After the commercial success of Scream VI at the box office, the much beloved slasher parody franchise seems set to take the Fast and Furious route, with more installments to come. With each movie comes the need for writers to become more inventive about who’s taking on the famous Ghostface mask and stabbing their way through various people related to the town of Woodsbro, California. And, as cast members rotate out thanks to becoming victims, this means an ever-changing pool of people who could potentially start slashing.
Usually the killer is someone with links to the previous Ghostfaces, and among the laughs and jump scares the franchise does have an interesting thing to say about the impact of trauma and the victim-to-abuser pipeline. This is why the news that current Scream star Melissa Barrera is keen to don the iconic black and white mask in the next film has been raising plenty of hopes in the fandom.
Although the interview with Flickering Myth in which she revealed this desire was mostly about her upcoming role in the musical adaptation of the famous Georges Bizet opera Carmen, the final question was about the potential for her to play the killer in a seventh installment of the franchise. Barrera’s only problem with the concept was that she thinks the writers won’t end up going for it, as it’s a little too obvious. And, given the whole point of a surprise villain is that they’re supposed to be a surprise, we can’t help but agree with her a little – even though we would love to see Sam Carpenter following in her father’s footsteps. But you can never say never when it comes to the twist at the end of these films, so there’s hope yet.
With that all said, a potential Scream VII is yet to be confirmed by anyone, so for now this is all just speculation. However, it is looking good for another film. The sixth installment certainly did a lot of things right, and the fact we are only effectively in film two of this iteration of the main cast means the characters are still fairly fresh and can surprise us. Plus, with a rising star like Jenny Ortega attached, producers won’t be too hard to find.
There are plenty of other interesting routes the writers could take for a seventh outing; one star of the most recent film thought the next one could do with some tunes, which would certainly be a departure. For now, though, we just have to wait and see if we’ll ever see Ghostface again, let alone with Barrera behind the mask.