Scream: History of the Stab Franchise | Horror History

In September 1996, in the  town of Woodsboro, California, two high school students went on a crime  spree that resulted in the loss of five lives, while dressed up in these “Father Death” Halloween  costumes. One of the assailants, Billy Loomis, was motivated to get revenge on his classmate,  Sidney Prescott, because Sidney’s mother had participated in an affair with Billy’s father,  resulting in his mother abandoning the family. Sidney eventually defeated Billy  and his accomplice, Stu Macher,

with the help of on-the-scene reporter Gale  Weathers. Gale went on to write a bestselling novel about the incident called The Woodsboro  Murders. The book was a follow up to her 1995 book Wrongfully Accused:  The Maureen Prescott Murder. According to Gale Weathers.com, The Woodsboro  Murders came out in late 1996. “Gale Weathers' second novel details the murderous plot of two  angry teenagers determined to murder Sidney Prescott and her innocent friends. In a bizarre  turn of events, the author

herself became not only a target of the killers, but a hero. Ms. Weathers'  book became the Sunrise Studios hit movie: Stab.” Stab would go on to become one of the all time  great long running horror movie franchises. To learn about the often unknown details of Stab  movies, including the lost trailer for Stab 2, the differences only included in the theatrical cut of the original Stab, and the dirty movie studio secrets detailed on this anonymous  website, stick around to the end of this video.

This video is sponsored by Audible. (metal music) Welcome to Horror History. The rights to produce  the movie adaptation of The Woodsboro Murders were granted to Sunrise Studios, who came to  the famed horror movie producer John Milton, the man responsible for movies like Frankenpimp,  Is Somebody There? and The 1st House on the Right. He also produced Amazombies, Space Psycho  and Creature From The San Andreas Fault, all movies that featured actress Rena Reynolds,  which coincidentally, was a

stage name for Maureen Roberts. She ended up getting knocked up at one  of John Milton’s parties; it is unlikely that this conception was consensual though. After giving  birth to a son, named Roman, she abandoned him and left Hollywood to reside in Woodsboro, where she  was killed by Billy Loomis to set the real-life events that Stab was based on into motion.  Milton recognized that Maureen, who had married and become Maureen Prescott, was Rena, from his  movies, but decided to keep that fact t

o himself. – I couldn’t tell anyone.  Can you imagine the press? – But even before that, Sunrise Studios had another  Woodsboro connection, so to learn about that, let’s take it back to 1972, when Billy  Loomis’s father lived in Los Angeles. (mysterious music) In the early 70s, Henry Loomis was a  lawyer who worked for Sunrise Studios, and his services were required thanks to a pair  of incidents that occured. The first was on the production of the cheerleader slasher movie, Is  Somebody There?

Actress Elaine Varsi went missing, prompting Mr. Loomis to send a memo out to  the company, telling them not to make any comment on the case. Just months later, on June  13th, 1972, during the production of a Russian terrorist thriller called Shutout! an actress  named Loretta Fisher reportedly disappeared from the movie’s set in the middle of shooting one of  her scenes, which left everyone baffled. Ms. Fisher’s family eventually  came after Sunrise Studios for damages. This lawsuit went on for

  over 2 years, but on April 22nd, 1974, either Mr. Loomis was able to find a legal  loophole of some kind that voided the lawsuit, or Ms. Fisher’s family just had no  money to pursue further litigation. According to the anonymous expose website  Sunrise Sucks, “the Sunrise lawyer Henry Loomis parted ways with the Studio the very next  day after the case was closed. Rumor has it he left Hollywood for good and set up his own private  practice in a small Midwestern town: Woodsboro.” Of course, we

now know that one part  isn’t accurate, because Woodsboro is located in Northern California, not  the Midwest. Some time after this, Henry would meet and marry a woman  named Debbie, and together they gave birth to a son named Billy in the late 70s,  before his affair with Maureen Prescott. I include this story, because the fact  that Henry and Maureen both worked at, had a controversy at, and left Sunrise Studios  before having their affair in Woodsboro, which was instrumental in knocking over 

the dominoes that led to the creation of the Stab franchise, all seems like  it’s too convenient to be coincidental. But that being said, I can’t picture any  scenario where it isn’t coincidental. It’s not like John Milton told them to go to  have an affair in Woodsboro so that he could one day make a movie about it. And Maureen’s son  Roman was only a baby when she left Hollywood, so he couldn’t have played a hand in it either.  So I think the takeaway here is that Hollywood corrupted both Mau

reen and Henry. There were  shady things going on all the time at Sunrise, and the bad behavior rubbed off on the  two of them. They became shady themselves, which led to them having an affair. Sunrise  Studios was not the mastermind behind Stab’s true story, but they still did  kind of cause it, indirectly. As I mentioned, Billy and Stu slashed up their  high school and Gale wrote a book about it, which became Stab. Robert Rodriguez, fresh  off the heels of From Dusk Till Dawn, was brought on t

o direct. Will Kennison  adapted Gale’s book into the screenplay, and Dante Paltrow composed the score.  Cinematography was done by Hawken Jones, who had worked with Milton on Frankenpimp,  and the movie was filmed in Stab-O-Vision! I don’t know what that is, but I assume it’s  some kind of blacklight effect that shows certain secrets when viewed through a special lens,  such as a specially outfitted Ghostface mask. Tori Spelling, who had played Donna  Martin in Beverly Hills 90210, was cast to

play Sidney Prescott. David Schwimmer, of F•R•I•E•N•D•S fame was cast as the  inexperienced Deputy Dewey Riley. They got Luke Wilson to play Billy Loomis and Heather  Graham played the human knife-block Casey Becker. Quick note here from me. After this, the  cast listed on the Sunrise Studios website that promoted Scream 3 does not line up with  the cast listed in the search results shown in Scream (2022). I’m considering Scream (2022) to  be canon, so I’ll be using the names listed there. Does

