#sharp thoughts

Yeah I think the motives in Scream 2 are pretty great!

Nancy's revenge motive kinda makes her a Mrs Voorhees, it's like going back to the first Friday the 13th movie after Jason already grew up and started killing people. I think it plays well with Billy's Norman Bates coding as well, instead of the mother living on through the son like she does in psycho, the son lives on through the mother. Either way, this family revenge motive is classic in horror and the maternal relationship is central to that a lot of the time in movies like this.

Mickey's motive works well too. It was smart to bring in an unrelated killer- it's something that's less common in the franchise, were we keep coming back to killers that are related to people in the original movie. Scream 5 subverts that a little, with Sam being the blood relation, while Richie and Amber aren't related to the original killers, but then in scream 6 we go right back to the trope with the killers all being Richies family members (weak as hell imo, but I'm not getting in to that here).

All that is to say that Mickey's motive stands out to me, and he pulls it off better than Richie- I do still think Richie's reveal is good, the reddit bit is funny, but Amber is a lot more compelling than he is. Mickey is both more fun to watch, and also he's not a groomer (which Richie pretty clearly is, he would have started talking to Amber when she was 16/17).

Mickey's motive also works well with the meta aspect of the franchise, its directly commenting on the "movies don't make psychos" part, only the line is blurred. Stab isn't just a movie, it's a dramatization of real events. So in the end we have movies inspiring murderers, which in turn inspires a movie, which in turn inspires another murderer.

I also like the fact that Mickey wasn't planning on getting away with it. His whole plan is to become a celebrity murderer. Even in versions of the script where Billy talks about the possibility of getting caught he's still planning on making himself as sympathetic as possible in court, but Mickey isn't thinking about that at all, and I find that interesting.

Let’s say that we are in different universe where scream don’t have problems with production, no one was fired and everyone are willing to come back to play their roles

I can't really see Sidney going ghostface in the context of the movie franchise as it's played out so far. Sid has successfully moved on, she retaliates unflinchingly when attacked but she doesn't attack first because she doesn't want a life of violence and vengeance. I think bringing her back in and making her a ghostface at this point would be a regression for her character and I would need that to be justified pretty well for it to work for me.

In terms of making Sam a ghostface, I think that would be a bad call in terms of her character arc. Part of what works for Sam (and I think the movies could have done a much better job of this) is that she experiences insane amounts of victim blaming but for the most part the movie sides with her.

Unfortunately we live in a world where the violent actions of victims against their aggressors are heavily scrutinized, and victimhood gets questioned if the victim is angry, imperfect, or if they fight back. Sam FIGHTS BACK though, and she isn't bad for that. I also wouldn't want to see her turned into a villain because I already feel that the representation of her mental health/hallucination situation isn't great. I don't experience psychosis so other people are better positioned to speak on this, but from what I've heard from friends the way the movie deals with this part of her character makes them uncomfy too.

SO thats why I wouldn't want Sam and Sid ghostfaces at this point. I can see them putting on the mask to fight back but I cant see them being the killers themselves.

Now on to who think should be the final ghosties:

Gale

I've been thinking she would make a good ghostface for a while but where we are in terms of her character arc in the series I think she's extra well set up for it. We've always known Gale to be cutthroat and career focused. We've also known Dewey to be someone who anchors and softens her but Dewey has passed so she doesn't have that anchor anymore. Even with the boyfriend she has in scream 6 she barely reacts when he dies; she's struggling to form real attachments. We also know she's struggling with her career. Her main subject is ghostface, that's her claim to fame and her writing doesn't sell as well without it.

So we have a Gale struggling with meaningful social connections, struggling with her career, and her entire adult life has been defined by ghostface. She's been dragged through movie after movie getting chased around and having people killed off around her, and this is where it gets meta (like a good scream movie should).

Because at this point in the franchise what can we be commenting on? We've commented on sequels, requels/reboots, trilogies to a certain extent. And to be honest I think scream 6 totally failed with the meta-commentary part here but that's a rant for another day. So I think what we need to comment on is something like genre fatigue.

We have this final girl (Gale absolutely is, even though we don't always call her that) who's been forced through movie after movie after movie, and what does that do to a character in the context of a franchise? They become flanderized. They become a hollow and superficially characterized version of themselves, occasionally they become someone you can't even recognize as the original version of the character. Of course this doesn't always happen, careful writing and attention to character progression can keep that from happening, but to be honest Gale hasn't had much of that (not none, just not enough imo).

So to bring Gale in, socially isolated, unwilling to keep forming connections because they all fucking die, and desperate for some more recognition and a paycheck, and have her put on the mask and robe to revive the series? That feels like meta-commentary, baby.

Can you even imagine the reveal of that? Especially if Sidney comes back? That would be a legitimately tragic betrayal the likes of which we haven't seen in this franchise in a second. It's always a significant other, a family member, or a friend. But we've never had a former survivor as ghostface, and certainly never the other final girl, so this would be a legitimate plot twist if done well (scream 6 plot twist fell flat on it's face for me ngl).

There's also something good about the way this comments on different reactions to trauma as well. Not everyone is like Sid. Some victims internalize the abuse and repeat the cycle, especially when they've had to re-live it over and over to the point that they're numb to it.

In terms of Gale's partner we could go a few different directions. I could see her hiring a few randoms to ghostface for her, maybe like 4 or 5 so several can die through the course of the movie and still we know it can't be over.

That said, Gale's partner could also be a freshly released Stu. While I don't think they would be super in-sync with each other, I can totally see Gale seeking him out because ultimately she's doing this all for a good story, and what could be a better story than one of the original killers coming back?

I also think that this would provide some good final act drama because Gale would clearly be trying to frame Stu as the only killer to position herself as a victim, and Stu would absolutely double-cross her. Beyond that I would love to see Stu interacting with Billy's daughter, especially because I think he would disobey Gale if she told him to kill Sam.