8 Horror Movie References The Scream Franchise Gets Wrong

The Scream franchise is known for its horror movie references, but it doesn’t get all of them right. The franchise, which kicked off in 1996 with the first collaboration between director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson, quickly became iconic, contributing elements such as the killer’s eerie mask and the question “What’s your favorite scary movie?” to the pop culture pantheon. The franchise has since expanded to include six movies, with Scream 7 in development at the time of writing.

The Scream movies are so chock-full of references because the characters being terrorized by the killer Ghostface are themselves somewhat aware that they are in a slasher movie, or at least in a slasher fan’s attempt at recreating one. The sequels double down on this concept by blending real-life horror references with references to the fictional Stab franchise, which is inspired by events from previous movies. However, despite the breadth of horror knowledge that the characters possess, some of those real-life references have gone very wrong.

8
Randy’s Allusion to Prom Night

Scream (1996)

Many of the earliest Scream horror movie references come from Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), the resident slasher expert of the original trilogy. This includes his insistence that the police would be better able to solve the murders if they learned the slasher formula by watching 1980’s Prom Night, The movie, which stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen, is indeed a model of a particular formula, where a group of teenagers is stalked and killed after a prank gone wrong.

While this formula has been repeated in movies including Slaughter High, The House on Sorority Row, and Terror Train, it doesn’t actually apply to the events of Scream. Randy couldn’t have known this at the time, so his choosing Prom Night as an example isn’t necessarily a mistake on his part. However, the 1996 slasher movie and its sequels were known for their tight screenplays, so it could have provided a more full-circle moment at the end of the movie if a more apt example had been chosen.

7
Tatum’s Wes Carpenter Reference

Scream (1996)

During an important conversation with Sidney (Neve Campbell), Tatum’s (Rose McGowan) reference to their circumstances feeling like a “Wes Carpenter flick“ rings hollow. It seems fairly clear that the conflation of legendary horror directors John Carpenter and Wes Craven was intentional, mirroring how general audiences don’t necessarily remember directors’ names. The fact that Craven himself was directing the movie underscores the fact that this joke was intentional.

However, the teenagers at the core of Scream seem much too pop culture savvy to make a mistake like that. It is true they all have different knowledge bases, and Tatum’s previous reference to Tom Cruise in All the Right Moves shows that her tastes do extend outside of horror. However, with extremely few exceptions, every other character, actor, or director mentioned in the franchise is cited correctly, which makes this moment stick out like a sore thumb.

6
Tara’s Pronunciation of The Babadook

Scream (2022)

One of the biggest modernized elements of Scream (2022) was the running gag about Tara Carpenter’s (Jenna Ortega) interest in elevated horror rather than slashers. However, when declaring her love for the 2014 Australian horror movie The Babadook, which happens both in the beginning and the end of the movie, she consistently mispronounces its title. While it is meant to be pronounced to rhyme with “bob duh book,” she opts to rhyme it with “ABBA duke.”

This is another mistake that a horror-savvy character, like the ones that the Scream franchise consistently traffics in, seems highly unlikely to make. While it’s an easy mistake for those who aren’t intimately familiar with the character, the movie itself clearly lays out the name’s pronunciation. In fact, the monster is introduced in the rhymed storybook line “If it’s in a word or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook,” something that Tara would likely be very familiar with.

5
I Spit On Your Garage

Scream (1996)

While Tatum may have interests outside of the horror genre, one of her biggest scenes sees her pulling out a reference to a less widely known horror title. When trapped in the garage by Ghostface (on whom she bestows that iconic name in a later line), she asks “What movie is this from, I Spit on Your Garage?” This is a reference to the 1978 grindhouse movie I Spit On Your Grave, also known as Day of the Woman.

However, this particular reference doesn’t make much sense. While it is a horror title from the general era that the characters from Scream have been discussing throughout the movie, it’s a title from the “rape-revenge” subgenre that doesn’t feature a masked killer stalking a group of teenagers. If Tatum knows enough about the genre to cite the movie in the first place, she’d likely also know that her reference doesn’t apply to the slasher movie that she and her friends find themselves living out.

4
Mindy Using the Term “Re-quel”

Scream (2022)

When trying to distinguish what type of horror movie she and her friends have found themselves in, Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) establishes that they are in a “re-quel.” This is a portmanteau of “remake” and “sequel” that describes characters from the original movie returning alongside new, younger characters, to whom they can pass the torch. This correlates with other references to similar movies, including Halloween (2018).

However, the use of that term never took off in real life, and it was eclipsed by the more popular “legacy sequel.” Much like her uncle Randy with his Prom Night reference, the blame for this issue doesn’t lie on Mindy’s shoulders. But “legacy sequel” came into common usage so quickly after the movie’s release that it rang false when she and Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) used the term “re-quel” in their discussion of Candyman in Scream VI the following year.

3
Charlie’s Theory About Gay Slasher Characters

Scream 4 (2011)

During the film club scene, resident horror geeks Charlie (Rory Culkin) and Robbie (Erik Knudsen) discuss who could survive and Charlie comes to the conclusion that viewers need to expect the unexpected and that “you pretty much gotta be gay” to survive a modern horror movie. This is meant to reflect the fact that it would be unexpected for a character with a minority sexuality to escape the wrath of a killer onscreen. It is a reversal of a trope similar to that of Black characters typically dying first in slashers.

However, the trope of gay survivors that Charlie suggests, and which Robbie later attempts to embrace, is not borne out by any slasher titles that were contemporary to Scream 4‘s 2011 release. The few slashers that did include characters on the LGBTQ+ spectrum were just as likely to kill those characters off as anyone else. Likewise, many of the most prominent 2009 and 2010 slashers, including Sorority Row, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Hatchet II, centered on heterosexual survivors.

2
Randy’s College Slasher Rant

Scream 2 (1997)

While taunting Ghostface about doing a killing spree on a college campus, Randy rattles off a list of 1980s slashers. Those titles, The House on Sorority Row, The Dorm That Dripped Blood, Splatter University, Graduation Day, and Final Exam, all have university settings with one exception. 1981’s Graduation Day is actually set at a high school, following a track team being hunted down in the lead-up to their graduation.

While similar mistakes made by other characters can be written off for representing a real-world level of knowledge, Randy is the franchise’s resident slasher expert. His understanding of the genre is so integral to the formula of the Scream movies that a videotape of his advice was introduced posthumously in Scream 3 so he could still be included. If there’s one character who should know where Graduation Day is set, it’s Randy Meeks, which makes the movie’s inclusion in his college slasher rant even more strange.

1
Randy’s Aliens Quote

Scream 2 (1997)

While discussing sequels in a film class, Randy has what is perhaps his least convincing moment as the Scream franchise’s horror guru. After Joshua Jackson’s unnamed character quotes Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) line at the end of 1986’s Aliens, Randy smugly corrects him, insisting that the line is “stay away from her, you b—h” rather than “get away from her…” While the class seems impressed by Randy’s knowledge, he’s actually the one who is wrong in this case.

After-the-fact interviews have suggested that this scene was the result of the line being accidentally flipped on set and the editors choosing to go with the best take rather than the most correct one. Whatever the case may be, it results in one of the most confounding moments in the entire Scream franchise. Ripley’s Aliens line is so iconic that it doesn’t make sense that Randy would get it wrong nor that he himself could avoid being corrected by one of his movie-obsessed classmates.