Since the beginning of the Scream franchise, it seems there have been NDAs handed out to the cast to not reveal any plot details or casting choices. But clever internet sleuths can pretty much find anything these days thanks to the World Wide Web and report what they find as conjecture instead of fact. It’s not the best journalistic practice, but it gets buzz going and if Scream has done anything well over the past 20-plus years it’s creating buzz.

In the latest speculation of what Scream VII will be about, horror movie blogger and deduction king Critical Overlord posted in early April that casting agents for the horror movie are looking to hire actors for children’s roles. This has led to some believing Ghostface will target Sidney’s family bringing the franchise back to its roots where our final girl is once again vulnerable and afraid.

'SCREAM VII' will reportedly include Sidney Prescott's family as leads.

"They are looking to cast Sid's two kids. It seems like the movie will focus on Sid's family as all 4 (her, her husband and 2 kids) are listed as leads."

(Via: @DanielRPK) #ScreamVII pic.twitter.com/TPdkE1WbOa

— CriticalOverlord (@CriticalOverlo3) April 6, 2024

It is common knowledge now that Neve Campbell is returning to the Scream franchise after being low-balled by Spyglass for her part in Scream VI which led to her resignation. It’s also well-known that Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega won’t be back any time soon to play their respective roles as sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter. Execs scrambling to find their bearings got broadsided when director Cristopher Landon said he would also not be going forward with Scream VII as originally planned.

Enter Scream creator Kevin Williamson who is now directing the latest installment. But the Carpenter’s arc has been seemingly scrapped so which direction will he take his beloved films? Critical Overlord seems to think it will be a familial thriller.

This also piggy-backs news that Patrick Dempsey might return to the series as Sidney’s husband which was hinted at in Scream V. Additionally, Courteney Cox is also considering reprising her role as the badass journalist-turned-author Gale Weathers.

As the film starts filming in Canada sometime this year, it will be interesting to see how well they can keep the plot under wraps. Hopefully, those who don’t want any spoilers can avoid them through production. As for us, we liked an idea that would bring the franchise into the mega-meta universe.

This will be the third Scream sequel not directed by Wes Craven.

With as successful as a niche independent horror film can be at the box office, Late Night With the Devil is doing even better on streaming. 

The halfway-to-Halloween drop of Late Night With the Devil in March wasn’t out for even a month before it headed to streaming on April 19 where it remains as hot as Hades itself. It has the best opening ever for a movie on Shudder.

In its theatrical run, it is reported that the film took in $666K at the end of its opening weekend. That makes it the highest-grossing opener ever for a theatrical IFC film. 

“Coming off a record-breaking theatrical run, we’re thrilled to give Late Night its streaming debut on Shudder, as we continue to bring our passionate subscribers the very best in horror, with projects that represent the depth and breadth of this genre,” Courtney Thomasma, the EVP of streaming programming at AMC Networks told CBR. “Working alongside our sister company IFC Films to bring this fantastic film to an even broader audience is another example of the great synergy of these two brands and how the horror genre continues to resonate and be embraced by fans.”

Sam Zimmerman, Shudder’s VP of Programming loves that Late Night With the Devil fans are giving the film a second life on streaming. 

“Late Night’s success across streaming and theatrical is a win for the kind of inventive, original genre that Shudder and IFC Films aim for,” he said. “A huge congratulations to the Cairnes and the fantastic filmmaking team.”

Since the pandemic theatrical releases have had a shorter shelf life in multiplexes thanks to the saturation of studio-owned streaming services; what took several months to hit streaming a decade ago now only takes several weeks and if you happen to be a niche subscription service like Shudder they can skip the PVOD market altogether and add a film directly to their library. 

Late Night With the Devil is also an exception because it received high praise from critics and therefore word of mouth fueled its popularity. Shudder subscribers can watch Late Night With the Devil right now on the platform.

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below: