History Film / Scream

* DysfunctionalFamily: The [[spoiler:Roberts]] and the [[spoiler:Loomises]].

* NotQuiteDead: The climax of every film thus far has ended with [[spoiler:the return of a killer previously thought dead before being put down for good]]. Randy lampshades it in the first one as "the moment when [[spoiler:the supposedly dead killer comes back to life for one last scare]]", and the characters end up fully expecting it. [[spoiler:Many of the films employ this rule so that one killer is killed very climactically, with their death seeming to represent the film's horrors coming to an end, only for another killer to reveal themselves and charge at the protagonists, getting killed shortly thereafter.]]
** In ''Scream'', [[spoiler:after Randy does the aforementioned lampshading while he, Gale and Sidney are standing over Billy's body, Billy promptly reveals himself to alive, and Sidney immediately shoots him in the head]].

** ''Scream 3'' has [[spoiler: Roman play this straight, [[NoSell no-selling]] multiple gunshots to the chest from Dewey due to wearing a bulletproof vest, until Dewey shoots him in the head]].

A seventh film is in development, directed by Kevin Williamson and with Neve Campbell attached to reprise her role as Sidney.

A seventh film is in development.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** The Ghostface killers, [[LegacyCharacter regardless who's behind the mask]], are depicted as tripping and running into objects. Why? Well, the outfits are, in-universe, cheap-ass Halloween costumes consisting of a spandex robe and a rubber mask with eyes covered by black sheer material attached to a hood. These features makes running after people difficult because you can barely see out of the mask at night, and the skirt constricts your movements.
** Whenever there are two Ghostfaces, a lot of the time, one of them attempts to kill off the other to further their own goal--the obvious result of two mentally unstable, cold-blooded, self-preserving psychopaths working together.
** The exceptions to the above rule come in [[spoiler:the first, fifth and sixth films. In the first, Billy does come close to killing Stu, but mainly by accident, as the staged injuries Billy gives Stu as part of their coverup wind up cutting deeper than expected, causing severe blood loss that leaves Stu feeling faint.]] Another case of reality throwing a monkey wrench in a plan: a WoundedGazelleGambit [[spoiler:can leave you ''actually'' wounded if you try to deliberately injure yourself without knowing what you're doing]]. [[spoiler:The fifth and sixth films are more straightforward exceptions, as neither of the killers betrays or injures the others, even by accident.]]
** As a deconstruction of the horror genre, a lot of character archetypes are played rather realistically:
*** The FinalGirl and our heroine, Sidney, is worse for wear at the end of each of the films, mainly because she's being personally targeted by a serial killer, her friends are brutally murdered all around her, and the killer is someone who she initially trusted and had included in her social circle before they revealed themselves to be demented pieces of crap. As a result, by the third film she's become a burnt-out, depressed, traumatized wreck who's very paranoid that another killer will pop out and fuck up her life once more.
*** The victims of slasher films are usually overlooked, dull, and uninteresting, compared to the killer and his brutal slayings of them. But, for the most part, the victims of the series are established as ''people''. People with lives, people with personalities, people who are mourned when they are GuttedLikeAFish. There are some AssholeVictims mixed in, but the fact that Ghostface is murdering innocent people takes some of the joy out of his kills. The reaction that Casey's parents have to her murder immediately sucks the morbid fun right out of the room and turns it into a tragedy.
*** The killers are at first presented as unstoppable, mysterious forces of nature, but when they shed their masks, they are revealed to be petty, immature, vile monsters who kill for very selfish reasons, from fame to jealousy. Even killers with tragic motives, like [[spoiler: Billy Loomis]] whose [[spoiler: mom left him because of an affair his dad had with Sidney's mom]], are still horrible, horrible people who only kill because they want to. The killers also are not invincible like their [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} favorite]] [[Franchise/FridayThe13th movie]] [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet slashers]], so their victims can easily fight back against them, especially if said victims are equipped with firearms. Tatum from the first movie actually ''beats'' Ghostface in a physical confrontation, and only gets killed due to her drunken, panic-induced stupidity.
** Ghostface is always at the end of the day just a normal guy in a mask who went crazy, with emphasis on "normal". That said, several slasher tropes are deconstructed, since our killer in this series doesn't have superhuman aid:
*** OffscreenTeleportation: Ghostface isn't Jason Voorhees, he can't just disappear and reappear in another place. So that's why [[spoiler: he usually has a partner in a similar costume to corner his victims]]. In the third film, where [[spoiler:Roman Bridger]] is the films' only solo killer, Ghostface lures his victims into isolated places and hides so he can ambush them. The party near the end of the movie was deliberately planned to be set in John Milton's mansion, which has multiple secret entrances and passageways, allowing him to reappear and pop up somewhere else when hunting everybody down.
*** MadeOfIron: Ghostface can survive beatings, shit thrown at him, and nasty falls. But he ''cannot'' survive [[spoiler: severe head injuries, a headshot, a shot to the heart, a SlashedThroat, or a stab in the gut (lots of major arteries there)]].
*** ImmuneToBullets: In the third and fifth films, Ghostface invokes this by utilizing a BulletproofVest. [[spoiler: Which isn't enough to stop an ice pick and/or a headshot. In the fifth, Dewey even recognizes this and goes back just to shoot Ghostface in the head, though it ultimately does him no good.]]