this mean that nothing from  the promotional websites is canon? Yes, probably. But I still included the stuff  that doesn’t directly contradict the movies, because it makes this video way  more fun. Back to the cast list. Jennifer Jolie played Gale Weathers. Christopher  Speed (also known as Joe Blo Nobody) played movie buff Randy Meeks, and Alicia Silverstone  played Sidney’s best friend, Tatum Riley. A young Vince Vaughn was cast in his first major  role to play Stu Macher. Ron Howard made a c

ameo as Principal Himbry. Craig Bierko, coming  off his success in The Long Kiss Goodnight, played the role of Cotton Weary, the  man being framed for Maureen’s murder. The film opens with Casey Becker receiving a  mysterious call before getting in the shower. Her masked stalker chases her through  the house, and out to the pool area, where she’s tackled and gutted by Ghostface. Sidney Prescott and her friends hear  about the murders at school the next day, and in the evening, Sidney has her own

  encounter with Ghostface, which she believes to be her boyfriend, Billy Loomis. However, she  receives another creepy phone call after this, while Billy is in custody, so Billy is let go.  He runs into Sidney at school the next day. – They let me go Sid, I  didn’t do it. He’s lying. He tries to convince Sidney to get  over her Mom’s death so they can be intimate again, which doesn’t go well. Sidney manages to  escape Ghostface once more in the school bathroom, and this time classes are cancele

d. Shortly  after, so is the school principal’s life. Tatum’s boyfriend Stu Macher hosts a party that  evening, where Randy explains that horror movies tend to abide by a set of rules, which the  killers in Woodsboro seem to be following. – [Randy (Stab)] Never ever ever, under any circumstances, say,  ‘I’ll be right back. Cause you won’t be back.’ This results in the deaths of Tatum, the news  station cameraman Kenny, and almost Randy himself, but in the end, Sidney and Gale are able to defeat 

Billy and Stu before any more lives are lost. The studio would go all out to  promote the release of Stab, but at the premiere, things  would get a little bit messy. (blood curdling scream) (impact) As I have mentioned, Stab is based on the  in-universe books by Gale Weathers. If I lived in the Scream universe, I'd want to be  caught up on the books in order to get the most out of the movie. That's where Audible's  free trial comes in! You can't read Gale Weathers's books... but you can have th

e books  responsible for new movies or sequels this year read to you... like Firestarter, Salem's Lot,  and Jurassic Park. Jurassic. Boys. Jurassic Boys. But why use Audible when you can just go to  a bookstore, spend a bunch on money and then read some of it that day, but then just  have it sit on a shelf and not finish it? Yes, this is directed at you. The Audible app makes it easy  to listen anytime, anywhere; across all devices while traveling, working  out, walking, doing chores–you decide.

Audible Premium Plus gives you a free title every  month, or two if you already have Amazon Prime, and those titles are yours to keep.  But there's also the plus catalogue, which gives you access to thousands of titles that  you can just listen to without spending a credit. Protip: use that to sample some books  and then choose what you want to keep. Audible is giving CZsWorld viewers 30-days for  free, cancel anytime. Just go to audible.com/czsworld or text czsworld to 500-500. Link  in descri

ption: audible.com/czsworld. (rock music) The date was April 12th, 1997. The venue:  the Rialto Theatre in Cincinnati, Ohio. This is where the 10PM sneak preview  screening of the new movie Stab would take place. Sunrise Studios distributed free  tickets and even handed out Ghostface costumes to each of the attendees. The atmosphere was  absolutely ****ing electric. Movie patrons chased each other around the auditorium as cloaked  Ghostface decor flew above the excited audience. Unfortunately fo

r the moviegoers, disaster was  not limited to the horrors that they saw on the silver screen. Approximately five minutes into  the film, a college student named Phil Stevens stepped into the bathroom, where he was stabbed  in the face and killed by a new Ghostface killer. Like Sidney and Billy, he too was connected  to Sunrise Studios. Phil Stevens is the son of the studio’s commissary chef, Martin Stevens. So  again, I have to ask: could this be a coincidence? Like my answer about Maureen and

Henry, I think  his connection to the studio is only tangential. The killers this time around were Windsor College  student Mickey Altieri and Billy Loomis’s mother, Debbie. Debbie wasn’t married to Henry  Loomis at the time he worked at Sunrise, so I don’t think she’d have any way of knowing  who was and was not related to a Sunrise employee. It would also later be discovered that the  victims were chosen specifically, not because of any Hollywood blood connection, but rather  because the kille

rs were trying to recreate the killings in Woodsboro by using people with  similar names. So in the end, I think that Phil was probably at the screening because  he got the free tickets from his dad. Maybe his interest in horror movies even spawned from  having a family member work at the movie studio. But it’s unlikely that that family connection has  anything to do with why he was chosen as a victim. The killer at the theater,  which was most likely Mickey, since he goes to college with the  v

ictims and has been known to carry  around a camcorder, steals Phil’s jacket  and returns to his seat in the auditorium, where he then stabs Phil’s girlfriend Maureen, who  dies very publicly in front of the movie audience. This incident gets a ton of coverage in the press, and the studio discusses the possibility of even pulling the movie, although, this was most likely just virtue signaling; in  reality they likely had no intention of doing so. – It’d be stupid to pull this movie. With all thi

