Summary
Scream 7is heading into production in December 2024, and it’s just one of many slasher movies in the works, with the sub-genre currently experiencing a renaissance.A lot of these slasher movies boast high body counts and extreme violence, butScream 7doesn’t necessarily have to do this, and it could benefit from not following this trend.
Wes Craven never had huge body counts and unnecessary violence in his four Scream movies, and Radio Silence followed suit inScream (2022).However,Scream 6did feature the highest body count in the franchise.There is no reason forKevin Williamson’s plansto feature a huge body count inScream 7,and if anything, a smaller body count could lead to the upcoming sequel being a massive success. The fans are more interested inthe whodunit elementand character development of the core characters, rather than multiple gratuitous violent deaths.
Directed By
Kevin Williamson
Neve Campbell has confirmed thatScream 7will focus on Sidney Prescott, and its imperative that her story is strong, and she’s surrounded by three-dimensional characters. Courteney Cox is heavily rumored to be returning as Gale Weathers, as well as Patrick Dempsey as Sidney’s husband, Mark Kincaid. However, there is still no news about any new characters who will feature.The last thing fans want is the introduction of poorly developed new characters, just to be killed off by Ghostface to boost the body count.
After the deaths of Steven Orth and Casey Becker inthe 1996 original, there was a large portion of the movie dedicated to the development of the now iconic characters, whereas the sequels have featured more kills leading up to the finale. In fact, Principal Himbry’s (Henry Winkler) death inScreamwas added in, after the studio thought there was too long between the opening kills and Tatum Riley’s death inScene 118.
Scream 7could decrease the body count of previous entries, and be better off for it as it would feel more reminiscent of the original movie.One wayScream 7could achieve a smaller body count would be tolet the Ghostface killer(s) survive. There have been 14 Ghostface killer deaths in total in the franchise, with the majority of Scream movies resulting in two Ghostface deaths.Scream 6featured a staggering five Ghostface killer deaths, if you include Jason Carvey and Greg Bruckner, which vastly increased the overall body count.
IfScream 7does feature the rumoredCult of Ghostface, it could be too much to kill off every killer who is part of the murderous team, sokeeping some Ghostface killers alive to return in a possible sequel would keep the body count down, and it would also make for a compelling plot point. This would arguably be more important than featuring gratuitous deaths for the sake of it. It would also be good if some ofScream 7’s new characters survived the Ghostface attacks, so the franchise has the option to move forward with a new generation of survivors, similarly to whatScream (2022)andScream 6did withthe Core Four.
Scream 6has the biggest body count, with 13 brutal kills, but significantly, the majority of these deaths were of characters the audience didn’t care too much about. Two deaths happened off-screen, and all the returning characters survived.Scream 7needs to avoid an unnecessary body count, and should focus on killing off a mixture of well-developed new characters and legacy characters.
The originalScreamhad the smallest body count with 7 characters perishing.Each one of these character’s deaths felt like a major loss, including the Ghostface killers, Billy and Stu, who the audience loved to hate. Ifa fan movement leads to Stu’s return inScream 7, the first movie would retrospectively only have six kills in total, which is not a lot for a slasher movie.