* AssholeVictim: Mostly averted, as most of the cast in any given film are generally likable and even the ones who are jerks either have a good side or otherwise don’t deserve the deaths they receive. However, being a horror film franchise, there are some straight examples: [[spoiler: Steven Stone and John Milton]] in Scream 3, [[spoiler: Rebecca Walters and Charlie Walker]] in Scream 4, [[spoiler: Vince Schneider]] in Scream 5, and [[spoiler:Jason Carvey and Greg Bruckner]] in Scream VI.

** ''Scream 3'' has [[spoiler: Roman play this straight until Dewey shoots him in the head]].

** ''Scream 6'' has [[spoiler:the emphasis of its climax put on Sam killing Detective Bailey. Afterwards, she and Tara sit on the theater steps and have a moment of reconciliation -- after which Ethan, one of the killers (who was stabbed multiple times in the chest by Sam, then impaled through the mouth and jaw with the same knife by Tara), charges at them before finally getting his head crushed with a TV (the same TV that killed Stu Macher, no less) by Kirby.]]

A seventh film is in development, with Christopher Landon (''Film/{{Freaky}}'', ''Film/HappyDeathDay'') set to direct.

However, many of the horror films that [[FollowTheLeader copied its formula]] in the ensuing years didn't understand this. A good number of filmmakers instead felt that the ''Scream'' franchise's success came as a result of its casting (which featured stars from hit TV series like ''Series/PartyOfFive'', ''Series/{{Friends}}'' and ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'') and its "hip" dialogue. As a result, the original film has suffered from HypeBacklash since its release, since its own various tricks and tropes [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny became more commonplace in the horror genre]].

* DamselOutOfDistress: Sidney laughs at the DistressedDamsel trope!

* '''''Film/{{Scream|2022}}''''' [[note]][[RecycledTitle no number or subtitle attached]][[/note]], released in 2022, takes place a decade after the events of ''Scream 4'', as a new Ghostface appears in Woodsboro to unearth secrets of the town's past. The film satirizes so-called "requels" -- [[{{Unreboot}} sequels that ignore divisive preceding installments but take into account the more regarded originals]], a phenomenon that became pronounced in late 2010s horror since the successful 2018 installment of ''Film/{{Halloween|2018}}''. The film's supporting cast includes Creator/JackQuaid, Creator/MelissaBarrera, Creator/JennaOrtega, Creator/MasonGooding, Creator/DylanMinnette, Creator/JasminSavoyBrown, Creator/KyleGallner, Creator/MikeyMadison, and Sonia Ben Ammar, with Marley Shelton, Skeet Ulrich, and Heather Matarazzo returning. Creator/{{Paramount}}[[labelnote:*]]which took over the Miramax library during the fallout of the Weinstein Company's implosion[[/labelnote]] serves as the film's distributor. Neither Wes Craven nor Kevin Williamson returned (the former because he died in 2015, five years before it began filming); instead, the film was directed by the duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (''Film/{{VHS}}'', ''Film/{{Ready or Not|2019}}''), based on a script by James Vanderbilt (''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan'') and Guy Busick.[[/index]]

