Scream 5?

If you're anything like me, you enjoyed a couple of scenes from Scream 4 - the beginning within a beginning within a beginning at the beginning, and the Fight Club-esque beat-the-crap-out-of-herself moment near the end - and felt like the rest was just kind of blah. If you're anything like me, you're both incredibly surprised and incredibly not-surprised to hear that there is a Scream 5 in the works. Immediately after Scream 4 concluded, some friends and I engaged in a discussion regarding what the fifth installation in the Scream saga would look like. And here are a few of the ideas we came up with.

1. Scream 5 with Zombies!

Leaving the theater, I overheard someone suggesting that they thought there would be a lot more cameos from actors who were in the first three Scream movies, actors like Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowen, and so on. If the Scream franchise is concerned with taking on current trends in horror and proving that it can be done better, then they're going to have to get to zombie films eventually, right? What better way to return these actors to the Scream franchise than to resurrect their characters. Sure, they're going to look a couple decades older, but good zombie make-up can transform that age into rot and blood. Alakazam! You've got a fantastic Scream 5.

2. Scream 5 in Time!

There was already a moment in Scream 4 where they made fun of the in-movie Stab series employing time travel. Why not use that as a teaser for what's to come in the Scream series? This is another way that we can interact with characters from the original movies. Maybe we can use the reverse-aging technology of Terminator: Salvation and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to put our favorite Scream actors back in their original setting, and looking as good as new. Or maybe we can use some of that Forrest Gump technology to insert other characters, perhaps simply older characters, into the first three movies. (Heaven forbid it turn into a prequel...)

3. Scream 5 in Space!

When the joke was made about Stab doing time travel, I had thought that perhaps they would have first gone into outer space. After all, the idea of sending your franchise into space has much more of a precedent than time travel. I'm thinking of Jason X and Leprechaun 4: In Space, specifically. It only took four Leprechauns to get to space. Five Screams should just about do it. (Leprechaun 3 was easily as good as Scream 3 and 4 put together. Am I right?) As for my reasoning for bringing Scream to space... Well, I don't really need to have one. That's just where horror franchises go. Maybe they could even title it (Where Nobody Can Hear You) Scream.

4. Scream 5 in the Hood!

You had to get me started on the Leprechaun franchise, didn't you? Leprechaun went to the hood not once, but twice, in 2000s Leprechaun in the Hood and 2003s Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood. For those of you who think that the complaints of a bunch of white people along with the occasional black person (who is only there to make a point about black people in horror movies) in the suburbs are annoying, here is a horror movie in which the ghostface killer (possibly played by Ghostface Killah) is in over his head. That's right, ghostface looks like a chump compared to the people he'll meet in the streets of Compton. Maybe ghostface will actually die in the opening scene, and it will just turn into a Boyz n the Hood sequel. This one clearly has a lot of promise.

5. Scream 5 with Ghosts!

OK. Maybe ghostface isn't played by Ghostface Killah. Maybe ghostface is a ghost. Here's the opening. Ghostface is chasing after a young, attractive woman. She pulls her own gigantic knife out of a drawer and hides in a closet. Ghostface opens the closet and she takes a swing at ghostface, only to find that the knife goes right through him. He kills her, but that's not the punchline. The punchline is that ghostface is a ghost.

6. Scream 5 with Nicholas Cage!

I brought up the idea of the next Scream movie revolving Nicholas Cage (NO COSTUME!) running around with a giant knife and saying ridiculous stuff. Nobody liked my idea. I'm still crossing my fingers. ("A! B! C! D!"... Anybody?)

7. Scream vs. the Wayans Brothers

Somebody brought up that he was surprised that the Scream franchise hasn't confronted the Scary Movie franchise. After all, the Stab franchise within the Scream franchise already does a better job at making fun of the Scream franchise than the Scary Movie franchise ever did. Franchise. Franchise franchise franchise. There - I got it out of my system. Anyways, do you remember classic horror films like Halloween where the killer was obsessed with killing everyone in his own family? Well, in this movie, ghostface would be obsessed with killing the Wayans brothers because he dislikes their films. Of course, Damon Wayans would be the one who survives, mainly because Major Payne was straight-up gold. Or maybe he'd be the one killing his family because they are making a mockery of the Wayans name.

And that's all I've got. For now. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUN!