A Horror Movie Pop Culture Podcast Episode With A Plus One, It's Gonna Be A Scream!!!

The first guest of the year for this latest entry in a classic scary movie franchise.  Scream is an iconic horror generation spanning decades with 5 fairly strong entries.  Some may be better than others, but this latest iteration from 2022 is the strongest since the first one, but let's not forget that Scream 2 is pretty quality as well.  This is also my first guest for season 3 of Nick Nack Goes To The Movies,  and boy do we go on all manner of tangents, horror and otherwise.  While we get around to Scream, the movies and TV shows, we also take on Hostel, to my dismay, Psycho,  Halloween, and so many more things.  And like I promised last episode, this is another does of therapy, grief, and trauma exploration/healing, now with a women's touch to boot.  So come listen to the latest fun entry in Scream as we all look ahead to the sixth entry to creep up on us soon enough!  What did you think of the latest pop-culture horror-laden flick to grace the big screen.  Let me know at NickNackMovies or NickNack_IC on every social platform including YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter, and of course Letterboxd.

Transcript

Nick Nack Goes to the Movies Pod S3E4

-Intro/Jingle

-Well loyal listeners, it only took 4 episodes to have our first guest for season 3 of Nick Nack Goes To The Movies, and it’s for a super special occasion and movie.  You have heard me mention the Scream franchise a ton of times overall these seasons of this movie podcast.  These scary pop-culture movies got me into the horror genre itself, first it was The Walking Dead and now look at me, I can’t get enough of it, Halloween, Friday the 13th, and everything else in-between.  But Scream has a special place in my heart, and while I have yet to take on the previous 4 movies or the 3 tv show seasons, I am excited to take on this latest meta movie, and I’m not alone, joining me is someone who was in the entertainment world with me way back in 2013 at Conan, so welcome to the show Megan Klembith.

-So before we get into this episode, the standard operating procedure with guests, we have some fun icebreakers so you listeners can get a feel as to what you watch and such, so first one…

-What was the last movie you remember seeing in theaters?

Megan answer

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-Besides doing your research for this episode and catchup work, what else are you watching these days?

Megan answer

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-Last fun icebreaker, if there is one movie or show you would recommend someone watch, unrelated to this week’s episode, what would it be?

Megan answer

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-So, to the episode’s meat and potatoes.  It’s funny in comparison, this doesn’t at times, this franchise, or at least the movies don’t feel so spooky. I have to say, the TV show got pretty intense.  I know we are here to talk about the 2022 movie, we will just call it Scream 5 for ease of understanding and distinction from the 1996 original film.  So I have to ask, Megan, have you seen any of the shows, either the 2 season vh1 one or the 1 season mtv one?

Megan answer

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-So to the current movie at hand, Scream 2022 brands itself as a requel, which is a term I have been using ever since, and it is for sure what they attempted to do with a reboot sequel for The Matrix: Resurrections.  And while that movie was not it for me, you can check that episode out as well, I think one of the big issues with that movie was the lack of bringing back staple actors of the franchise.  Not an issue here, and arguably one of the best things about Scream 5, it would not be a Scream movie without David Arquette, Neve Campbell, and Courtney Cox, the true big 3.  Megan, I have to ask, are you a Friends person?  I know Courtney Cox was in it, but I can’t say I have gone after that or really any sitcom?  I really don’t know these actors outside of this franchise, except Neve Campbell was in The Craft, a super 90’s witch movie, and apparently 1 episode of Mad Men back in 2014?

Megan answer

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-So the last time I had a guest on this show was for a truly terrifying franchise, the conjuring. But today we get something a little less scary but I would say a tremendously greater amount of fun.  If you don’t know, the general gist of these movies is people who watch scary movies unknowingly end up in one and try to use their knowledge of the genre to help them make it through, some to multiple sequels.  This is the 5th of these movies and some of the big name actors to come through here are Sarah Michelle Gellar, Henry Winkler, the late Carrie Fisher, AHS main stay Emma Robers, Scooby Doo’s own Matthew Lillard, Hayden Panitierre, Live Schrieber, Allison Brie, Anthony Anderson, and Drew Barrymore (one of the reasons this franchise is so well know killing off such a known actress so early on, really mixed things up and asked us what we were in for), the list is endless.  So the formula may be a bit similar through these, but somehow it never really feels stale, it plays with its own formula and obviously the constant pop culture references to horror and other genres are to die for.  So Megan, which of these 5 movies is your favorite and why?