The ''Scream'' films had an ingenious means of setting themselves apart from other slashers of the time; instead of playing themselves as straight-up {{horror}} films, they serve as [[BlackComedy darkly comic]], {{postmodern|ism}} "{{meta|Fiction}}" [[StealthParody parodies]] [[HorrorComedy of the slasher genre]]. The killers all [[GenreSavvy deliberately invoked slasher movie clichés]] while their targets tried to survive by [[GenreSavvy attempting to guess which horror movie tropes the killers would invoke next]] -- a move that just as often [[DeathByGenreSavviness got them killed]] as it did save them. The series was awash in ConversationalTroping, as twenty years' worth of horror movie tropes got name-dropped, mocked, and then [[DeconReconSwitch invoked anyway]]. To a generation that had grown up viewing slasher films as [[PopularityPolynomial trite and cliched]] following the genre's burnout at the end of TheEighties, ''Scream'' served as a breath of fresh air.

** In ''Scream 2'', there is Sidney, who is still trying to get over the events of the last movie and her NiceGuy boyfriend Derek, who acts as a calm and supportive UnderstandingBoyfriend.

* '''''Series/ScreamTVSeries''''' debuted in 2015 on Creator/{{MTV}}. A {{reboot}} completely unrelated to the films with all new characters, it was headed by ShowRunner Jill Blotevogel (''Series/HarpersIsland'' and ''Series/{{Ravenswood}}'') and notably did ''not'' use the iconic Ghostface mask due to copyright issues. The series ran for two seasons before being {{retool}}ed into:

* BullyingADragon: Imagine hearing about two AXCrazy horror fanatics who killed seven people in their home town. Now imagine hearing that a plucky high school girl took those two psychos down and killed them by herself. Would you decide to mess with that girl? Well, two people did. Granted, one of those people was a batshit on the rise active serial killer, and the other was [[spoiler:the mother of one of the original killers]] who wanted revenge. But, guess what, she killed those two people too. Would you mess with a two-time ActionSurvivor? Someone did that too. Okay, it ''was'' [[spoiler:her long-lost evil brother]], who's also crazy. She killed that guy too. So now she's a three-time massacre-surviving ActionGirl who's become a living legend and killed ''five'' dangerous people. Surely no one is stupid enough to do this shit again and pull her into this, right? Wrong. [[spoiler:Her own cousin and some film nerd who couldn't get a girlfriend]] thought they'd succeed where so many others failed. They didn't, and now they're dead. So that's a four-time mini-massacre survivor who's killed several dangerous people. Twenty-five years have passed, and two whole generations of horror fans have grown up on stories of her triumphs. None of them would be stupid enough to try this again... right? They did, and they did worse than anyone else. Seriously, why would anyone try to fuck with Sidney Prescott? It's like watching a tiger maul every poacher who comes near it and thinking "Yeah, now it's my turn!"

** For example, take a look at the body count for each film, which progressively rises as the series progresses. Ghostface claims five victims in the first film (six if you count [[DeathByOriginStory Maureen Prescott]]), eight in the second, nine in the third, and fifteen in the fourth. [[spoiler:Roman Bridger]] holds the record with nine, with [[spoiler:Jill and Mickey]] tied for second at seven. The fifth film has a smaller body count than the third and fourth films at eight deaths overall, but the blood and gore are heavily cranked up, and several characters are badly injured as well. The sixth film — now with a [[NoNonsenseNemesis no-bullshit Ghostface]] — is even bloodier, having twelve deaths and ending with most of the surviving cast injured [[spoiler:with several series regulars nearly dying.]]

* '''''Film/ScreamVI''''', released in 2023, sees the survivors of the last film attempt to start a new life in [[BigApplesauce New York City]]. The film satirizes sequels to "requels", and film franchises as a whole. Courteney Cox, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Hayden Panettiere all reprise their roles, and new to the cast are Creator/DermotMulroney, Creator/JackChampion, Creator/LianaLiberato, Devyn Nekoda, Creator/JoshSegarra, Creator/HenryCzerny, Creator/TonyRevolori, and Creator/SamaraWeaving. Notably, this is the first film in the series not to star Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott.

