WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Scream, now playing in theaters.
In the Scream franchise, as Randy Meeks made it clear in 1996 when he laid down rules for surviving a horror movie, you always put a bullet in the heads of the villains. That's because they always come back to life, which is why Sid (Neve Campbell) and her team fired bullets into the likes of Billy, Stu and Mickey. Admittedly, when these killers revived, it provided some funny jump scares, but ultimately, it reminded Sid's crew they couldn't let their guards down. Now, in the fifth chapter, the series made this long-running gag scarier and even more ridiculous with one absolutely bonkers slasher.
It's ludicrous how folks who've been stabbed to death and shot up could return to life for one last scare, but it's Scream's way of taking a shot at things like Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th movies. Granted, those villains were superhuman, but in Scream's case, it was all about never trusting that the enemy was truly dead.
In this new entry, it popped up again in the finale when Sid and Gale took on Amber in the kitchen at Stu's home when she revealed she was working with Richie. They wanted to frame Sam (Billy's illegitimate daughter) as the new Woodsboro slasher, aiming to murder Sid and the legacy characters, as well as new blood to prove Billy's spirit lived on.
Unfortunately, all Amber got for her troubles was a head full of fire as Sid and Gale shot and lit her up in the kitchen. It provided a truly grisly scene as she burned up, differentiating the ending from the others as it moved past guns and knives, creating a Fatality fit for the Mortal Kombat series.
However, after the heroes took Richie out, Amber's flayed frame ran out the kitchen for one last scare. It resulted in Sam's sister, Tara, pumping lead into her head, finishing her off for good. This garnered Tara's revenge as Amber pretended to be her friend, culminating in Ghostface cutting Tara up in the beginning. But vengeance aside, let's be real, there's no way a charred person should be returning to life like this.
Amber was bullet-ridden and roasted beyond recognition, so her resurrecting like this is akin to the end of Halloween where Michael Myers survived the blaze at Laurie's trap house, going on to murder in Halloween Kills. It defied all logic and science because while Michael had some supernatural force backing him, Amber was mortal and should never have gotten back up to try to rush the survivors. That said, it was another truly fun moment in the property as Scream reminded everyone it didn't take itself too seriously.
To see how the series' longest-running gag gets wilder, Scream is in theaters now.