Scream 72026

“You sick fucks. You've seen one too many movies!” “Now Sid, don't you blame the movies. Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative!” This movie needed way more psychos on the creative team.  SPOILERS There is one way the finale of this movie could have been satisfying, interesting, or just good. And that is with the return of Stu Macher. I could tell which way the film was going, but I never wanted to give up hope. This might just be the least satisfying of all the endings. And it sucks because I really liked the set-up.  As more and more of the friend group were dying, limiting the options for the killer, the mystery heightened. And it seemed there was a chance it really could be Stu. Because everyone’s gone. Who else could it be? And then the reveal, and it’s… Who? The neighbor kid’s mom and… the random institution worker who was in literally one scene? And it was so obvious that if Stu really was dead, it had to be the literal only guy who said he was alive. And he is NO ONE. His only inclusion in the movie is because he “worked in AI” so he can make hyper-realistic versions of all the dead scream characters??? It’s so fucking stupid.  When the movie was talking about deep-fake stuff, I was hoping it would be a fake-out and Stu would actually show up. That would be cool. That would be interesting. It’s just so disappointing. They thought about it too hard and actually made a worse movie. Matthew Lillard has had secret cameos in other Scream movies, and they even talked about it in 6. It would have been so easy. But they went with the most boring and uninteresting option instead.  It was great to see Matthew Lillard as Stu again. That was so fun. But it was so disappointing only seeing him on a fucking cellphone screen. I was going to give this a higher rating, but that ending just totally killed the movie. And now that I know the ending, I’ll probably give it an even lower score next time.  If I ever watch it again.  So that was going to be the end of the review, but I was driving home and thought of more stuff I want to talk about.  First the music fucking sucks. Why do these movies always use the most boring YouTube royalty free ass music ever. There was only one decent needle drop in the whole movie. And I guess that was obligatory. The end credits song is one of the worst fucking things I’ve heard and was the cherry on top of that shitty ending. I think if it had a banger credits song I would have felt better about the whole thing.  I also want to talk about my ideas on how to improve the movie. When writing any good mystery you start at the ending and work backwards from there. But it is clear they started with the idea (Stu macher is “back”) and went around in circles trying to figure out how to make it work when the simplest choice is always the right one. Just bring him back.  But whatever. I am not a writer so maybe I don’t know wtf I’m talking about but if you’re going to have a huge fakeout like “Stu’s alive” (and I can’t believe I have to say this) then the reveal needs to be more satisfying not actively make your movie worse.  If you want to have a nobody be the killer then it still needs to be a nobody with a connection. So I would bring back some minor character or background actor from the first movie. Have them have a long seated obsession with Sydney from highschool and they could think that the only way to get close to her is as ghostface. That’s kind of what they did but nobody had a real connection.  Another thing is if they kept everything the same but change the opening to be the murder of neighbors husband. Since she’s “obsessed” with Sidney she could have dressed as ghost face to kill her husband. We wouldn’t know who he is and it would seem like a random cold open only for the connection to be revealed later.  There are countless things that could be done to improve this movie. I try to meet a film where it’s at and see what it’s going for. But it’s so clear that this failed at its attempt by either over thinking or under thinking or just like no thinking at all. Everything I liked during the movie is completely undone by its ending. This is probably the most disappointed I’ve ever been by a movie. And maybe that’s on me.  Also the movie actually belittles the audience for thinking Stu could be alive WHEN THAT IS THE ENTIRE PREMISE. So fucking annoying. Fuck you.  The original scream is a masterpiece so well made that its own sequels pale in comparison and are often underwhelming. I had a sliver of hope that this would at least be decent or possibly even good.  If they want to continue the series it needs a total complete stylistic refresh. Imagine a scream movie that actually looked good. Imagine a scream movie as a true spooky mansion murder mystery. Or as a police detective story. Or with a supernatu