** In ''Scream VI'', there is Sam, who is dealing with a lot with issues like psychological problems, being disowned by her [[AbusiveParents mother]], being falsely accused of being behind the murders of the last movie and having to live with the fact that her biological father is a serial killer and Danny who (similar to Derek) acts as an supportive secondary character to our main heroes and UnderstandingBoyfriend towards her.

*** The killers are at first presented as unstoppable, mysterious forces of nature, but when they shed their masks, they are revealed to be petty, immature, vile monsters who kill for very selfish reasons, from fame to jealousy. Even killers with tragic motives, like [[spoiler: Billy Loomis]] whose [[spoiler: mom left him because of an affair his dad had with Sidney's mom]], are still horrible, horrible people who only kill because they want to. The killers also are not invincible like their [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} favorite]] [[Franchise/FridayThe13th movie]] [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet slashers]], so their victims can easily fight back against them, especially if said victims are equipped with firearms. In fact, Tatum from the first movie straight up ''beats'' Ghostface in a physical confrontation, and only gets killed due to her drunken, panic-induced stupidity.

** The Japanese dub of the first film did the same, at the time, with a very popular voice actress, as Creator/MegumiHayashibara voiced Barrymore's Casey, and very likely the Japanese audience didn't expect her to voice a character which is killed on-screen, and in a CruelAndUnusualDeath to boot.[[labelnote:Explanation]]Megumi Hayashibara was, especially during the 90s, one of the most popular and sought-after voice actresses in the Japanese voice acting industry in her time, being in many popular {{Anime}} series of that decade, including ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' (Lina Inverse), ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' (Rei Ayanami and Yui Ikari), ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' (Faye Valentine) and many others. Also, with some exceptions, like the aforementioned ''Evangelion'' and ''Anime/CardCaptorSakuraTheMovie'', most of her characters traditionally survived at the end of the tale, which is not the case here, and even in the already mentioned works when her characters '' really kicked the bucket'', their deaths are either done off-screen, or aren't nearly as gory as Casey's, causing the same effect for Japanese audiences that Barrymore's character did for both American and more generally Western audiences.[[/labelnote]]

* NotQuiteDead: The climax of every film thus far ends with [[spoiler:the return of a killer previously thought dead before being put down for good]]. Randy lampshades it in the first one as "the moment when [[spoiler:the supposedly dead killer comes back to life for one last scare]]", and the characters end up fully expecting it. [[spoiler:Many of the films employ this rule so that one killer is killed very climactically, with their death seeming to represent the film's horrors coming to an end, only for another killer to reveal themselves and charge at the protagonists, getting killed shortly thereafter.]]
** In ''Scream'', [[spoiler:after Randy does the aforementioned lampshading while he, Gale and Sidney are standing over Billy's body. He promptly reveals himself to be not quite dead, and Sidney immediately shoots him in the head]].
** In ''Scream 2'', [[spoiler:there's a quick switcheroo in which killer comes back for the "last scare". Gale and Sidney expect it to be Mrs. Loomis, as they've just taken her down and she's in front of them; however, the second killer Mickey jumps up behind them screaming. They shoot and kill him, and then Sidney shoots the (probably already dead) Mrs. Loomis in the head, just to be sure]].

** ''Scream 4'' [[spoiler: shows Jill survive a defibrillator on full power to the head, and she gets up and attempts to stab the characters in the back with a shard of glass. Sidney, fully expecting it, turns around and shoots her in the heart, killing her.]]

** The exceptions to the above rule come in [[spoiler:the first and fifth films. In the first, Billy does come close to killing Stu, but mainly by accident, as the staged injuries Billy gives Stu as part of their coverup wind up cutting deeper than expected, causing severe blood loss that leaves Stu feeling faint.]] Another case of reality throwing a monkey wrench in a plan: a WoundedGazelleGambit [[spoiler:can leave you ''actually'' wounded if you try to deliberately injure yourself without knowing what you're doing]]. [[spoiler:The fifth film is a more straightforward exception, as neither of the killers betrays or injures the other, even by accident.]]