s free press they’re gonna  have huge numbers this weekend. – The incident fueled a cultural discussion about  if the movie could have been responsible for the crimes that occured in the theater. So in  actuality, they promote the movie even harder, sending the star, Tori Spelling on  television to be interviewed by Nancy O’Dell. – So tell us about this part  you’re getting rave reviews for. – Well I play this young girl, Sidney  Prescott, who discovers that her boyfriend’s this crazy serial kil

ler, who  also killed her mother the year before that. – So what kind of research  did you do for the part? – But during this theatrical run, the events  of the next Stab film were playing out in real life at Windsor College, where the  real Sidney Prescott was taking classes. Once again, Gale Weathers showed  up to report on the new story. Sorority girl Cici Cooper was stabbed  and thrown over her balcony. Sidney herself is attacked that same night,  but manages to survive. The next day, Randy

is not so lucky. Mickey manages to take  out Sidney’s two security details, her roommate, and her boyfriend before Sidney and Cotton  manage to get the better of him and Mrs. Loomis. While Mrs. Loomis had only been out for revenge, Mickey’s motive is significant to the Stab  franchise. He actually wanted to get caught. – [Mickey] I’ve got my whole defense planned  out. I’m gonna blame the movies. – For him, it was all about the trial and the  entertainment and attention that comes with it. It’s

likely that he was jealous of all the  extra notoriety that former NFL player OJ Simpson gained during his murder trial, which  occured a couple years beforehard in 1995. According to Forbes, “More than 150 million  viewers, 57% of the country, tuned in to watch the live broadcast of the verdict at  10 a.m. on Oct. 3, 1995.” For comparison, that’s more than that year’s Super Bowl, which  drew in 125 million. News stations covered OJ continuously throughout the year, so Mickey  probably envisione

d himself in that spotlight. Those plans were foiled when he and  Mrs. Loomis were killed that evening, so he never got his big trial, but he would  still receive a lot posthumous media attention as the villain in Gale Weathers’s new  book: The Windsor College Murders. Per Gale’s website: “Ms. Weathers is once  again in the eye of a dangerous storm and emerges a hero. This time, murder  follows Sidney Prescott to college, where Ms. Weathers is covering a story on  the copycat murders of two stud

ents during a screening of the hit slasher film.  Read how Gale single handedly brought the killers to justice in this exciting  novel that became the hit movie Stab 2.” That description might be slightly  embellished, considering she was actually passed out in an orchestra pit  when the killers were brought to justice, but I’m sure Sidney wouldn’t mind having  the spotlight shifted away from her. It was probably around this time when John  Milton greenlighted the production of Stab 2, but befor

e that would happen, there was still  the home-video release of Stab 1 to worry about. Stab is listed as having a 111  minute runtime, same as Scream, though it’s not known if that refers to  the theatrical cut or the home media cut. I’m not calling it the extended cut, because just  based on the opening scene where Casey is killed, it seems that the theatrical  cut is nearly 4 minutes longer. The biggest difference is  probably the music. In the theatrical cut we hear the song Red Right Hand… �

�"Red Right Hand" - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 🎵 …whereas the home-release cut  contains these haunting strings. (spooky music) The out-of-universe explanation for this is  that Scre4m is the only film not to contain the song "Red Right Hand" at all. According to  scream.fandom.com this is because of a copyright issue, though they don’t link any evidence to  back that up. I’m guessing they’re trying to say Scream 4 couldn’t afford the licensing fee. The  fourth movie has the same budget as the

third, but if you adjust both for inflation,  the fourth is actually 30% lower. This could also serve as an in-universe  explanation. Maybe the studio had the budget for "Red Right Hand" for the theatrical rights only.  And this really happens from time to time. To use another example from 1997, the MTV show Daria  first aired with music from popular artists, but it had to be replaced with stock  music for the VHS and DVD releases. I’ve lined both cuts of Stab  up by all their common points, an

d I’m going to do a full comparison of  the two. The theatrical cut from Scream 2 is on the left and the home media cut  from Scre4m is on the right. But first, there’s one thing I want to highlight  that neither of these shows: the previews. Because nobody wants to be advertised to while  they’re in the middle of watching something. (impact) (horror drone) OK, so whenever one of the cuts has  added content, I’ll just pause the opposite version. And if you don’t care about  the miniscule differe

nces between the cuts, feel free to just skip to the next chapter  of this video. The fourth Scream shows this Robert Rodriguez title card, which we don’t  see in Scream 2, but it probably did happen before Phil and Maureen walked into  the theater. Then we’re in sync… (knives slashing and music) (crowd cheers) …until this part, there’s an added scene in the  home release, but we don’t see it. We’ll fast forward through the parts where neither Stab  is shown until the Gale Weathers title card. T

hen we’ve got more of neither Stab being shown,  but there are some nice parallels. Then there is a section where there’s added content on the  Blu-Ray, but again, we don’t see it until here, and it’s just a black screen. Very exciting. But  it leads into the fade-in to the Becker house. There are four extra seconds in the theatrical  cut which we don’t see… followed by five extra seconds of Casey entering the bathroom and  turning on the light. We’re back in sync. (crowd jeering) – [Gale] Ooh y

eah. Back on my game. – [Zac] Then there’s a long added portion in the  home-release cut, a minute and 38, but we don’t see any of it because Scream 4 is focused  on Gale, before finally Casey turns on the shower. And you’ll notice some of these bathroom shots that linger a little bit are  cut down for the home release. (spooky music, cheering crowd) Audiences are just as excited about seeing  Heather Graham’s back in 2010 as they were back in 1997. Then we don’t see either Stab so  we can fast

