SPOILER WARNING FOR THE “SCREAM” FRANCHISE

It’s late at night. The phone rings. You’re home alone. It’s just you in your quiet house in the peaceful, sleepy town of Bellaire.

You pick up the landline. You answer with a fun “Hello!” A man with a drawling, deep voice responds eerily and says “Hi, [your name]. What’s your favorite scary movi-”

Vaishali Raol

Drew Barrymore at first glance is thought to be the protagonist of the first Scream movie. However, she died soon after the movie started.

Aaaaand, let’s just cut right there. Like, forever.

Because I’m pretty sure you have heard that line before. It just so happens to be one of the most iconic lines from the famous slasher film franchise “Scream”. Over its now seven installments, with the newest movie releasing on Feb. 27, the series has followed teenager, and now adult, Sidney Prescott, a budding actress from Woodsboro, CA. She’s got it all — the perfect family, the perfect friends and the perfect boyfriend.

Until her mom cheats on her dad repeatedly, her best friend gets crushed to death by a garage and she finds out that her boyfriend is a serial killer who killed her mom and has been trying to off her for the majority of their relationship.

Fun, right?

And the producers made it more fun by sending her to college to get targeted more. Yay! Oh wait, then she went to Hollywood and was a victim of attempted murder again. And let’s not forget about taking her back to her hometown to watch her cousin kill her aunt and try to kill her. Wow! What a great film series.

The same thing over and over for three decades?

Yeah, no. Not so fun anymore.

So seriously, are we just going to sit around for 30-plus years eating this up? Sidney Prescott lost her relevancy in the horror movies 20 years ago. The killers get increasingly psychotic and their motives become literal crap. Am I supposed to believe you killed over 10 people because you thought a movie was not doing justice to the original film it was based on?

And let’s not forget director Wes Craven. While he is a directorial genius in the horror genre and has phenomenal ideas, they’re only phenomenal the first time he uses them. “Nightmare on Elm Street”? Pure cinema. “Red Eye”? Love that. But, I got tired of the whole killer-wants-to-be-famous trope in “Scream 3,” and you are telling me he did it again 15 years later?

Despite these incredibly evident issues, the movies have continued. People like the same familiar thing over and over. That’s what makes slashers the perfect money grabs. But enough is enough. This gorefest has gone on far too long. It is time to stop the “Scream” franchise from continuing.

Now, I am not saying that every “Scream” movie progressively gets worse. The quality of the films may be the same, but because we have received so many of them, we tend to heighten our standards for the grandeurs of “next time” and find ourselves thoroughly disappointed. Sometimes, they do exceed expectations, with “Scream 3” being a great example. However, the next movie, “Scream 4”, took a serious dive in quality despite following the same script.

Even the famous side character in the series Randy Meeks himself said, “Sequels suck. By definition alone, they’re inferior films.” And I’m not the only one who thinks this — Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb both gave downward slopes to this franchise. Even Bellaire students agree, with 82% of those polled on the Three Penny Press Instagram saying that the films have progressively gotten worse.

But because apparently, nobody’s opinion matters anymore, we have “Scream 7” being brought into this world — yet another unwanted and unnecessary “Scream” movie . The only good to come from this film is ending the momentary Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega plotlines. The side plot with Billy, Sidney’s ex-boyfriend, suddenly cheating on her and the whole borderline–offensive psychosis thing with Barrera’s character, “Sam”, introduced in the sixth movie were too much — the producers needed to cut it off while they could. And they did. But then they followed up with something even more stupid.

Tatum Evans.

The most random character ever in the “Scream” franchise yet — Sidney’s daughter. We already knew that she had a family, but why are they being formally introduced now? Couldn’t the story have ended with the messy dynamic Ortega and Barrera’s family, the Carpenters, had?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Isabel May. Alexa and Katie was one of my favorite TV shows growing up. But this is a far cry from a fun-loving, coming-of-age show about a ten with cancer. May has done some westerns and dabbled a little bit in Young Sheldon, but her acting is not meant for horror.

There are other numerous stars joining the cast, like McKenna Grace, Mark Consuelos and Anna Camp. But by killing off all the legacy characters and adding these new actors, the franchise acknowledges that it knows it’s gotten old and is desperately trying for something new — which already hasn’t worked in the past two films.

At what point does it stop? Will we sit and watch as one of the most celebrated horror franchises becomes something we don’t recognize? If we truly love “Scream”, we must be able to let it go. Its death is imminent, and while it had some good screams, the franchise is finally ready to be stabbed for the last time.