'Scream 8' Should Take a Page from 'New Nightmare'

Scream 7 looks like a low point for the franchise. Despite setting the record for Scream's biggest opening weekend, with a "B" CinemaScore and a 33% Rotten Tomatoes score, the latest entry leans heavily on nostalgia and fan service, bringing Neve Campbell back as Sidney Prescott and reusing past actors’ characters.

In doing so, the series risks becoming the same tired horror franchise the original film once satirized. Wes Craven's New Nightmare offers a useful model. It isn’t a direct sequel to the earlier Nightmare films; instead it takes place in the "real" world, following Heather Langenkamp playing a fictionalized version of herself as a demonic entity assumes Freddy Krueger’s form, with Robert Englund appearing both as the monster and himself.

Though not a box-office hit on release, New Nightmare was praised, grew into a cult favorite, and helped pave the way for the meta self-awareness that defines Scream.

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