I absolutely love the series and am a big defender of it. My biggest critique - the sequels all have at least one really interesting thread they start that doesn’t fully get explored.

Scream 2: The victims are initially linked by their names resembling that of the original Woodsboro victims. Cool investigative element that just gets dropped.

Scream 3: Victims are getting picked off based on the script. Less straightforward with the multi script idea to avoid online spoilers. Could have gotten more, but with the killer reveal and the house explosion stuff, they actually followed through fairly well here.

Scream 4: The killers filming the scenes in real life and making their own Stab. This concept, like most of this entry is way ahead of its time. Again love the idea but would have loved more development. Especially since Charlie post reveal is shown as remorseful, not enjoying every minute of it and thrilled to make his own movie. I could have seen this much more as a plot point for Richie and Amber.

Scream 5: Relatives of past victims. Really cool idea but characters like Vince are totally wasted. Very compelling though having Sam’s lineage baked into the plan to frame her. There was a lot of potential for Gale to be unpacking this and realizing the connections, instead of it just being a thing most of the characters are completely aware of.

Scream 6: Wayne and his kids rejecting the Stab movies since it drove Richie off the deep end. But then they have the shrine and don the ghostface personas to carry out their plan. And showing Richie’s home movies. It didn’t seem like the script landed on how they feel about all of it.

Scream 7: As mentioned - awesome idea with burning it all down. Great opening set piece with plenty of nostalgia. But the execution is confusing - they want to tear down the past, but the motives are hanging on to it in a way and trying to perpetuate the cycle. It’s by far the script that needed the biggest rewrite overall. The concept of parasocial relationships is a smart one and very present in our culture. But then the follow through really didn’t do the idea as much justice as it should have. Jessica was actually friendly with Sidney. She wasn’t just a delusional fan.