Headscratchers / Scream 2

• Why doesn't Sid kill Ghostface when he is asleep in the cop car instead of trying to sneak over him? This is safer than leaving him the opportunity to wake up and it would have quickly ended the threat.
  • With what? Her bare hands? Sit on his face until he suffocates? She didn't have a weapon at that point. By the time she got Hallie out of the car and turned around, Ghostface was gone—taking the cop's gun.
    • She could've used the cop's gun right after she left the car, though.
    • Or any piece of the road construction equipment they crashed in to. rebar to the face works just as well.
    • Or, hell, just tie the dude up with shreds of his own costume, if she'd rather take the villain alive for a change. Those long fluttery sleeves might as well be good for something.
• Why does Sidney have a grudge against Cotton for something he didn't do?
  • Mainly because he was trying to pressure her into doing a interview.
    • Although to be fair, he had been told she agreed to do the interview. He did mention that he wanted to get the whole ordeal behind the two of them and try to get on better terms.
    • He did admit that Maureen was having an affair with him. Sidney likely would have disliked him no matter what out of loyalty to her father.
    • Sidney was trying to move on with her life. Getting harassed into doing publicity on the story of her dead mother and friends isn't something she was too keen on.
    • He had terrible timing. He didn't show up until after the two murders at the Stab screening, and he brought a whole bunch of reporters with him, which no doubt brought up memories of the last time she was surrounded by reporters nosing into her life. Gale's appearance would also cement in that feeling of deja vu that people would start getting murdered again, and it spooked her.
    • This is exactly it. That very morning, reporters had swarmed around her asking for questions about the murders of Phil and Maureen.
• Does "Too soon" not exist in the Scream universe? You would think that Stab would get a serious case of Dude, Not Funny!, with the short time frame and especially given the fact it was a crowd-pleasing slasher flick based off of a real-life tragedy. Sure the whole thing was basically a commentary on the screwed-up bloodlust of pop culture, but it's still incredibly disturbing.
  • I think it becomes Fridge Brilliance when you note this attitude is reinforced constantly around Sydney and company.
  • The third film makes for even more Fridge Brilliance; the Stab franchise is produced by John Milton, a sadistic serial rapist who raped and impregnated Maureen Prescott; he felt personally tied to the events in Woodsboro, and was the exact kind of person who would leap at the chance to turn a real life massacre into a trashy film franchise (more or less what the killers wanted), for a quick buck, while the rest of Hollywood might've hesitated.
  • And at the screening when Maureen Evans is getting snacks, she overhears a girl complaining about how tasteless it is.
  • Another thing to take to account is greed. The book was a smash hit, and the studio probably were trying to strike while the iron was hot and use the "based on a true story" of a recent story while people still remembered it.
• Sidney automatically recognizes Mrs. Loomis, despite the makeover. Gale, who is a reporter, which presumably means she's supposed to have an eye for details, doesn't. Is that realistic?
  • Being a reporter doesn't mean you have a photographic memory. Reporters are typically more concerned with retaining information rather than faces.
  • Sidney was Billy's girlfriend and likely knew her for several years before she left. Gale likely didn't know the woman and says she'd only seen pictures. Up until the reveal she thought "Debbie Salt" was a student from one of her lectures. If Gale thought she looked familiar, that's where she'd associate her with. She's not expecting Billy's long lost mother to be waltzing around the campus is she?
  • Gale actually does say "I thought you looked familiar" when she first meets 'Debbie'. So she did recognize her from her pictures, but just assumed it was a student from her class. And Sidney would recognize Mrs. Loomis from her voice, behavior and body language.
  • Also, there's a good chance that Gale may have never actually met Mrs. Loomis, as she wasn't there during the events of the first film. And, if anything, there's a good chance that, at most, may have just seen a picture of her and due to the weight she had packed and not yet having her makeover (which Sidney hints that it was a "LOT" of work later), it could have made her look drastically different from how she looked before.
• It's clear when it comes to Cici's murder both killers were involved, with Mrs. Loomis making the call while Mickey did the killing, but why would Mrs. Loomis participate in this murder at all? She had nothing to do with Cici and her motive was for revenge against Sidney.
  • Mickey said that Mrs. Loomis was guiding and helping him, so this was presumably a way for her to gain his trust before backstabbing him.
  • The murder of Cici also set things up for Derek to be marked as a Red Herring, so it served a practical purpose. Making Sidney suspect her new boyfriend might be the killer gets rid of a potential ally, and also hurts her even more.
• Mickey has a large cut on his head during the unmasking reveal (having received it from the car crash) but how isn't the mask damaged or nothing?
  • The mask is flexible rubber. Human skin is elastic, but not that much, especially when trapped between two hard things, such as a steering wheel and the skull it's stretched over. It's totally realistic for Mickey to get a cut on his head from the blunt force, which was inadequate to damage the flexible mask (and the mask being flexible means that force was easily transferred to his skin and skull). Or he had a spare mask just in case the one he was wearing was damaged.

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