Originally Posted by
burnmotherfucker!
Spoilers for the Scream franchise to follow:
Wow that's awesome you met Neve Campbell! I know folks who love 5 as well so I'm glad you liked it. My ranking is actually release order 1>2>3>4>5.
To me, Scream 3 has always been treated unfairly. It isn't perfect and it doesn't live up to 1&2. It isn't paced well in the last hour and the killer reveal is awful. BUT the first hour of the movie is great and has some of the best comedy in the franchise. AND the final end scene is the perfect way to conclude Sidney's story if you're going to end it.
Scream 4 I like the opening more than the rest of the movie. The cinematography is worse in this movie than any of the others as it looks like a bad CW show most of the time. But I do like a lot of it and where they had the main characters. But their ending sucks. In fact, if the reveal in Scream 3 was bad writing then this is copy/paste the exact same thing. This time it's her obsessed cousin. Gimme a break, that's lazy writing in any franchise. Nothing against Emma Roberts though, it isn't her, it's the writing.
Scream 5? Bad. Derivative. I didn't give a shit about the new characters and I hated what they did with all of the original characters. Scream used to name check popular horror movies while playing with expectations. Like the virgin surviving, and be right back, and inverting the structure of Halloween while Randy is watching Halloween in the movie. Scream 5 name checks horror movies just to name check them. Then, they go out of their way to criticize the new Requel formula. Fair enough, but if you're going to go that route you also need to make sure your own movie rises above that same formula. That's what Wes Craven (and Kevin Williamson) was doing with the first one. Scream 5 just left a bad taste in my mouth and if this is actually the end for Neve as Sidney then I'd be sad because they completely wasted her character.
To me, back in Scream 2 when they killed off Randy, it was going to be downhill from there. He was the audience. His character being in play opened up for better writing. Since then, 4 & 5 (he is in 3 via VHS) just make these Randy copies and he was such an essential character in the original trilogy it always feels off. I liked Kirby ok but its just not the same.