WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the Scream franchise.

The Scream fixation began in 1996 with the story of Sidney Prescott and has only grown in both popularity and lore as the franchise has continued into the modern horror era.  The brainchild of horror genius Wes Craven, the Scream slashers have polarized fans for the last decade. But how do the movies stack up? Which is worth a watch, a re-watch, or a skip?

Character Quality

Craven knew how to write siblings or relatives of deceased characters without making it the entire personality. (I.E. Dewey in the rest of the films post-Tatum’s death) whereas Olpin and Gilett’s characters related to prior characters (namely Sam Carpenter and her being Billy’s illegitimate daughter) had little to no personality outside of being related to those characters.

Dewey remained a likable some-amount-of-good-dimensional character, while Sam (in movies 5 and 6) has multiple moments where she says you should “never f*ck with the daughter of a serial killer” before brutally murdering them. I will give the new directors credit, Mindy Meeks and Chad Meeks are well written characters who while having some qualities relating to Randy (Mindy’s movie knowledge), they also have their own personalities.

Gore, Gore Quality, & Gore Necessity

Screams 1-3 all had a similar gore quality that was to be expected of the time period (1996-2000), but by Scream 4 (2011) we are given new gore that is a bit higher quality but still used in moderation as required by each kill scene. But by Scream 5 the gore becomes overused and excessive in each kill scene and by Scream 6 it’s just overall every death scene is a bloodbath. But, in my opinion the goriest scene should ALWAYS be the final scene where the ghost-face/ghost-faces are revealed and murdered. A few examples of overuse of gore in Scream 5/6 are Dewey Riley, Anika Kayoko, and Wes Hicks. 

Dewey was stabbed 4-5 times for his death, which normally wouldn’t be too bad, BUT his death used the newer gore so the whole thing was over the top and gross. Anika was stabbed in the stomach, then as she was crawling across the ladder to escape she was tipped off the ladder, falling 2-3 floors and smashing her face on a dumpster. Which I once again wouldn’t have an issue with but they showed her face right after she hit the dumpster. Wes was also stabbed but he was stabbed through one side of his neck (like through and through one spot on his skin) 

Conclusion

At the end of the day it is all up to you for what your favorite is. Personally, my favorite is Scream 4, but other people might have Scream 6 or 5 as a favorite. Maybe we should just let some franchises stay iconic but short instead of having them continue forever.