Megan answer

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So to follow up, when we were talking you were pretty excited for the latest of these movies to come out, what got you into the scream franchise?

Megan answer

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-And if you like this franchise, you can get even more Scream goodness with the three seasons of the show all available on Netflix, and in the proper order to stream, it was 3-2-1 for a bit, which was super annoying, but I messaged them a few times so I feel like I have to take some credit for fixing this, what can I say except you’re welcome?  It is not related to the main movies, in fact, the first two seasons aren’t even related to the third season at all, season 1-2 have a whole new mask, but season 3 has Keke Palmer and the original mask, which is fun.

-So obviously this franchise has some great Easter eggs and references to itself, some I did not recognize on first re-watch, but slasher/whodunnit movies are always better the second time through when you know who the killer is anyway.  But from having Dewey’s sister’s ashes in his home in scream 5, Sidney being married to the cop from the third one after being absent in the 4th one, that iconic song Red Right hand was back, I mean I was laughing seeing Judy Hicks’ Lemon Squares in her fridge.  What was your favorite nod to the originals or just horror movies as a whole in this latest entry?

Megan answer

-I mean the movie making a shower Psycho gender swap moment was fun, but I had to say, hearing that Paniterre survived with multiple blink and you missed it moments was a super fun touch that makes you think she could come back now that Scream 6 has been announced and is happening, so things to look forward to, especially with Neve Campbell interested in returning.  People are always talking about how Matthew Lillard’s Stu Macher survived the first movie getting a TV smashed on his head.  I mean he did appear as an extra in Scream 2 and the initial premise was to have Scream 3 be a cult following movie with him at the head, like that The following show with Kevin Bacon.  Fun fact, he was the chrome faced ghostface in the fictional Stab 8 movie, even those made a comeback, the overall lore and connected movie within a movie stuff was fun for me, what do you think of all this lore and are you excited for a 6th one?

Megan answer

-So, spoilers ahead, now that we have seen this movie in its entirety, who did you think was the killer(s) and how shocked were you with the reveal, of who they were?

Megan answer

-Yeah I knew Jack Quaid had to be one, he was the most known of the new actors and I feel like you just knew he was, it is always the boyfriend outside of the second, and third ones, the fourth one is iffy to count it.  But they tried tremendously hard to make you think it was not him, and they did a really good job making he seem like it could surely not be him.  Not all the friends were always memorable, red haired girl just did not stand out to me.  But I had no clue who the second killer was, I wondered if they were gonna do a solo one, I guess you always think that a bit, when he got tagged in the hospital, I kind of thought, maybe he is okay, but that is classic scream.

-So what did you think of them kind of taking ages to get to the big three characters and building our new group, no Sidney, Dewey and Gale for a while?

Megan answer

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-Now I of course enjoyed the ancestral things of having relations to Deputy Hicks, Randy Meeks, Stu Macher, and of course, not Sidney’s kids, but the interesting relation to having Skeet Ulrich reprise his role as the super dead Billy Loomis as a vision for our new protagonist Sam hilariously horror referenced last name (Carpenter), played by Melissa Barrera, who you may recognize from In The Heights.  Did you see that Musical Megan? 

Megan answer

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-So I was a little nervous with the whole vision ghost thing, one of the weirdest parts of the third one.  But thankfully I feel like they do well with these visions of and having Sam “embrace her parentage of a serial killer”, but in a good way, did you buy that?

Megan answer

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So thankfully we have Dewey, Gale, and even Deputy Hicks all meet up with one another for a bit, it is sad to see Gale and Dewey not married at this point, one of my favorite parts of the fourth film having them actually start married out, he goes to work and she is in his bed, but something went wrong and they are once again separated living their own lives.  I do like the new group pow-wow session, especially because it leads to the reintroduction of Heather Matarazzo’s character Martha Meeks, sister to original movie nerd Randy Meeks played by Jamie Kennedy.  But fun fact Megan, I could not place where I knew her from, and it is the Princess Diaries movies, so how about that?

