As a kid, like most children, my most anticipated time of year was the summer holidays. Whilst I adored the classic summer school holiday activities (heading to the local pool for a swim, heading up the coast to stay for a few days), my most treasured memories are of walking a few streets down from my apartment to visit the Video-Ezy and browsing their horror movie section until whatever guardian was accompanying me told me to hurry up and make a decision. It was during one of these journeys that I picked up a DVD that would genuinely go on to define my taste in film, literature and aesthetics for the rest of my life (so far): Scream 2. You’re probably thinking, “Why not the original Scream?” and I will give you two potential answers as to why 12-year-old me chose to watch a sequel first instead of the original: 

1. I have a penchant for sequels, and as Terminator 2 has shown, they can easily outperform the original film.

2. The video store didn’t have Scream (1996) in stock at the time, so I settled for the next best thing (in fact, it took me a while to actually go on to watch the first Scream because it was never in stock, which I guess suggests something about how good it really is). 

You get to decide which one you think is more true

I was initially drawn to the series because of the main actress, Neve Campbell, whom I was named after. The egotistical part of me was very interested in whether my parents had a good reason to name me after her. Evidently, they had a great reason to, as I came to learn of the 90’s icon status of Neve Campbell and her coronation as a literal Scream Queen. 

The experience consisted of me sitting, grinning ear to ear, eyes wide, in awe of what I had just discovered. Naturally, after watching the film, I became obsessed. I went back to the video store and borrowed Scream 3 and Scream 4, and eventually, finally, watched the original Scream. 

The original Scream is still one of my favourite movies of all time (I mean, it is on my Letterboxd top 4, that's how serious it is). What more can be said about Scream (1996) other than it is the GOAT? The film is so quintessentially 90s. Its four leads - Neve Campbell, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard - go on to define the decade’s brand of studio cool. You then, of course, have Courtney Cox, who is ’90s TV royalty, as pushy reporter Gale Weathers. Not to mention the iconic fake out of Drew Barrymore beginning the movie, but not getting much further than the first 10 minutes — an obvious homage to one of the first ‘slashers’: Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). I think I appreciate this so much now because I fear modern films are so afraid of doing something as bold as having an A-list star in your film, advertising the film as though she is a main character, and then having her only stay for the intro of the film. 

This movie is so iconic that it unintentionally rebooted society's interest in slasher films, reigniting a genre that had become insanely derivative. By its release in 1996, there had been seven A Nightmare on Elm Street films. SEVEN. Scream (1996) is so well loved because it plays with (and makes fun of) the tropes that were introduced by horror film makers in the 70s and 80s but has a uniquely girl-power feel that permeated film and TV in the 90s with the rise of third-wave feminism (for more of this see: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Craft, Charmed). This playing with 80s horror tropes is particularly meta, given that Wes Craven, creator of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), directed Scream. 

The Scream movies have become a staple comfort binge-watch since my childhood. The movies have followed me from borrowing and reborrowing them at the video store to streaming them on Netflix. Considering this, you can imagine my trepidation with the rebooting of the series that has occurred in the last few years. To be completely honest, I avoided the ‘remakes’ for a year or so after their release. I have been so disappointed over the last five years with the increase in remakes that don’t even do justice to the original films, nor do they bother to introduce anything new and interesting to the franchise. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not 100% anti-remake/reboot. I actually really like the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, though that may be a controversial opinion. However, I eventually took the plunge into Scream 5 and 6 somewhat against my will. I was on a flight heading to London and had around 14 hours to kill. After my viewing, I concluded that the release of these films has cemented the franchise's insistence on parodying itself, but not in a good way. If you aren’t aware, the Scream franchise gets progressively more meta as the movie franchise Stab — which are essentially movies about the movies we are watching — are introduced to the collection. Scream has always been interested in showing its audiences how the mainstream media profits from and sensationalises tragedies, a topic of significant interest in the 90s, and one that has become more and more relevant in the last two decades. At the same time, the film knew its identity as a parody of the horror genre and therefore leaned tastefully into comedy throughout. I personally believe the original movie served this purpose. Scream never took itself too seriously despite the subject matter, and with self-awareness, definitely highlighted how thin the line is between horror and comedy. This might be why Scary Movie (2000) went on to use Scream as its main inspiration for its parody. 

It’s clear that the franchise’s self-referencing has tipped from clever to self-indulgent. The reboot of the series has almost made the creators blind to the fact that we are now essentially watching a parody of the original films, and there seems to be no end in sight for Scream 7’s release. In addition to this, the firing of main actress of the reboots, Melissa Barrera, over her support of Palestine, the exit of modern Scream Queen Jenna Ortega in response to this firing, as well as the reported disputes in pay of icon Neve Campbell for Scream 6 have kept headlines focused on the franchise’s controversies with little artistic payoff in the films themselves. After losing their two incredible lead actresses, whose story we have been following over the last two reboot films, Scream 7 has decided to bring back Neve Campbell to continue the story of Ghostface. 

I am concerned as to how this new film is going to bring anything new to an already highly developed (but overly bloated) world that is the Scream franchise. I fear the period—before the release of Scream (1996), when slasher and horror had burned itself out—coming to fruition again, this time led by the franchise that reinvigorated it in the first place. Where Scream (1996) wanted to shock us, make us laugh, or make us think about how we treat tragedy, I worry Scream 7 will simply attempt to jump-scare us or play on our nostalgia for the first film. 

I’m saying all this to say, I will be watching Scream 7, but I don’t think I’ll be happy about it. But more importantly, if you haven’t seen Scream (1996), do yourself a favour and watch it tonight.

Neve Jacqueline Thomson is currently studying English, French and Education. She loves to read, watch and write about the horror genre and speculative fiction.