forward here, where we still don’t see either screen yet, but there are 4-5  seconds cut of the home release. We actually see slightly more of the shot of Casey turning  around in Scream 4, which makes me wonder if the full cut is sitting around somewhere. I’ll do a  short fast forward to Casey walking to the phone. (phone ringing) Then there’s a second added to home release, to  put us back in sync for Casey answering the phone. – Hello? – [caller] Hello. – Who is this? – [Zac] There are big ch

unks of the conversation  only present in the theatrical cut. I wonder if this is considered lost  media in the Scream universe. – [caller] Were you expecting somebody? – Home release must be the definitive  version, because everybody has it memorized. – No. – [Zac] And then the whole section of Casey walking around  the house and talking to Ghostface was actually cut out of the home release as well. Which is  a shame because we miss this hilarious line. – [Casey] I don't even have a boyfriend r

ight now. – [caller] Would you liiikeeee oneee??? Hmm? – [Zac] This section is another portion that was removed  from the home release. On the Scream 2 side, we don’t see Stab, but we do hear Ghostface  taunting her. Nothing’s really happening, I can kind of see why they cut  this, so I’ll fast forward again to… – You know I don't even know you, and I dislike you already! – [Zac] Then it’s back to seeing neither Stab,  so I will fly through this and note that this includes another huge chunk of

the  theatrical cut that was removed from the home release. The cut portion is one minute  and 42 seconds and we don’t see any of it. (glass shatters) (screams) Then, these 5 seconds are only  present in the home release. The next part may or may not  be in sync, we don’t know, because we only see a tiny glimpse of the  screen in Scream 2, so I'm fast forwarding. This is probably in both cuts, we  only see it in Scream 2 though, so I just figured I’d show you this in  real time, because we’re ab

out to... Fast forward! To a shot you can  only see in the home release. We skip forward again landing us in another big  portion that was removed before the home release, this one lasts 2 minutes and 23 seconds  overall, part of which includes this shot: (intense music) And… this shot. (intense music) And… this shot. (intense music) And these three shots… (suspenseful music) And who could forget these? (dramatic music and screaming crowd) (fast forward) (flesh stab) (blood curdling scream) (moa

n) It’s likely that some of these shots  were condensed and included somewhere in the home release, during  one of the off-screen portions because they’re kind of important  to get us from point A to point B. Then this next part is weird, we  actually cut back to Stab in both movies, first in Scream 4, then moments later in Scream 2, So I had to pause Scream 4 because  they’re showing different shots entirely. Obviously things don’t match  up between the two because of the different shot being u

sed. But  then we fast forward again up until… Another big chunk that is only in the theatrical  cut. This one lasts 22 seconds and includes both of these shots. Then there’s one last  point where the two movies are in sync… And that is the last part we  see of Stab in Scre4m. There’s a little bit more Stab footage shown  in Scream 2 before the scene ends. Well that was fun. Unless you skipped  it, in which case: moving right along. With the release of Gale Weathers’s new book in  1997, the race

was on to make a sequel to Stab. The producers of Stab would return, and  be joined by Floyd Malone and Fred Rifkin, who had worked with Milton before on Is  Somebody There? and 1st House on the Right. This time, Jerry Rapp got the call  to direct. I’m not sure if this is the same Jerry Rapp that went on  to write the movie: Looking Glass. Everyone else returned for Stab 2, but the  new character additions were decidedly less star studded than the original film with Dusty  Penn as Sidney’s new

boyfriend Derek Feldman, Sharon Batton as the sorority girl Cici  Cooper, KC Storm as the movie obsessed killer Mickey Altieri, and Lauren Velez  as Sidney’s roommate Hallie McDaniel. Notably, there were two additional characters  added who weren’t a part of the real events: Sonia and Alli. I’m guessing they were  brought on to be additional victims, to add some extra gore to the movie. Although the movie was produced and finished  very quickly, it was not without struggle, thanks to the high te

nsions between producers  John Milton and Fred Rifkin on set. According to the Sunrise Sucks website, “the duo had a number  of run-ins over the years, but none matched the one on (the) set of Stab 2, where there was a  huge blow-out on location at Columbia College, a school known for producing the  iconic horror YouTuber: CZsWorld. Milton allegedly was going through drug addiction  issues at the time, and Rifken wanted him banned from the set, but Tori Spelling used her  influence to protect Mi

lton. As a result, the production was split into two camps,  and things eventually boiled into a physical confrontation between Rifkin and Milton. The  two had to be pulled apart, and this time, Milton was banned from being on set, which made  Spelling and other cast members very unhappy. Despite the drama, after much anticipation,  the Stab 2 trailer was released. – [female voice] Last night, two students were brutally murdered, at a local movie theater. (impact sound) (foreboding music) The fi

rst trailer for Stab 2 features a lot  of familiar scenes, yet, unfamiliar faces. – This is Gale Weathers reporting live. – [Zac] No. No it is not. This trailer was a bonus feature  on the DVD for Scream 3. The obvious answer as to why the cast is filled with random people is  that like the other bonus stuff from Scream 3, it’s not canon. But again, I’m gonna  come up with an excuse to incorporate it because it’s the closest thing  we have to footage from Stab 2. Until a Scream movie gives us ac

tual footage  of Stab 2, this is too much fun to leave out. So think about it like this. In Scream  2, the movie within the movie is Stab. But if Stab 2 is the in-universe equivalent  of Scream 2, then there has to be another movie within the movie in Stab 2. The movie  that the Stab versions of Maureen Evans and Phil Stevens go to see at the beginning.  I think that’s what we’re seeing here. Just as this clip was originally used to  promote Scream 3 in our real life universe, it would also have

