***Warning: This article contains spoilers***

In a long list of classics, when you get to horror, the movie that most everyone knows by name is “Scream”. Along with that, everyone has their own opinion on how good the movies are, if it is even considered a classic, or if it’s worth your while. So while I can’t tell you if you should go watch the latest film, I can tell you what I thought of it.

As many long-time “Scream” fans know, the latest movie in the franchise came out on Feb. 27. Supposedly it will be the last movie in the series, but who knows? There was a lot of preemptive guessing of who the directors and writers were going to bring back – the main one being Stu Macher, one of the original Ghostface killers from the first film.

I grew up watching the “Scream” franchise – it was the first slasher I had ever seen. I watch it around Halloween every year, and honestly on any rainy day where I just want to watch something I know (and could probably quote the entirety of). 

I was hopeful, but I actually went into the theater with low expectations because of the way the franchise had been progressing. Going into the movie I was worried that it was going to be yet another out of date slasher that didn’t know how to end their series, so they just add fire and hope the fans would be okay with it at the end of the day. 

It seems that every time a slasher franchise is trying to end the story, they set everything on fire. “Halloween”, “Nightmare on Elm Street”, “Friday the 13th”, “House of Wax”, the list goes on, and with the way the trailer for “Scream 7” was made, you would expect the same – but that wasn’t the case. 

I wasn’t too satisfied with the actual killers at the end of the film. When they still had the mask on, the anticipation was there, and you could convince yourself that the killers were different from who you knew they were. I think hope is what got me through the most of this movie; hope that at the final reveal Macher would actually come back as a killer, that the signals pointing to the killers – dramatic shots, tense music, a weird look on their face or in their eyes – were wrong.

That’s where the movie lost its luster for me: when it became predictable, when you could guess who the killers were, when you were finally sure that Macher wasn’t coming back, and when Sidney Prescott was no longer the only final girl. 

Something about the Ghostface killers that irked me the most was the first scene. It’s apparent that they wanted the viewers to believe the lie they were setting up – that Macher was returning – and that’s understandable, but when that wasn’t the endgame, it just looks silly. The actor behind the mask in the first scene acted like and killed like Macher did, but neither of the actual killers had the same unhinged psychotic energy that he brought in the first film. It felt like a cheap knockoff.

As much as I had qualms with the fact that Macher wasn’t coming back as a killer, it makes sense. There is no way that the writers could have satisfied all of the fans with the way that they would bring him back. Fans would have been less happy if he was brought back than they are now with the fact that he wasn’t brought back as a killer. 

There’s no good way to bring someone back from the dead like that. He was such a huge character in the first film, him being one of the main slashers and all – that there would have been disappointment surrounding the progression of his character. 

I enjoyed the many parallels to the first film, it was done as tastefully as they could accomplish without doing a disservice to the original, so kudos to the writers for that. The very first scene of the movie after the obligatory first kills was a carbon copy from the original, and they do point out that it’s a purposeful meta reference to the first “Stab” movie. (The “Scream” franchise is within its own movies, called “Stab”.) 

The movie itself was objectively good, and I was pleased with the amount of physical effort Prescott put into defending herself and her daughter – something that was lacking in the previous films. The gore was good and the camera remained focused throughout, even if some of it was admittedly theatrical.

The series ended in the first few minutes of the movie with the destruction of the Macher house. The fire was used in the way I think every other slasher attempts for it to be used: as a cathartic release, the past finally being put to rest, a closing to a classic film that will continue to be watched by people at the very least, yearly.

I feel like it was a good ending to the series, that is, if it really is the end. As well as some loose ends being tied up, the plot line was kind of left open. If they wanted to make more money off of the franchise they could always add another one, which is unfortunate. Yes, it’s a good series and it is sad to see it end, but they should leave it where it is now: end it on a good note.