Is Stu Macher alive or dead? [Spoilers]

Somehow, Stu Macher returned. This isn’t a spoiler — it’s arguably the biggest selling point for Scream 7, which brings back much of the original slasher-comedy’s cast, including Neve Campbell as Sydney Prescott, Courteney Cox as Gale Summers, and most confusingly, Matthew Lillard as Stu.

Stu’s return in Scream 7 makes about as much sense as Emperor Palpatine’s return in Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker. In both cases, a flailing franchise promises to resurrect a fan-favorite villain who famously died on-screen in a movie several decades earlier. And in both cases, the marketing played up that return, while the movie itself failed to do anything interesting with the opportunity.

But the comparisons don’t end there. The most recent three Scream movies, beginning with the 2022 requel, Scream, and followed by Scream VI and Scream 7 (this naming scheme is as evil as the Sith), have some surprising parallels to the last three Star Wars movies (aka, the sequel trilogy). In both cases, what began as an earnest attempt to reboot a beloved franchise ultimately devolved into nostalgia slop, leading to the (apparent) resurrection of an iconic movie villain who probably should have stayed dead and buried.

Tracing those similarities may help reveal why Scream went wrong — and where the franchise could be headed next. But first, we need to answer one pivotal question… Is Stu Macher actually back from the dead?

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for the ending of Scream 7.]

So… is Stu Macher alive or dead in Scream 7?

Unlike Palpatine, Stu has not actually returned.

In Scream 7, Lillard’s serial killer terrorizes his old high-school classmate Sydney through a series of video calls. At first, everyone assumes it’s some sort of AI DeepFake, but when Sydney and Gale visit a nearby psychiatric hospital, they’re told that a man who looks exactly like Stu, and has amnesia from a nasty head injury, had been living there for decades — until he was released a few days earlier.

Except this turns out to be a misdirect. The hospital guard who fed them that lie is actually the killer (well, one of them) and he’s also an AI expert capable of creating incredibly accurate DeepFakes, because sure, why not. Scream 7’s final Ghostface reveal is much less interesting than the version of this story where Stu really is alive. On the plus side, this version lets writer-director Kevin Williamson bring Lillard back without undermining the original Scream, which he also wrote.

Considering the wild hoops Star Wars had to jump through to explain Palpatine’s return, it seems like Williamson made the right choice. But then again, the actual right choice was probably not to bring Lillard back at all. But did Williamson ever have a chance, or was he doomed to fail from the moment he returned to the troubled franchise?

Scream, Star Wars, and the sequel trilogy curse

Image: Lucasfilm

There’s an interesting parallel between the Scream and Star Wars sequel trilogies. Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens essentially perfected the legacy sequel in 2015, bringing back franchise stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford, while also introducing a new generation of heroes and villains who could carry the story forward. Scream pulled off a similar feat in 2022, introducing a new “core four” (Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Mason Gooding, and Jasmin Savoy Brown) while also bringing back series stalwarts Campbell, Cox, and David Arquette. The movie even features a Force ghost (sort of) and kills off Arquette’s Dewey Riley in an echo of Han Solo’s death in The Force Awakens.

A year later, Scream VI carried the franchise forward while making some ambitious changes. The setting moved from Woodsboro, California to New York City. Ghostface wielded a shotgun. And Sydney decided to sit this one out (due to Neve Campbell’s salary dispute, but still). Unlike The Last Jedi, which took even bigger swings with its franchise, Scream VI didn’t spark any controversies. It wasn’t the best Scream movie ever, but it was still a fun time, with some of the franchise’s signature meta-horror commentary.

Photo: Philippe Bossé/Paramount Pictures

Instead, the controversy came later that year when the studio fired Barrera from Scream 7 for her comments about the genocide in Gaza. Soon afterward, Ortega left the project, allegedly for unrelated scheduling reasons. Christopher Landon, who had been brought on to direct Scream 7, also quit in the wake of Barrera’s firing.

Facing controversies and angry fans, Star Wars and Scream both needed a silver-bullet solution. And in both cases, that involved bringing back a trusted director and an iconic villain.

We all know how this went for Star Wars. The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams returned to close out the trilogy and brought Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) along with him. The movie was a relative financial success, but a critical flop. Even worse, it managed to unite a divided fandom against it. Pretty much everyone agreed The Rise of Skywalker was a terrible movie, regardless of whether they felt the previous entry, The Last Jedi, was a brilliant franchise subversion or woke garbage.

Photo: John Wilson/Lucasfilm

The fallout was brutal. Lucasfilm and Disney were so traumatized by the response to Rise of Skywalker that it’s taken them seven years to release a new Star Wars movie. That movie, The Mandalorian & Grogu, arrives at a time when the franchise feels less relevant than ever. It has the potential to either rescue Star Wars, or confirm its demise as a cultural touchstone.

Scream was never as big as Star Wars, but the horror-comedy franchise is potentially heading down the same dark path. Critics are already lambasting Scream 7 as messy nostalgia bait. If the fans follow suit, the series will be in serious trouble. Williamson recently said he’s already working on ideas for Scream 8, but if history is any guide, it may be a very long wait before Ghostface rears his head again.

Scream 7 is in theaters now.