been used in the Scream  universe to promote Stab 2. There is actually some precedent for the Stab movies inside the  Stab franchise still just being called Stab. Remember that the opening of Stab 7 is two girls  sitting on a couch watching a movie called Stab 6. One interesting thing about the Stab 2  trailer is that it seems to stray further from the actual events of Scream 2 than the  original Stab did. For one, Windsor College is now “Columbia University.” There are also brand  new Ghostfac

e scenes, seemingly new characters, I’m guessing this is Alli, played by Angela  Kong, and even some creative liberties in the dialogue. For example, in Scream 2,  we never hear the end of the third rule. – [Randy] And number three, if you want your  sequel to become a franchise, never ever-- – How do we find the killer  Randy? That’s what I want to know. – But in the Stab 2 trailer,  we hear all of them in full. – Number one, body count’s always higher.  Number two, the death scenes are much mo

re elaborate. Number three, never ever under any  circumstances assume that the killer is dead. – The hype must have been high for Stab 2, because  it seems that before the movie was even released, the studio greenlit another sequel. Stab 2 was  most likely released in the summer of 1999, based on the fact that while Stab  3 was shooting in August 1999, they are actively advertising  Stab 2 on buses in LA. The movie begins with two new murders at a  movie sneak preview of Stab. It’s discovered b

oth are students at Sidney Prescott and Randy  Meeks’s college. Naturally, Gale Weathers shows up to cover the story, but this time has to go up  against another reporter who goes by Deborah Salt. Gale attempts to set up a reconciliation interview  between Sidney and Cotton, but Sidney is not interested. Dewey also flies into town to try to  help protect Sid when he hears what’s going on. That night, a sorority girl named  Cici gets taken out by Ghostface, and Sidney narrowly avoids the knife he

rself. Her  boyfriend, Derek, helps fight off the intruder, but since nobody actually saw his fight with  Ghostface, he becomes a suspect, due to the injury on his arm conveniently missing any critical  arteries, and he is a medical student after all. Sidney’s roommate, Hallie, and her film nerd  friend Mickey also get interrogated and Sidney is given a personal security detail. The  next day, Derek tries to calm Sidney’s worries by serenading her in front of the whole  dining hall and giving he

r his Greek letters, but a Ghostface encounter during a rehearsal for  a play that she’s in still leaves her shaken. Dewey, Gale and Randy determine that the culprit  is trying to recreate what happened in Woodsboro, but this time using the rules and tropes that  dictate horror movie sequels. They receive a mysterious call, but while trying to track down  the caller, Randy is abducted and loses his life. Meanwhile, Sidney has a scary confrontation with  Cotton Weary, who still wants his intervie

w, and he’s arrested, if only temporarily,  as they have no evidence against him. Not long after, Dewey and Gale are attacked  while reviewing film evidence and Sidney and Hallie are attacked while fleeing town in  a vehicle with Sidney’s security guards. Sidney ends up being the only one to  get away from the car crash alive and soon after finds herself lured into a trap on  the stage of the play she was set to star in. After sacrificing Sidney’s  boyfriend in front of her, the killers reveal t

hemselves as Mickey  and Deborah Salt, or as Sidney knows her, Mrs. Loomis, Billy’s vengeful mother. With a  little help from Gale and eventually Cotton, she’s able to defeat her attackers once again  and Dewey even lives to see another day. As I mentioned, production on Stab 3: Return to  Woodsboro had already begun at some point during the second movie’s theatrical run. Location  scouting began in June 1999, and casting was completed before the end of the first week of  June. This time, much o

f the original cast did not come back, including Tori Spelling, David  Schwimmer and Craig Bierko. Some have speculated that they did not feel comfortable starring in  a franchise that was connected to so much real crime, but I would guess that maybe they weren’t  interested in doing a fictional continuation of a nonfiction story. Kind of like how Kate  Winslet wasn’t in Titanic II. It’s also likely that Tori Spelling did not want to return thanks  to infighting and tension on set during Stab 2.

The studio held a massive talent search to find  the next Sidney Prescott, in which 50,000 girls tried out. The part ended up going to newcomer  Angelina Tyler, which she was able to secure by sleeping with the producer, John Milton. The  new Deputy Dewey Riley would be actor Tom Prinze, who was well enough to play the part  despite crashing his car a month prior. To fill Craig Bierko’s role as Cotton Weary,  they simply got the real Cotton Weary to make a small cameo as himself. Jennifer  Joli

e reprised her role as Gale Weathers. Since many fans were upset about the  decision to kill off Randy in Stab 2, a new character named Ricky, another video  store employee, was created as an homage and the role was given to Tyson Fox. Fox is  rumored to be the illegitimate son of Sunrise Studios head Don Crosby and actress Leticia  Yanci. Similarly, the new character, Candy, seems to be an homage to Tatum, from Stab 1,  and this spot would be filled by 35-year-old Sarah Darling, at the request

of her agent…  even though she wasn’t thrilled about it. – Stab 3. Jesus I gotta get a new agent. – Supporting cast included Dan  Arrdondo as the Swimming Coach, Barry Barclay as Computer Geek #1 and Brett  Riley as Obsessive Fan. It seems the movie also included multiple Ghostface killers, a  sheriff, a principal, an innocent crash victim, a hooker, an english teacher, a woman named  Jan and a man named Ted, among others. As for the production team, Fred Rifkin was  initially supposed to direct

, but according to the documents in Sunrise Sucks, he was already not in  good standing with other producers after repeated conflicts while shooting Stab 2. However, he  wasn’t removed until after one scandalous evening, where John Milton shared a $25,000 hotel room with  Hollywood agent Beverly Choi. Choi represents the acclaimed music video director Roman Bridger,  who happens to be Maureen Prescott’s bastard son. Just two days after Choi and Milton slept  together, Rifkin was fired from Stab

