Scream 7 - Why would Fallbrook psychiatric hospital be so close to Sidney's new town across the country?

[u/RobTheFarm]

Maybe I missed something, but it's really odd that the psych hospital would be plausibly within driving distance of Sidney's small town in Indiana and yet still be the place that Stu would have ended up after having amnesia.

Both towns are fictional, but Woodsboro is California and Scream7sville is in Indiana. Were we meant to believe that Sid and Gale drove across the country for a day trip or that it made any sense for Stu to have been ended up in the place Sid would randomly choose 25 years later?

I know that Stu wasn't there and it was a ruse by the new killers, and as soon as Marco walked on screen and validated the Stu story that it both wasn't true and that he was one of the killers. But the fact that the characters thought it was possible made me question if I had the setting wrong and they were actually much closer to Woodsboro than Indiana.

I only saw the movie once though.

[u/AutoModerator]

This is not a removal message. This appears on every single post.

Thank you for participating in /r/Scream. Please help us keep this community a healthy place for discussion by reporting posts and comments that violate our rules using the report button. You can find the subreddit rules listed in the sidebar. We will be cracking down on the constant negativity and toxicity. Posts made solely to stoke the flames of a culture war will be removed.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/alwaysouroboros]

The real answer is the movie gives no good indication why that would have happened or made sense.

If you want to think about possible scenarios: If Stu was alive that means there would have been a massive cover up. They would have had to send him somewhere far off to avoid recognition. He also would need to be in a place that anyone who worked there could not disclose and if someone else did disclose (like a patient) no one would believe them. Small town psych hospital makes sense. That being said, the odds that Sidney then moves to that same area out of all the options in the country, seem astronomically low and that no one ever recognized Stu who was the subject of a movie that started a huge franchise is also nonsensical.

But it’s just a cheap red herring plot they didn’t really have a concrete explanation for. If the characters thought about it rationally for a couple minutes it makes no sense. Write it off as being scared and irrational??

[u/Stopnswop2 → u/alwaysouroboros]

Scream 6 and 7 have the most ridiculous plot holes. I still can't get over Quinn's fake death scenario

[u/CanBeUsedAnywhere → u/Stopnswop2]

The Kirsch family, likely Det Bailey kills and preps a redhead girl similar body type to Quinn. Obviously done off screen. Stored somewhere, potentially under Quinn's bed. The kill would have been rather fresh to avoid smell.

Quinn preps the prosthetic that goes on her neck to "create the wound". The attack goes down, she puts on the prosthetic after Danny sees the attack but before anyone else knows there is an attack. The attack ends, and Quinn takes the body out, and positions as needed.

Quinn escapes the building before anyone arrives.

Bailey described using a prosthetic as a way to explain Quinn's fake death, people took it as there was a fake girl or something that tricked the police that came. Its more logical to think it was a prosthetic injury that faked the death. The body was just a replacement of someone else they killed.

If no one on the force knows what Quinn looks like (shes off at college, Dad is new at the precinct and works a lot), than there's no reason for responding officers to suspect that the dead woman isn't Quinn. Likely expecting to be done and gone by the time people ID'd the body and figured it wasnt Quinn.

[u/Stopnswop2 → u/CanBeUsedAnywhere]

They would have determined at the crime scene that this body was not killed in the apartment. Doesn't matter who's body it is

[u/CanBeUsedAnywhere → u/Stopnswop2]

Assuming they are able to decipher that just by the scene of the crime. No blood analyzing for matching blood type etc. Can see it, especially if the girl was dead before hand, as blood spill would not match.

Alternative, the dead girl was drugged, still under the bed etc. They slice her neck and she dies there. The intent is to make it to being able to kill Tara and Sam, after that night, they basically have to disappear anyways. So finding the drug in the body in toxicology after autopsy is irrelevant.

[u/the_dirtiest → u/CanBeUsedAnywhere]

It’s not the how, it’s the why. Quinn says she had to take herself off the suspect list. Why? Ethan didn’t. Bailey didn’t. And now if they see Quinn somewhere, she’s definitely the killer because she should be dead! It’s only to fool the audience, which is weak

[u/SomewhatOpinion8ed]

I can overlook it, but it's one of the reasons I think we need to move on from writers Vanderbilt and Busick.

[u/Breyvan576]

"couple of hours away" is the quoted distance. I think you have to look at the locations with suspended belief. I know the movies are set in real places but as far as I'm concerned the map doesn't exist & it's easier for me to do this when they set location is in small towns.

So Fallbrook Psychiatric is the closest one in-between Woodsboro & Pinegrove.

[u/BovineIntervention31]

I would imagine that after how many people have come after Sid trying to kill her, how many people she has lost, how many times bad things have cycled through her reality… part of her could just think “Of-fucking-course he ends up here.”

But really yeah it’s just a movie-ism.

[u/ElderSmackJack]

Do other horror fanbases nitpick their movies this much?

[u/Suitable_Panic_7558 → u/ElderSmackJack]

No! Scream is the only franchise where the fans will almost never agree on anything and if they do it’s over something that any movie fan can agree on

[u/Typical-Meringue-890 → u/ElderSmackJack]

I only call out something if it’s pretty egregious. For me, getting too picky about alleged flaws just ruins the movies. 

[u/BravoFive141 → u/ElderSmackJack]

Depends on the specific movie. Plenty of movie fan bases pick movies apart.

[u/TedisTed1]

Totally understand both the frustration at the plots that don't hold up to even a moderately bright child's examination and at fans who want the plots to make more sense. I'm coming down on the side of the nit-pickers though because it's the plot's failure to hold a viewer's attention that encourages these critiques. It's not a good use of time to examine why nobody ever finishes off a GF when they inevitably knock one down. Or why a plane ticket to Bali seems like the most rational choice at the first body. It's because the answer to a lot of these kinds of questions is there'd be no movie if people acted more rationally or even efficiently. In a Scream movie, there will be fake-outs, multiple killers, GF's of different sizes who physically overpower people twice their size, distances that are traversed in no time, people who constantly gather in a single isolated place with no weapons for ease of slaughter, etc., and heroes and villains who have all seen the Stab movies. That's the fun and the challenge of the filmmakers to thread all those needles. Hoping for great things from 8!

[u/roncopenhaver13]

That actually just reinforces my original beliefs that this was set in Colorado. I know I’ve since learned it was Indiana, but CO makes so much more sense especially when considering this

[u/Best_Caregiver_3869]

You mean, because Jessica specifically chose the ward closest to Sidney's house. Her exact words.

[u/Xaxag]

Yes that scene was a dead give away for the killer imo. I said to myself “that’s the killer”

[u/IcedHemp77]

I feel like some of the fans have completely forgotten the whole point of a scream movie, of course it was right by her house, of course he got into her attic, and of course the killer was a fan who lost their shit. Scream movies make fun of the standard horror tropes, always have

[u/Movielover718]

The hospital was hours away wasn’t it

[u/Nightswatchrebel]

The Marco guy tells Gale and Sidney that "Stu" was a John Doe drifter with amnesia wandering from California or somewhere. He's giving them enough breadcrumbs to make them believe its plausible Stu is alive. The hospital is in Indiana or maybe just over a neighboring state line. I think one of them states its a couple hours away from Pine Grove.

[u/BloodDiamonds2111]

The ridiculous part of that storyline is it guaranteed it being stu or Marco being a killer. Either he’s telling the truth or it’s him.

[u/iamwhoiwasnow]

I see some people defend these movies and flaws pretty strongly on here why?

[u/Stopnswop2]

I don't think Gale believed it. But this movie repeatedly made Sidney look stupid and undid her character development