Defending Implausibilities for Fun

I thought it’d be fun to discuss some of the common complaints about implausible situations in the Scream franchise and share my thoughts. Some make sense, and others? Not so much. But I’d love to hear what you think.

Let’s also keep in mind that Scream operates in a heightened universe where things are amplified to support the themes of self-awareness, pop culture, and desensitization. Sometimes it’s about what works for the story, even if it stretches plausibility a bit.

Scream 1

The supermarket Ghostface scene: Okay, this one has always mildly annoyed me. Ghostface lurking around in broad daylight in a supermarket? The entire town is on lockdown, pranksters are being expelled from school, and this is before the Stab phenomenon made the costume iconic. Are we really supposed to believe Ghostface could pull this off without raising red flags? It feels like a choice made purely to remind the audience that Ghostface is always watching, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. That said, it’s easy to let it slide because the rest of the movie is so good.

Gale’s camera in the finale: I have questions. How did Gale’s hidden camera feed a live stream to the news van without cords in 1996? How did the battery not die? And how is this working when WiFi wasn’t even a thing yet? Who cares—it works for the plot, so we’ll roll with it.

Scream 2

The bathroom stall kill: A lot of people complain about how Ghostface could stab Phil through the stall wall. I get it—at face value, it seems a bit much. But if you think about it, Ghostface likely peeked over the stall to gauge his position before going for the stab. Plus, it’s a creative kill that works in the heightened logic of Scream.

The car crash sequence: Two common complaints here: First, why didn’t the detective shoot Ghostface while he was on the hood of the car? He’s screaming at Sidney and Hallie to get down while trying to control a moving vehicle. Shooting would’ve been incredibly risky, and missing could’ve hit the girls directly behind Ghostface. Second, people question why the girls didn’t grab the gun after the crash. Simple—they didn’t see it. Just because the audience knows where the gun is doesn’t mean the characters do. The point of showing the gun was so we know how Mickey got it later.

Scream 3 There are many but I’ll focus on the big one -

The voice changer: The infamous voice changer that mimics real voices perfectly is a big stretch, no doubt. But in the Scream universe, it fits right in. Even the first film asks us to accept a voice changer that’s far more advanced than anything that existed at the time. Just like how they treat cloning cell phones as easy as making a mixtape. We all love cloning phones in the weekend, right? The series has always played fast and loose with tech plausibility, and that’s part of its heightened reality. If we can believe teenage boys orchestrated a highly complex horror movie-inspired killing spree, I can get on board with advanced technology.

Scream 4

The empty hospital: People love to complain about the lack of doctors or nurses in the finale responding to the gunshots, but this one feels like a reach. Healthcare providers aren’t trained to run toward gunshots. The entire sequence happens in just a few minutes, and the police clearly respond quickly (Dewey and Judy show up). As for the hospital being dim and empty, that’s not unrealistic. Hospitals often have underutilized wings, especially in a smaller town like Woodsboro. We see in Scream 5 that Tara is placed on a private floor, further suggesting the hospital is bigger than necessary for the community. I worked in hospitals for years and I just don't see anything overly unrealistic.

Scream 5

No police response to Judy’s call: This one’s harder to defend, but let’s try. Judy alerts for backup early on in a very long sequence, but significant time passes before anyone shows up, even though she’s killed on her front lawn followed by a long squencenfollowing Wes’s kill scene. One possible explanation? Most of the police were assigned to protect Tara at the hospital, which we know is across town. This is confirmed when Sam and Dewey struggle to get there quickly themselves. It’s not perfect, but it’s plausible enough in context.

Scream 6

Chad surviving multiple stab wounds: This doesn’t bother me at all. Stab wounds are unpredictable and can only damage what they penetrate, and there are countless real-life cases of people surviving dozens (even over 100!) stabs. In Chad’s case, we see quick strikes that don’t appear to hit vital organs or major arteries. The wounds we do see are all on his shoulder and one in the right side of the chest which would be his lung if it went deep enough - and later he's on oxygen almost as if that particular would was being addressed. It’s not unrealistic to believe he made it out alive (and it’s not miraculous, it’s easy to accept), especially in a franchise where characters often survive severe injuries but die from seemingly simple ones (Dewey stabbed 9 times in the back whereas Christine, Sarah Darling, Deputy Hoss, and others die INSTANTANEOUSLY from one back stab, Hoss's in particular was clearly in his upper shoulder on the back side and he immediately falls dead 😂. If we hold every kill under a microscope we will find a hell of a lot more inconsistencies than Chad surviving his attack. Its time everyone lets this one go.

What complaints would you defend?

These are just some of the common ones I’ve seen, but I’d love to hear your thoughts. Are there any implausibilities in the franchise that you think deserve a little more credit, or ones that drive you crazy no matter how much suspension of disbelief you allow?