3 and Roman was brought on to replace him as part  of a two movie deal with Sunrise Studios. Strangely, in this interview with Gale  Weathers, Roman claims that he cannot reveal anything about Stab 3, including basic  information about who’s starring in it, due to a sworn secrecy with Milton, who he  refers to as “Master Milton.” Apparently, this confidentiality is so secretive that he can’t  even communicate with Jerry Rapp, the director of Stab 2, about it. This extreme dedication to  secrecy

extended to Will Kennison’s script. – The producers told us that there were  three different versions of the script, something about trying to keep  the ending off the internet. – Another challenge arose when longtime Director  of Photography Hawken Jones passed away not long before shooting, and  was replaced by Peter Deming, who shot Evil Dead 2 and Austin  Powers: International Man of Mystery. The only other notable crew brought on  was Dewey Riley himself, who was hired as a technical adviso

r due to his experience  in surviving both Woodsboro and Windsor. Jennifer Jolie credited Dewey with helping  her understand the real Gale Weathers, but it’s likely that Dewey only took the position  as a crutch after his break up with the real Gale. If he couldn’t have the woman he wanted, being  around her best imitator was the next best thing. In addition to all that, John Milton allegedly still owed Gale  money for the right to adapt her books. Despite all the tension and drama  during the p

re-production stages, Stab 3’s production would make those  problems look like a walk in the park, as things were about to get  a whole lot more serious. (impact) (dark music) Distribution and production meetings  for Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro were held near the end of June, with principal  photography most likely beginning in July, with plans to continue shooting  through August and into September, wrapping with second unit shoots  in the latter half of the month. Though we don’t know much ab

out  the story, due to its fictional nature and the fact that it was never  completed, we can pick up little details. August 2 and August 3 are shot in a  location called “Dorm Bathroom” and the first kill of the movie involves the  Candy getting killed while in the shower. Other shoot locations include Sid’s  Dorm Room, the Library , a Coffee House, and Sid’s party. This would suggest that Sidney  is still in college in this movie. The others are fairly generic locations: houses, a  hospital, a

nd somewhere called Grant Hill. Obviously the subtitle of the  film is “Return to Woodsboro”, so a big part of it must be the main location:  Woodsboro. We see huge sets being constructed, including Sidney’s house, Stu  Macher’s house, the TV news van, Sidney’s childhood room, and even Stu’s  garage, which judging by the open fridge and prop blood on the pet flap, looks  to be a part of a series of flashbacks. Based on this, I’m going to infer that Stab  3: Return to Woodsboro was about a new pa

ir of Ghostface killers who start attacking more people  at Sidney’s college, prompting administrators to cancel classes and send students home --  essentially the college version of what happened in Stab 1 and Scream 1. Returning home causes  Sidney to have a flashback to her mother’s murder. – [Tom] Scene 34. Maureen’s murder flashback. – [Zac] Once she’s back in Woodsboro, the killers  try to recreate each of the scenes from the original Stab, with the new addition of  Ricky, who gets a huge

pair of scissors through the head. But this time, the  killers hope to avenge Billy and Stu by defeating Sidney at the end of the movie.  As Sidney revisits the locations of her past, she’s also forced to relive flashbacks to  the horrors that she experienced around town. – [Tom] Scene 40 though 47. The  Prescott house flashback. – [Zac] But of course she’s not alone, she has new  and old friends that are looking out for her. – [Tom] Scene 50. Dewey saves the day. – This is all kind of ironic th

ough, because  Roman is the director of Return to Woodsboro and in real life, he is also recreating many  of the kills, using the cast of his movie as his victims. He’s also probably recruited  Angelina Tyler, aka: the new Sidney actress, to assist him as the second killer. If you want to  know more about that, watch my Scream 3 Things You Missed, where I talk about the fan theory that  Angelina is the second killer in that movie. Shooting has begun, and it’s late July  or early August, based on

the fact that Candy is preparing to shoot her death scene,  which is going to roll on August 2 and 3, when Roman takes his first victim:  Cotton Weary. When the news breaks, the producers and studio executives get  together to discuss possibly pulling the plug on the movie, but of course, since  there’s money to be made, they don’t. – Detectives! There’s no reason to presume  that Cotton’s death had anything to do with this movie, is there? – He was making a movie called Stab. He was stabbed. –

Candy is the next target. Roman calls  her into an after hours meeting in the production office and one of the  killers corners her in the prop room. The entire staff is interrogated by  police, and the movie is shut down. But that doesn’t stop the body count from  rising. First, Jennifer Jolie’s bodyguard Steven Stone gets the knife. The rest of the cast  receives faxes with new script pages. So Roman is essentially rewriting his movie in real time, and  the next scene involves Tom Prinze acci

dentally using a lighter in Jennifer’s gas-filled  house, causing it to explode with him inside. Roman also tracks down Sidney, who is living  a secret life of seclusion up to that point, so she travels to LA to be with Dewey and Gale  so that she doesn’t feel alone. Roman almost seems to be recreating the events of the Stab  3: Return to Woodsboro script, only instead of Sidney returning to the real Woodsboro, she’s  returning to the Woodsboro set in Hollywood. The gang also receives a tape fro

m Randy Meeks,  who explains that they are once again dealing with a new set of rules; this time they are  in the midst of a trilogy final chapter. While exploring the movie set  version of her old neighborhood, Sidney is nearly killed by the Ghostface duo, so  she’s taken to the police station for protection. While this is going on, Gale, Jennifer  and Dewey show up in John Milton’s office to confront him about their discovery that  Maureen Prescott was in his movies in the 70s. Afterwards, the

y receive a call from a voice  who they believe to be Sidney telling them she’ll be going to Roman’s birthday party  at John Milton’s mansion, so they decide to meet her there. Unfortunately for them,  it’s a trap. They discover a voice changer, cell phone, and Ghostface costume in a  closet, and Gale comes across Roman’s body, and incorrectly believes that he’s dead,  making it easier for him to take out his partner Angelina, and then Tyson and  Jennifer without drawing suspicion. Using Dewey a

nd Gale as hostages, he calls Sidney  over to the party, for real this time. He reveals himself in the secret screening room, and explains  his entire motive, his desire to get revenge on the family that shunned him away. He brings  out the hostage that he’s planning to frame: John Milton, who Roman sees as the source  of his issues, because he allowed Maureen to be taken advantage of by Hollywood predators,  causing him to be born in shame, and abandoned. Sidney catches him off guard, and with

