Scream 4
02.15.00

I recently saw the final installment of the Scream Trilogy. And I was rather impressed at how funny, scary, and, most of all, intelligent it was. And I left the theatre with thoughts barreling out of my head. "What if..." And eventually all those thoughts came to head in a complete story. Well, mostly complete. And here is what I'm thinking...

So it's now the 2002... about time for a sequel to come out. But there is no sequel, because the final installment in the trilogy already happened. So someone decides to create their own sequel.

Lawrence Hecht, the actor, is found dead. No big deal. People die every day. People get murdered every day. But this guy was stabbed to death in his own home.

Shortly thereafter, Patrick Dempsey, another actor (and I use that term loosely), is found stabbed to death in his home. One neighbor believes she saw someone leaving the house wearing the costume of the killer in the Scream movies. Unbeknownst to the press, written on the walls of the room Dempsey was killed in, in his own blood, are the words "No Survivors".

But there's more. Both actors were in Scream. Hecht played Neil Prescott, Sidney's (Neve Campbell) father in Screams 1 and 3. Patrick Dempsey was the detective in Scream 3.

So now, Neve Campbell starts to bug out. The Arquettes aren't too happy. And every cast member of the trilogy is both under suspicion and in fear for their lives.

One night, after shooting an episode of Friends, Courtney Cox returns to set to retrieve some random personal item she had left behind. Of course, she knows this is the last thing to do in a horror flick... but this isn't a horror flick, this is real life. Of course, that's what they said in all the Scream flicks too, right?

So, of course, she gets sliced and diced. Soon after, the pattern is clear, and so is the message that was left of the wall... Someone is killing off the actors that played characters who survived the Scream movie killings. No survivors.

No big surprise, Arquette and Campbell are going out of their minds. Security is heightened around both. And they're going nuts trying to reconcile horror movie-bullshit and real life psychodrama.

But, as always, no security, no cops, nothing is going to stop this freak from killing. And so, David Arquette is found dead by the security he hired, after they track down his screams.

One left... Neve Campbell. Sidney Prescott. Everyone and their mothers are on the lookout for the killer. And somehow, it's still not enough. The killer gets through to her. But Neve learned some things from her movie roles... how to fight off a killer. And she may not be able to take a real-life punch from a madman, but she can sure struggle like mad. There's a gleam of the knife, the sounds of metal scraping bone, furniture being tossed, drawers being thrown open, more slashing, more scraping, and a flash of gunfire.

In the end, both are dead. Sorry, Neve... no survivors. And both lay dead on the floor in their mingling pools of blood.

So who was it? Well, that depends. Are we talking about a movie script here? Or are we talking about something a bit more realistic?

If we're talking about something poetic, something horror-movie like, then we've got to go with the masked killer being none other than Roger L. Jackson.

And who IS this man? That's kind of the point. Roger L. Jackson is the VOICE of the killer in the Scream Trilogy. You know, that voice-modified, creepy, growling voice? You would think that with such great success of the trilogy, he'd be a household name. And so did he. Unlike James Earl Jones, his being the voice of a faceless man did NOT bring him into the limelight with the generation of people that loved his character's movies. And after three tries... Roger lost his shit. He decided that Scream was going to bring him fame after. So he went on a killing spree, wiping out the movie survivors... most of which were the most famous of the cast... the stars.

OK, so what if this was a bit more realistic? What if this were more of a real-life situation? Mr. Jackson is most likely NOT going to kill people because no one knows who he is (although the only work I know he's had has been as voices for characters in various video games, and a bit part in Ed TV). So who then?

How about you? Or me? Or that guy that sat in the corner of the classroom that no one really talked to cause he wasn't cool. Or how about that girl that wasn't the prettiest, wasn't the funniest, wasn't the biggest flirt?

In a more realistic setup, I'd have to go with the 8mm ending. The killer is your next door neighbor. This psychotic, sick fuck is just a regular Joe like you and me. Just someone who wanted his 15 minutes of fame, like you and me. And he figured that since all these movies were about real life spoofing horror movies, why not continue the plot, since the studio wasn't going to. Wes Craven would be proud, right? (He did this plot in New Nightmare)* Newspapers would have a field day on this. People would study him. Teen freaks would revere him. And that's really all there is to it. Someone stuck to the Scream story line a bit longer than they did.

... that's it.

Of course, I've gotta say all this shit, or else someone is going to be an asshole and take it all too seriously...

I don't, in any way, endorse or suggest the actions that were described here. I wish no harm to come to any of the people that were mentioned. No actions depicted taken here by any persons actually happened. And if they do, I had nothing to do with it. I am not my psycho's keeper.

On the creative side. As always, these writings are all Copyright S.M. Lein and are not to be copied, used, transferred, or anything... in whole or in part. In other words, don't take these ideas and try to sell them off as a movie script. Don't make a movie from this. If you do, pay me. Or at least give me credit, ya greedy bastards.

Ya know, it really sucks that I actually have to say all that crap. But such is the world we live in.

*I got this idea from the plot of Wes Craven's New Nightmare. I figured since that sequal didn't do well, likely because it was released too long after it's predecessors, it wouldn't do Wes any harm to use the same kind of plot for a new generation in a different series.