Sidney’s Back, But Does Anyone Care?

The trailer for Scream 7 recently came out and I have to admit I barely felt anything for it. The ScreamWhat started as a meta-commentary on slasher media became just another slasher series in its own right, the Scream series then reinvented itself as a meta-commentary on meta-commentary. series has had its ups and downs, but the last two films of the series had deftly rebooted the franchise into something new. Meaner, darker, more violent, it felt like the series was back on track and ready to go with new heroines, new stories to tell, and a new arc to pursue. But as anyone that has been following the Scream series knows, everything is back on the shoulders of the eternal final girl, Sidney Prescott, and it’s hard to care anymore.

A big part of that is because it feels like we’ve already told all the story that Sidney has to tell. The first film in the franchise explored Sidney’s feelings over the death of her mom, the wonder over if the person she had sent to prison, Cotton Weary, really did it, and the revelation that her own boyfriend was really the killer, and now he’s come for her. It’s a plot motivated by the characters, all feeding into Sidney’s arc and pushing her forward as a character. It’s also the last time the series really had anything to do with Sidney beyond casting her as the final girl and having her survive an elaborate series of kills so that she could appear in the next sequel.

In effect, Sidney had plot armor. She was written as the heroine of her story, and the first film was all about her. Further adventures for her only cemented this simply because no one else that was brought in could carry the franchise like she did, at least not for the first few sequels. They flirted with killing her off so a new heroine, Jill (Sidney’s cousin), could take over the franchise in Scream 4, but then got cold feet. The script was reworked so Jill was the killer and Sidney had to kill her, further cementing her own place as the final girl of the franchise, and that felt like how it was always going to be.

That was why Scream (the fifth one) and Scream VI were so interesting. Instead of solely focusing on Sidney, these two sequels pivoted to a new couple of characters, Sam (secret daughter of original killer Billy) and her (half-)sister, Tara. Sam had an arc that was new and different from any other character of the series. She felt that urge, the need to kill, and she saw visions of her dad, Billy, whenever the Ghostface killer (whoever it was that time) came around. Whether she would give in to her dark side and kill, or find a way to remain the heroine of her story, was the big question of the films, and it felt like the series would continue exploring that for many more entries to come.

But that wasn’t meant to be. Due to actress Melissa Barrera’s posts about Israel (legitimately calling out the genocide taking place in Palestine), Spyglass Media Group (the studio in charge of the Scream franchise at this point) and Paramount elected to fire her from the seventh film, removing her character, Sam, from the project as well. Because of that, as it was later reported, co-star Jenna Ortega, who played Tara, also left, and that meant that Scream 7 had no leads. Someone sane should have spoken up and said, “hey, guys, maybe this was a terrible idea. We should get Melissa back on the phone, throw some money at her, and lure her back to keep this franchise going…” but they didn’t, likely because Spyglass doesn’t really want to throw too much money at its stars.

Remember, Neve Campbell, who plays Sidney, didn’t come back for Scream VI because the studio tried to lowball her. Apparently losing their other two stars meant Spyglass had more money to throw around. That or they realized that a Scream film without Sam, Tara, or Sidney just wouldn’t work. Whatever the case, they gave Campbell enough money that she was willing to make another (and good for her), and that’s how Scream 7 came to be. For the actress this is a great move. For the franchise… not so much.

Sidney’s plot armor is way too strong. As the films have proven, you can’t kill off Sidney because then where does the franchise go. For a while it felt like there was a core cast of characters that had plot armor and would never die, with Sidney joined by Gail and Dewey for five adventures together. Dewey did die in Scream, but he was also the least essential of the cast by that point (no offense to David Arquette). Gail “almost” died in Scream VI, but she was saved and is coming back for the seventh adventure (making her the only actress to appear in all of these). And now we have two more characters also coming back here who have their own, improbable plot armor, Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin, both of whom should have died repeatedly in previous films and yet, somehow, didn’t. Chad has been stabbed more times than any of the actual murderers (who all died, mind you) and yet he’s kicking. You really expect the series to kill off Sidney?

If it doesn’t, then that sucks all the fun out of the series. We’ve already seen five (of the six) films posit “maybe this is the time Sidney dies,” only to then pull back like Lucy with the football, laughing at us because it got us again. With Sam and Tara in play it felt like, just maybe, one of these times Sidney could have died and the franchise would be in good hands with the newer characters. But now, it’s all back on Sidney and there’s almost no way that the franchise can kill her at this point.

Which is weird because most slasher franchises don’t even bother keeping the final girls around this long. Friday the 13thOne of the most famous Slasher film franchises, the Friday the 13th series saw multiple twists and turn before finally settling on the formula everyone knows and loves: Jason Voorhees killing campers 'round Camp Crystal Lake. would let a girl live on one film only to then kill her at the start of the next, as if to say “no one is safe”. Nightmare on Elm StreetThe brain-child of director Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street was his answer to the glut of Slasher films that were populating the multiplex. His movie featured an immortal character, Freedy, with a powerset like none other, reshaping the expectations for Slasher movies to come. pulled a similar trick, letting each final girl survive one film only to kill her the next time she appeared. One of the heroines did survive two films, but then the series moved on without her, realizing she was a narrative dead end. Only HalloweenThe franchise that both set the standard for Slasher horror and, at the same time, defied every convention it created, Halloween has seen multiple time lines and reboots in its history, but one thing has remained: Michael Myers, the Shape that stalks Haddonfield. has kept its final girl, Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode, coming back again and again through multiple reboots (and seeming deaths), and that has led to a serious case of diminishing returns. Scream needs to avoid that.

Now, an astute reader will note above that I said there’s almost no way that the franchise can kill Sidney off. That’s because there is one out that’s been written for this series: Sidney has a daughter now. Tatum Evans, as played by Isabel May, is getting introduced in this film, and she’s the young, fresh, blond girl that the original film would laugh and mock at. “All she does is run upstairs instead of going out the front door.” Whether this is a slight comment on Scream’s own tropes (the film is written and directed by the original film’s scribe, Kevin Williamson) remains to be seen, but it is possible that Sidney could die protecting her daughter, and Tatum could take over the franchise.

But narratively where does the series go from there? Sam had legs on her story because of her “dark passenger” (to borrow a term from Dexter), and it could have led to interesting character studies as she fully explored her arc. Unless Tatum has some really interesting hook beyond “this is Sidney’s daughter,” it’s hard to see how that will drastically change the franchise. Tatum taking over as the next final girl feels like, “this is the new Sidney, same as the old Sidney,” and that isn’t really an arc. Sidney, narratively, had her story end in the first film and she’s been going through the motions ever since. Can Tatum do any better? Right now it’s hard to see how.

A lot of this is speculation, yes, but it’s based on a solid reading of the previous films and everything we know from the trailer. There’s a new Ghostface! Sidney has a kid! Some characters return (even though they died)! It feels like Scream 7 is reverting to old form and just trying to go through the motions, with the trailer doing nothing to dispel that. Maybe the final film is different and Williamson has a great hook, but considering he also wrote Scream 2 and Scream 4, two of the worst entries in the franchise, it’s hard to have faith he can get the series back on track. Only time will tell, I guess.