Dewey’s  help, she’s able to eventually finish him off. Sidney returns home with her friends,  no longer having to worry about her past coming forward to haunt her, and  Dewey proposes to Gale -- she accepts. If all of that sounds like the plot of a  movie, Sunrise Studios agrees with you, because in place of Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro,  they decided to go forward with a new movie: Stab 3: Hollywood Horror, based on the failed  production of Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro. As usual, first came the

book, Hollywood Horror  by Gale Weathers. We don’t know exactly when the movie came out, but there’s a good chance they  waited a little while. For one, they needed to wait for Gale’s book to come out and reveal the  ending. They also needed to find a new producer and an entirely new cast, unless of course Tori  Spelling was willing to come back now that it was based on a true story again. Perhaps she would do  the movie in honor of her good friend John Milton? It also makes sense that they’d t

ake  a break before doing the next movie. Not that they’ve ever cared about capitalizing  too soon on a tragedy, but they’d probably want to take a step back and up their  security before beginning another project. Regardless of when it came out, it seems like  there is a significant time gap in the narrative. – How long have you and Dewey been married? – Ten years. – Aww, just like your characters in Stab 3. Wow! – I’m not sure if they were married at the end  of Stab 2, or if this is just some

thing that happened in between movies, but it seems  to suggest that Stab 3: Hollywood Horror is set in 2007 or later. However, it must have  come out before that and been set in the near future -- assuming they aren’t releasing  more than one Stab per year, that is. We can assume that it did pretty well  at the box office, because the franchise would soon be brought back with another  attempt at a fictional revival. However, the real Sidney Prescott did  not like her story being used, and it’s

easy to see why considering all  the trouble the movies have caused her. – [Jenny] But then she threatened to  sue them if they used her story, so then they just started making stuff up. – [Zac] So the Sidney character that they had  created continued to be in the movies, but they were no longer related to any  events relating to her real life. Gale Weathers also wanted to continue cashing in on the Ghostface IP with a fictional  installment, so she wrote this book, Ghostface Returns, though it

’s not clear if  this was before or after the release of Stab 4. I’d assume one of the post-trilogy films  was probably based off of this book though. Next up was Stab 5: Clock of Doom, which  introduced time travel into the fray, which did not go over well with fans. – [Richie] This franchise goes off  the rails with number five. – [Jenny] Stab 5 has time travel,  which is by far the worst. – Still, the movie did well enough to justify a  sixth film. Stab 6 brings the franchise into the era of

social media by introducing a duo of  Facebook killers. Not much is known about the actual movie, Stab 6, that exists in the Scream  universe. Remember, I’m going off the assumption that the Stab movies contain a fictional franchise  of movies-within-the-movie, also called Stab. Going off the logic established in Scream 2,  where the actors in Stab are different people than the actors in Scream 1, we can assume that  the footage on your screen right now is not an actual clip of Stab 6, but rath

er, the movie  within the movie in Stab 7. But like Stab 1, it’s probably very close to the real thing with  only a few minor differences, so let’s explore the opening of Stab 6, which contains one detail  that tells us more than you might have realized. (impact) (phone ringing) – [Sherry] Hello? – [caller] Hello. – [Sherry] Uhh yes? – [caller] Who is this? – Stab 6 opens up with an homage to the  original Stab, a teenage girl answering a phone call from a mysterious caller.  Our characters are

Sherry and Trudy, and like Casey from that original movie, they  are getting ready to watch a horror movie. Sherry picks Saw IV, and although Trudy isn’t  a fan, this helps us place the movie in the Stab timeline, because Saw IV was released on  DVD and Blu-ray in January 2008, meaning that this movie takes place some time after that.  We already established that Stab 4 takes place, at the very earliest, in 2007, and Stab 5 has  time travel, making it impossible to place, so ‘08 seems reasonable

here, especially  given that it involves a Facebook killer, Trudy is using a Sidekick phone and  Sherry still has standard definition TV. The two discuss Trudy’s Facebook  stalker when the phone rings with a threatening voice on the other line. – YOU HANG UP ON ME AND I’LL CUT  THROUGH YOUR NECK UNTIL I FEEL BONE! – [Zac] Trudy suddenly becomes worried, and checks  to make sure the doors are locked when the doorbell rings and a message comes in  daring them to open it. Sherry does so, to reveal

seemingly no one, but another text  gives them a better idea of the killer’s location. – It says, ‘I’m not outside. I’m right beside you.’ (screams) – [Zac] And when Sherry tries to run,  she’s cut off by the second killer, who makes good on the promise about her neck. And that is basically, all I can tell you about  Stab 6, if indeed that actually happens in Stab 6, because the clips you just saw are  from Stab 7. So let’s move onto Stab 7. For the first time in a while, I can definitively  te