Megan answer

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I gotta say, the idea of playing with nobody enjoys the sequels and immediately killing of Deputy Hicks and her son, and in like super fun ways, I was all about it, this movie for sure had some clever moments that just made me smile.  But one moment that kind of shocked me, I know it had to happen, but finally killing Dewey, something I never saw coming, he escaped so many death moments, you figured he was invincible like Gale and Sidney in this franchise, but they even say it at the end, they had to kill one of the originals to add stakes.  I mean, they always come back so you have to shoot them in the head, but what did you think when Dewey got like super dead, no way of coming back?

Megan answer

-I do think of this kind of like when they killed Joel Kinnaman in the soft reboot The Suicide Squad movie, was shocked.  Kind of think this is what happened with Judy Green in the latest Halloween, no world she is back in that franchise

I think the saddest part of this had to be when Sidney talked to Dewey but never got around to seeing him, Gale at least saw him before that, but she always saw him in the end on a stretcher alive, but not this time, in a body bag, no matter what people say, Scream has been a love story, among other things like exploring trauma and overcoming it, like a free therapy session, something I always say on this podcast.  Do you get that vibe from this or other scary things?

Megan answer

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-So the end had a ton of old movie references, the basement being a scary place to go alone, one of the Meek’s children almost dying in the same way Randy almost died in the first movie as it happens in the fake in-universe franchise Stab, the chasing down of a guy just like Drew Barrymore’s death in the first one, it goes on and on, and I love all the references.  Besides of course the big reveal of the whole thing being at Stu’s old house, what was your favorite part of the whole setup at the end?

Megan answer

-I have to say some of the end fight moments between Gale and Sydney shooting at places they hid in the first movie, that was a pretty fun moment, I don’t know how much I loved just how many people survived, the ensemble cast is huge for Scream 6, thankfully Sidney and Gale are still alive, even if Dewey did not make it.  Even the rationale of making a movie to spite the studios that don’t care about the franchise is a neat enough motivation, it all makes sense with all the franchise reboot backlash that has been going around in the real world.  Even the frame job of blaming the girl with a serial killer dad ain’t too bad.  But I gotta ask Megan, what did you think of the ultimate ends of the two killers here?

Megan answer

-In general I think I found this to be a good enough end to the latest batch of ghostface’s.  And while I am jazzed for a hopeful strong continuation of the franchise, I think if it had ended here, I would have been okay with it.  So Megan, Let’s get to some ratings, for this podcast we go with the letterboxd rating system out of 5 stars, and there can be half stars, so what have you got for us.

-Letterboxd ratings, out of 5 stars

            -Megan’s rating – x- amount of stars

            -Nick’s rating – 4.5 stars

-wrap and call to action

-Well, thankfully not like this Scream franchise, it is time for us to say goodbye.  But this coast to Midwest crossover was an amazing fun time where we got to catch up and discuss a pop culture palooza disguised as a horror movie.  -So, Megan, what are your final thoughts on Scream 5 and who should watch this movie?

-(Megan’s Answer)

-Yeah, I think if you liked any of the previous movies or shows, this movie will feel right at home with the rest of it, and honestly I think this was a huge step forward for the franchise, I do like all of these, 3 had some weird moments with super natural dreams and 4 was a bit more pedestrian, but I do love all of these and personally can’t wait for 6.  So thank you to my outstanding guest Megan for joining us today to talk about one of my favorite things, that I continue to have a blast with.  It takes the standard masked slasher villain and makes a fun quirky whodunnit that still has the gore and scares you want out of something like this.  Now, if you guys want to keep up with us, you can follow me on either Nick Nack underscore IC or Nick Nack movies on all social platforms, and Megan where can people follow along with you at

-Twitter/Instagram @MeganKlembithh (if she is comfortable)

-Make sure to check in on all manner of social platforms to see what fun we are brewing up on this one-stop-shop movie, television, and pop culture podcast.  What February movie are y’all most excited for, Uncharted, Death on the Nile, or something else? How about you Megan?

-(Megan’s Answer)

So another one for you to add to your list, well Let us know on that Nick Nack Social Media Mailbag and as always, cheers and until next time Cinephiles!