one of her friends, who is being targeted by Ghostface. But instead, we are shown a shot of Ghostface walking up to her and unsheathing his knife).
Sidney says “If you hurt her-“ and Ghostface says “I’m not going to hurt her until you’re here to see it”. This reminded me of Scream 4, when Ghostface rang Sidney saying “I’m gonna slit your eyelids in half so you don’t blink when I st*b you in the face. You’ll die when I want you to, Sidney. Not a moment before. Until then, you’re going to suffer” | 2011, 37:05-37:17.
However, Gail arrives alongside Chad (played by Mason Gooding) – a returning character from Scream 5 and 6, where she says “Let’s unmask this fucker”, offering a hopeful tone by suggesting that the main cast will still try to prevail against Ghostface. A medium 2-person shot is used of the twins Chad and Mindy sat in a bar and looking up (we can assume they are looking at news coverage, perhaps of Ghostface’s killings – I imagine this is set sometime close to the assault on the Prescott home).
After, a medium shot of Ghostface is implemented, stood in a kitchen and tilting his head (it cuts to Tatum’s friend played by Celeste O’Connor hiding behind the counter with a gash on her head, where we can presume Ghostface got the jump on her and she ran away in fear, with him in pursuit). A voiceover of Dewey is used which declares “All your friends die”, clearly a ploy by the killer to mess with the survivors (likely against Sidney or Gale) through generative AI. Mindy is then is shown to strike Ghostface in the face, finally having a physical confrontation with one of the killers (after running away in Scream 5 and stuck in hospital to recover after being attacked on the train in Scream 6).
The next notable shot is of Ghostface rushing Sidney’s husband with plastic sheeting and tackling him to the ground (a low angle of Ghostface containing blood within the lens implies that this is a fatal blow, a bold move from the trailer by perhaps spoiling a key character death). Sidney is then shown running down the street towards the clock tower and Dallas Theatre, proclaiming “Where is my daughter?” in an aggressive tone.
Tatum is shown to be holding a pistol and crying out for her mother, with Sidney on the phone to her whilst checking live camera footage of Ghostface in her home. She instructs her daughter to carefully aim the weapon and shoot him through the wall (this feels like a more successful attempt at what Dewey tried to do in Scream 3 for Jennifer behind the mirrors, perhaps in a meta way addressing fan frustrations for killing off a rather beloved character).
The music begins to build in pace as the tension rises and Sidney tells Tatum to shoot “to the right of the door”. This continues with her imperatives of “Shoot him now! Do it now!”, with Tatum pummelling Ghostface with 3 shots to the chest. Tatum opens the door to see an unconscious Ghostface and her telling her mother “He’s dead” but Sidney states “You need to make sure you shoot him in the head”, a convention of the Scream formula in how the cast permanently stops the killers (e.g – Sidney shooting Billy Loomis in Scream, Mrs Loomis in Scream 2, Dewey finishing off Roman in Scream 3 and Sam killing off Quinn in Scream 6).
She tries to finish the job until he launches off the ground towards her and it cuts to a montage of chaos and violence. To start, he grabs Celeste O Connor’s character from behind, gets pushed by Tatum through a shop window, seems to drag Sidney’s husband from his feet and pours gasoline within the Airbnb version of Stu Macher’s home as a female voice cries out “No!”. This concept of Ghostface using fire is something which has been used before (although it was a part of the in-universe Stab movies, with a chrome Ghostface using a flamethrower to burn his victim – 0:19), however now we are actually seeing a canonical depiction of the killer integrating other methods to take out his victims besides a simple slash and stab.
We are then treated to a tilted close up of Ghostface holding a match and declaring “I’m gonna burn it all down”, with Sidney crying out “Motherf-“ before it sharply cuts to her shooting a gun and then Ghostface walking out of the flames (this feels very inspired by Michael Myers in 2021’s Halloween Kills, when he emerges from the remnants of Laurie Strode’s home). A black flash effect and a sharp close up to Ghostface’s chest – alongside the use of screaming – finish off the trailer.
The final part of the trailer is a 3D title graphic with the faint outline of the Ghostface mask and a smoke overlay superimposed, with a red flash and sharp cut tearing into the text via some sort of wipe effect; the smoke could symbolise Ghostface’s purification, almost cleansing the sloppiness and flaws of prior killers to perfect the craft and perhaps finally get rid of Sidney Prescott.
This idea is informed by a YouTube commenter called MikeBasham-v5j remarking how each film has made fun of something within each iteration. But if we see it through the saying of “smoke that rises from the ashes”, then Ghostface (and the Scream franchise itself) is attempting a resurrection. After, Matthew Lillard states “This is gonna be fun” and a final shot of Ghostface with a bloody mask is used to cap off the trailer, ending with “Only in theatres. 2.27.26”.
And that is the trailer.
Now. Am I excited? Yes. While I did enjoy Scream 6, Sidney’s absence was very much felt (even with older cast members like Hayden Panettiere reprising her role as Kirby and Courteney Cox as Gale) so I appreciate this focus back onto the dominant narrative of Sidney vs Ghostface. But my worry is what this does for the character. This woman has had 6 run-ins now with Ghostface killings and so for me it is starting to border on absurdity. For example, with Halloween, David Gordon Green’s trilogy managed to evade this discrepancy by not only having Michael vs Laurie be from 1 initial encounter but Michael’s fixation is on going home, rather than a deliberate pursuit of Laurie.
For the killers within the films Sidney features in, she is a primary target – even if in Scream 4, Ghostface tries to claim he isn’t interested in her. If this film doesn’t conclude Sidney’s arc, then it will leave me somewhat dissatisfied (and I think many fans will feel the same way too).
Additionally, we must recognise the controversial decision of completely removing the Carpenter twins due to Melissa Barrera’s firing for supposed antisemitic comments regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict and Jenna Ortega’s departure; many fans have boycotted the franchise entirely, understandably so. However, I do think its important to separate the art from the artist, although there are degrees to this. Anyway, I digress.
As a diehard fan, I am always going to love the franchise based on the principles it established under Wes Craven’s leadership. And now with Kevin Williamson taking the helm by being behind the director’s chair, it shall be interesting to see how he maintains the consistent representation of Scream’s identity whilst evolving on the formula.
Any questions? Feel free to contact me via johnjoyce4535@gmail.com!
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