ll you a little bit about the cast. Stab 6 Sherry was played by Lucy Hale. We can’t say for  sure what she might have been known for at the time, because we don’t know exactly when Stab 7,  or any of the other post-trilogy Stabs came out. My best guess is that it came out in 2008, because  in Scream 4, Charlie says that Stab-a-thon is a marathon of all 7 Stab movies and that this  is their 3rd annual Stab-a-thon. However, I’m not gonna nail that down, because it’s entirely  possible that in prev

ious years, Stab-a-thon was only a 6 movie marathon. So it’s impossible  to say when movies 4-7 came out for sure. We can’t even really use that Saw 4  reference in Stab 6 to help nail down a date, because the later Stab films  all take place in the near future, so the existence of a fourth Saw movie  could have very well just been a prediction. Anyway, Lucy Hale is joined by Shenae Grimes as  her friend, Trudie. The actual Stab 7 characters are Chloe and Rachel. Chloe is played by Kristen  Bell

, and Rachel is played by Anna Paquin, who was a child star who started acting at four  years old and played Rogue in the 2000 X-men. After watching the intro of Stab 6, Rachel  turns off the movie, and complains that the whole self-aware post-modern meta horror  has been done to death. Chloe argues that she likes the realism of the Stab… which is  ironic considering Stab 5 had time travel, but Rachel counters by ragging on the formulaic  nature of a franchise with too many sequels. – [Rachel] T

here’s no element of  surprise, you can see everything coming. (scream) – [Zac] Chloe tells her to shut up and watch the  movie, and with one more stab, she turns the movie back on and continues watching. It  seems that Stab 7 shares the goals of Scream 4 in that it’s all about doing the unexpected. Not  only is the timing of Chloe’s attack surprising, but the intro also leaves us with a surviving  killer who we know the identity of for the first time. In this sense, Stab 7 directly addresses th

e  fans’ criticism about the movies’ predictability. Unfortunately for Stab fans, the series seems  to have a hiatus after this, another example of it running parallel to the Scream franchise.  At some point, Sunrise released a Stab box set, which included a documentary about the true story  behind the Stab trilogy. The box set contains Stabs 1-7 on Blu-ray. The films would also make  their way onto the streaming website Netflix. After over a decade of waiting, fans would  be subjected to a new

self-titled movie: Stab (2021). It seems the new iteration was  directed or produced by Rian Johnson, who had made quite a name for himself over the previous  decade with Looper, The Last Jedi and Knives Out. To promote the movie, Johnson  did an interview on Dead Meat. The film clocked in at a whopping 2 hours  and 32 minutes and was given an R rating. Stab (2021) appears to be another fictional  endeavor, despite the fact that the real Sidney did survive a a new set of killers in  2010 in Wood

sboro, where she was attacked by her cousin and her boyfriend. It’s likely  that Sunrise Studios did not try to use this story because of Sidney’s threats of a  lawsuit if they used her real story. In fact, this would be the first Stab film not to  feature a Sidney Prescott character at all. – [caller] Sidney’s in every movie but the last one. – But even though this eighth  installment would mostly be fictional, there are little connections to  the second Woodsboro murders, like the inclusion of

a character  to represent Deputy Judy Hicks. – Jesus, my mom was a character in one of them… – …and the title, simply being: Stab, which  suggests this movie is probably a requel. The killers in the second Woodsboro murders  (aka: Scream 4) were out to create a requel. Only one casting choice is known. Matthew Lillard was the voice of the new  villain: Flamethrower Ghostface. Despite the copious amounts of hype for this  movie, fans seemed to really dislike it. – [man computer] And don’t even g

et me started on  Ghostface’s signature new weapon. – [Ghostface] That sh*t is lit. – [woman on computer] And can we talk about the title, Stab? What, just like the original? Just call it Stab 8. It’s f*cking Stab 8, you’re not fooling anyone. – [Zac] Between Ghostface’s new silver face, the  replacement of his robe with a sleeveless hoodie, the use of a flamethrower, which is a weapon  that does not even Stab it’s victims, the fact that the killer is so clearly male, eliminating  probably 50% o

f the suspects and thus making the movie far more predictable, the lack of legacy  characters and franchise connections, and the departure from numeric naming conventions, people  were already calling for the studio to redo it, using the hashtags #RedoStab8 and  #RedoStab2021 to drum up a movement. – You go on 4chan and Dreadit, all they’re talking  about is how Stab 8 pissed on their childhoods. How they crammed in social commentary just to make  it elevated. How the main character’s a Mary Sue

. – What’s a Mary Sue? – You really don’t want to know. – The film was so bad, it even  drove a crazed superfan to engage in a new set of Woodsboro murders. – Anyway, it sucked balls. Because nobody  takes the true fans seriously. Not really. – However, after defeating Ghostface number 9  and 10, Sidney and Gale decide not to ever speak publicly about the incident  so that the evil doers would die in anonymity. Does this spell the end for the  Stab franchise? It will certainly be harder for the

movies to remain relevant  without a real life connection, and without Gale to even write any fictional  stories upon which to base the movies. But if Stab and the movie industry has taught  us anything, it’s that as long as there’s a dime to be made off of the Stab IP, you can  probably expect more garbage to be shoveled out. At least we know Rian Johnson is getting work. (impact) I want to give a thanks to Joey Noberini II. He archived all of those old Scream websites that are no longer online

, so this video would not have been fully possible if not for his contribution. If you want to learn more about the history of the  Scream franchise, head on over to that playlist on the left, where I’ll be analyzing many characters  in the Scream canon. If you love horror, make sure you subscribe to CZsWorld for new  horrors every week, ring the deathbell and select all notifications and I’ll see you  in the next one. Assuming, we both survive. (spooky dance music)