The Scream franchise has some of the most iconic opening scenes in horror history across its five films. Whenever a phone rings with that familiar ringtone, fans can expect to be asked what their favorite scary movie is, swiftly followed by dramatic chase scenes and gore.
Although not always the case, a great opening scene often makes a great movie, setting the pace for everything that comes after. Opening scenes can be judged by their tension, gore, and iconicity to determine which of the five films did it best.
Scream 4 (2011)
Scream 4 features two star-studded fake intro scenes before getting into the actual story of what's happening in Woodsboro. The first of these is a good spoof of the first Scream film, and the second both references Scream 2 and foreshadow Scream 4's primary killer. The self-referentiality is strong, but the fake scenes take away from the tension of the real ones. By the time Jenny Randall and Marnie Cooper are killed, the audience has been prepped not to believe or care about them.
In addition, the two scenes from the Stab films are poor quality, a commentary on the poor writing and budgets of horror sequels, but being bad on purpose doesn't mean the scene wasn't bad. Audiences see three poorly acted death scenes of characters with no significance to the plot as a whole before anything 'real' happens. With all of that said, this was the weakest of the five Scream opening scenes.
Scream 3 (2000)
Scream 3 is usually ranked lowest on Scream posts, but its opening scenes had some very successful moments. There is strong tension as audiences watch Cotton fear for his girlfriend's life, and it makes a significant impact in the series to kill off a major character in the first few minutes of the film. In addition, the killer using Cotton's voice to taunt Christine was one of the best uses of Ghostface's voice mimicking devices in the film as a whole.
Despite the opening scene's many successes, there is nothing about it that is truly iconic for the horror genre or even just the Scream franchise. The tension was strong, but it doesn't leave audiences haunted as many other intro scenes do. This makes it impossible to rank Scream 3 any higher than fourth place.
Scream 2 (1997)
Scream 2 begins with an iconic set of kills that produced equally iconic scenes in the Scary Movie franchise. The killing of Phil Stevens through the bathroom wall is shudder-inducing and creates the perfect amount of tension when 'Phil' returns from the bathroom and sits beside Maureen.
The opening scene only gets better from there, with theater audiences laughing and playing with fake knives as a woman is repeatedly stabbed beside and in front of them. Once they realize what is happening, they are filled with dread, prompting the question of what makes real murder affect people so viscerally when they get joy and entertainment out of horror movies and true crime.
Scream (2022)
Scream (2022) featured the best intro scene since the original, filled with great allusions to the earlier films in the franchise, strong tension as audiences fear for both Tara and Amber, and sickening injuries. The knife going through Tara's hand and the crack of her broken leg cause viewers to physically shudder, despite not being killing wounds. Tara, as one of the bravest characters in the film, puts up the fight of a lifetime and makes history as the only Scream opening star to survive the movie.
While fans may argue that this opener was not as iconic as Scream 2, it does a fantastic job playing off of the iconicity of what came before as a true requel should. Having the killer's questions be based on the original kills and the Stab films, rather than other popular horror films, shows that it knows how important Scream is to so many people and it honors that importance.
Scream (1996)
There's no way for a sequel to win out over the original when it comes to opening scenes. Scream's opening is one of the most horrific scenes in the entire franchise, especially when it comes to the displaying of Steve and Casey's bodies, and it completely changed the game of the horror industry. The marketing and conventions of the time said Drew Barrymore's Casey would be the star, not the film's second kill.
The discussions of horror trivia and conventions were not commonly done in horror movies but are now a frequent part of the genre. The fight scene was terrifying for viewers to watch, hoping against hope that Casey would win out. The way Casey's parents symbolize hope arriving and then being snatched away physically hurts, as does Casey's mother listening to her daughter's dying breaths and finding her body. The eleven-minute sequence was perfectly crafted down to the second to ensure it never left fans' minds again after they see it once.
