HOLLYWOOD—Ok people, the stakes for the next installment in the “Scream” franchise, which many of us are thinking is “Scream 6” has just got very interesting. This week it was revealed that our survivors from “Scream” not the 1996 film, the 2022 one, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown are all slated to return for the next chapter. We also learned a few weeks ago that “Scream” alum Courtney Cox is slated to return also.
However, things get better people because “Scream 4” alum Hayden Panettiere, whose fate was left in the air for years is coming back to the newest sequel as well people. Why? It was confirmed in the recent “Scream” franchise that the character of Kirby Reed survived those multiple stabbings by Charlie (Rory Culkin). So Kirby is back people and we don’t know much about the new sequel, but we do know our survivors leave Woodsboro (I love that) and embark a new journey.
So I guess the first question I have is rather this is “Scream 2” all over again, and our survivors head off to college? If so, where does Gale Weather (Cox) and Kirby Reed come into play? I mean Kirby would be in her late 20s at this point so the teen days are long over and I’m intrigued to see where the writers take this story. The directors have teased a sequel that will “raise the stakes” so right now we have six survivors and we still have no idea if Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns for a sixth installment and if so in what capacity? We still don’t know who Tara (Ortega) and Sam’s (Barrera) mother is and I have to believe that she will come into some play in the sequel, but I could be wrong.
There are a ton of questions in play people, but one thing we all know, all six of them won’t make it to a seventh chapter if that transpires, so we’re going to lose some fan favorites here and it’s going to hurt and I think that helps the narrative that much more in my opinion. The interesting thing to point out is that we’ll have two film buffs in one flick in Kirby and Mindy (Savoy Brown), who are lovers of horror and that could be a very interesting dynamic, as the characters and the audience navigate around who knows the genre and rules best, but more importantly who will survive, how they survive, who will die and how they are taken out.
I don’t get too excited for horror sequels often because they tend to disappoint, but this sequel has a potential to be one of the best in the entire franchise and the horror universe in general. I’m sure more names will drop in the coming weeks, but the current six we have is quite strong on the casting front so if Sidney does come back it almost solidifies for me that Cox or Campbell will go out in an epic way or a crazy twist will come to light that blows everything out of the water.
All we can do now is speculate America, as filming is slated take place this summer with the sequel landing in theaters on March 31, 2023. Yeah, getting the vibe of “Scream 2” all over again and that is a damn fantastic sequel people, so we could be on the horizon of greatness again, we’ll have to wait and see how Ghostface terrifies our survivors this time around.
