Warning: Spoilers ahead for Scream 2022!
The iconic director Wes Craven's movies also featured other genres, he will be best ed as one of the masters of horrors, and one of his best contributions to the genre was the Scream franchise. As one of horror's most iconic directors, Wes Craven was given a golden opportunity to satirize his own prior movies in Scream, while further satirizing his satires with the in-universe Stab films.
The first Scream movie was released in 1996 and it introduced the audience to final girl Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a high school student in the fictional town of Woodsboro, California, who becomes a target of a mysterious killer in a costume known as Ghostface. Thanks to its combination of slasher, black comedy, and mystery, along with its satirization of horror clichés, Scream is credited with revitalizing the horror genre in the 1990s and made way for a franchise with five movies a TV series. Scream 2 added a new element to the franchise in the shape of a fake movie franchise, making the Scream movies even more meta – and, of course, these movies-within-movies counted on the presence of both real and fictional actors.
Scream’s fake movie franchise – and once again in a very meta style – is called Stab, and like many horror movies in the real world, it was inspired by Scream 2022 filled in actor and character gaps with an IMDb page for the first movie. Here's a cast guide to every actor (real and fictional) featured in the fictional Stab franchise and which Scream characters they portray.
Stab
- Tori Spelling as Sidney Prescott
- Jennifer Jolie, played by Parker Posey, as Gale Weathers
- David Schwimmer as Dewey Riley
- Luke Wilson as Billy Loomis
- Heather Graham as Casey Becker
- Vince Vaughn as Stu Macher
- Alicia Silverstone as Tatum Riley
- Christopher Speed as Randy Meeks
- Ron Howard as Principal Himbry
Stab 2
- Tori Spelling as Sidney Prescott
- Jennifer Jolie as Gale Weathers
- David Schwimmer as Dewey Riley
- Joey Garfield as Randy Meeks
- Christine Hamilton, played by Kelly Rutherford, as Cici Cooper
Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro
- Angelina Tyler, played by Emily Mortimer, as Sidney Prescott
- Jennifer Jolie as Gale Weathers
- Tom Prinze, played by Matt Keesler, as Dewey Riley
- Tyson Fox, played by Deon Richmond, as Ricky Wafford
- Sarah Darling, played by Jenny McCarthy, as Candy Brooks
Stab 3: Hollywood Horror
- Tori Spelling as Sidney Prescott
- Elizabeth Banks as Gale Weathers
- David Schwimmer as Dewey Riley
- Rutger Hauer
- Balthazar Getty
Stab 6: Ghostface Returns
- Lucy Hale as Sherrie
- Shenae Grimes as Trudie
Stab 7
- Lucy Hale as Sherrie
- Shenae Grimes as Trudie
- Kristen Bell as Chloe
- Anna Paquin as Rachel
Stab 8
- Director - Rian Johnson
The Stab franchise has two different Stab 3 movies due to the cast of Return to Woodsboro being killed by Scream 4, which begins with the opening of Stab 6, which in turn is the opening of Stab 7, making it even more meta than previous Scream movies.
Scream 2022 continued the meta obsession with the franchise after the release of Stab, AKA Stab 8, directed by The Last Jedi's Rian Johnson, though the cast of the movie is unknown. Stab 8 was widely hated by ionate Stab fans who believed Johnson's sequel didn't understand the franchise and was the worst installment. The fan backlash of Stab 8 led franchise superfans and new Ghostface killers Richie Kirsch and Amber Freeman, who met on a Stab subReddit, to murder the family of original Stab characters, hoping to inspire the next movie with a "true story" for a much better "re-quel." Scream 2022's story with Stab 8 was a jab at toxic fandoms, particularly those of Star Wars, Stab, and consequently Scream itself.
The Stab movies were some of the best additions to the Scream franchise as they took the movies’ meta-commentary to another level, and made way for clever blends like the Scream 4 opening. Considering Scream 2022's Ghostface murders were inspired by toxic fans of the Stab franchise, it will be interesting how creative a Scream 6 sequel integrates the fictional movies into its plot. Scream 2022 also never revealed the cast of Stab 8, which could be shown in a future Scream movie with modern actors playing the Woodsboro victims.
