If you made someone guess which movie "Scream" has the best rating of rotten tomatoes, most people would choose the first. It is the only movie "Creek" that seems to All Lovesube, while most people have some bones to choose with each sequel. And yet "screaming" has only a rating of 78% fresh. It is exceeded by Scream 2, which has 83%. Even a stranger is that the fifth and sixth "scream" films landed at 76% and 77%, respectively. They have lower grades than Wes Craven's original, yes, but the margin is thin.

For those who are not familiar with spoiled tomatoes, this data seems to collide with the general consensus on the quality of these films. Most agree with that The "screaming" extensions in the 2020s, as they have fun, still do not hold a candle to the original Crave. So what gives? How did the split "Scream VI" pull the result only 1% lower than the first film?

The easiest answer is that people do not understand how these RT results work. The 78% grade is not equivalent to the ratings of 7.8/10 on IMDB, because RT reviews are sorted into two categories: positive ("fresh") or negative ("spoiled"). So if all the critics involved give the movie 7 of 10 rating, there will be 100% score on the web site, which will rank it higher than the film that received more praise as a whole, but there were several "spoiled" views thrown in the mixture.

You can see this on the screenshot with Cricke's "scream" and "2022). Positive reviews for the former are advocating how they restore the genre of origin, while positive views for the latter say they have captured some of the vibrations of the first film. Both are positive feelings, but one is clearly more positive than the other.

The original films tend to have many expectations on them. Every beloved classic movie you know today was a new movie that was trying something different than what the audience was expecting, and the "different" rarely feel universal recognition on the first day. In the case of "scream", he took Surprisingly funny, meta approach to his horror. It is a movie where the characters are seemingly aware (at least to some extent) that they are in film, leading to a collision of tones that can be tricky on the first watch. He felt like a "scream" breaking the rules of what was supposed to be a horror movie.

Even above the meta -aspect, the original "scream" suffered from anyone who loves different things from horror film. Some people want their horror movies to be fun, while others want their horror films to be traumatically daunting. "Creek" relies more on the former, to the disappointment of those looking for the second. Viewers often struggle to judge a frightening film about the type of scary that is trying to be, rather than the type of scary they personally prefer.

This is one of the benefits that arise when it comes to reviews, whether they are from critics or regular viewers: most people who don't like the first movie just don't stick around to watch the latter, and they don't leave their film reviews they haven't seen. (Well, unless the film is already caught in the war in culture, but that's a problem for a special article.) As the Franchise "Crick" continued, the audience watching more and more of the long -standing "scream" fans, despite the general audience that proved to see the first film.

In 2023, Vulture It has published an article that details different methods that the PR firm is used to improve the results of spoiled tomatoes on multiple films. This included deliberate provision of access to Skriner only for critics who were expected to write a positive review. The company even has completely urged several critics to change their results from negative.

Even ignoring cases of complete manipulation, it is difficult to ignore how the results of RT have grown more positive over time. Part of this is due to how RT has expanded its pool to verified critics, leading to more of its views coming from writers watching movies from a random perspective rather than a critic. This is why if you Change the settings of the tomatometer From the standard "All Critics" to the more exclusive "top critics" option, the result of the film tends to diminish, especially when it comes to franchise extensions. With "Scream VI", for example, as you switch to "top critics", the result is reduced by 12 points to 65%. Meanwhile, for the much stronger Scream 2, switching to "top critics" improves the score by 2%.

Another potential, difficult factor is that critics are concerned about the state of the film industry and can reduce (consciously or otherwise) their standards as a result. At a time when box office constantly withdraw And we are concerned that the film media can be relevant, as the new film feels a little significant than it was before. It is rare to see a critical overview, viral about how maliciously breaks the film, because, at a time when it seems like a miracle that Hollywood works at all, even a bad movie feels like a gift.