Jessica Alba
Young Gale Weathers
StabMovies.com casting. No actor is named in any Scream film.
Gale Weathers begins an internship at Top Story Entertainment. The murders escalate, and they connect back to her hometown and its hidden past. Armed with a special watch, Gale travels through different time periods, fighting Ghost Face across several decades while defending her own family line. Can Gale unmask the Ghost Face killer before her time runs out?
Stab 5 is the fifth Sunrise Studios Stab film inside the Scream movies, and the second one not based on Sidney Prescott's life. It is the entry fans inside the Scream universe blame for the series going wrong. Nothing from it has been shown on screen.
The one plot fact the films give is time travel. In the opening of Scream 4 (2011), Jenny Randall explains the Stab series to Marnie Cooper. The first three films were based on Sidney. Sidney threatened to sue, so the studio started making stuff up. Then Jenny says Stab 5 has time travel, which is by far the worst.
Eleven years later, Scream (2022) backs her up. Richie Kirsch talks to Sam Carpenter on the phone and complains about Stab 8. He says it has no connection to the other movies and no legacy characters. Then he says the franchise goes off the rails with number five. Richie turns out to be one of the killers.
Sidney's TV interview in Scream 4 says all seven Stab movies are based on Gale Weathers' books. The book behind Stab 5 is Clock of Doom. It is a real Scream 4 prop, sold at auction in 2011, and it turns up with Gale's other books in the Ghost Face shrine in Scream VI. The Scream Wiki says it follows Knife of Doom and has the time travel story that went into Stab 5.
The Scream 4 props team wrote a plot for the Clock of Doom prop book, and the Scream Wiki quotes it. Ghost Face goes back in time to wipe out the bloodline of Ashley Prescott, the victim who got away from him. He lands in 1865 with one goal, to find and kill Mary-Anne Prescott, Ashley's great-great-great-grandmother, and a game of cat and mouse follows. None of this is readable on screen. The wiki files it as non-canon, and StabMovies.com treats it as unofficial.
Scream (2022) adds a wrinkle. In the opening phone call, the killer tells Tara that Sidney is in every movie but the last one. The Scream Wiki reads that to mean a version of Sidney is in Stab 5 under another name, to avoid a lawsuit. The film does not say that.
StabMovies.com has its own plot for Stab 5. Gale Weathers starts an internship at Top Story Entertainment. The murders get worse, and they tie back to her hometown and its hidden past. Using a special watch, Gale travels through different time periods and fights Ghost Face across several decades while defending her own family line. The question is whether Gale can unmask the killer before her time runs out. None of this comes from the Scream films.
Release & Reception
- Status: Released inside the Scream universe. No footage has ever been shown. The only plot detail given on screen is that it has time travel.
- Released: No year is given in any Scream film. StabMovies.com dates it 2005. The Scream Wiki gives 2008 (unconfirmed).
- Runtime: Never stated on screen. The Scream Wiki lists 120 minutes (unconfirmed).
Inside the Scream films, Stab 5 is the low point. In Scream 4, Jenny Randall calls it by far the worst Stab film because of the time travel. In Scream (2022), Richie Kirsch says the franchise goes off the rails with number five.
The Scream Wiki says Stab 5 was seen as the worst Stab until Stab 8. In Scream (2022), one of Mindy's friends remembers Stab 8 as the one the Knives Out guy directed. The wiki names him as Rian Johnson. Mindy says hard-core Stab fans hated it.
Stab 5 still plays at the Woodsboro High Stab-a-thon in Scream 4, where all seven films run back to back every year.
Deleted Scenes & Trivia
- The off-the-rails line in Scream (2022) belongs to Richie Kirsch, not Mindy. He says it on the phone with Sam, right after calling Stab 8 not like the others.
- The name Clock of Doom did not start with StabMovies.com. It is a real Scream 4 prop book. Premiere Props sold copies as screen-used Gale Weathers props in April 2011, and Bloody Disgusting spotted it in the Scream VI shrine. The film itself is never given that subtitle on screen.
- StabMovies.com used Clock of Doom as the subtitle of its own Stab 5 in 2011 and then dropped it, along with the time travel. Both are back for the fan film Stab 5: Clock of Doom, which the site says is set for 2027.
- The release year is disputed. StabMovies.com uses 2005. The Scream Wiki uses 2008 and says Stab 4 came out that same year. No Scream film gives a year.
- The director and producer credits come only from the Scream Wiki and StabMovies.com.
- The Scream Wiki notes that Mary-Anne Prescott shares the initials M.P. with Maureen Prescott and suggests a nod to Sidney's mother. That is the wiki's own guess.
- The Scream Wiki's Stab 5 page calls Clock of Doom Gale's second fiction book. Its book list calls it her seventh book overall. Both can be true: Knife of Doom was her first fiction.
- Unofficial claims StabMovies.com rejects: a 2008 release and the plot where Ghost Face travels to 1865 to hunt Mary-Anne Prescott. Both are on the Scream Wiki.
- The time travel was not popular with fans of the franchise. It read as a desperate attempt to surprise the audience, and it is one of the most outrageous hooks in the whole series. The film was not loved.
- The subtitle Clock of Doom comes from StabMovies.com’s own mythology. It was never shown on screen, on a poster, or on an official DVD case inside the Scream universe.
Confirmed on screen
- The fifth installment is the one that introduced the time travel, and it pushed the franchise into its strangest territory yet.
- It was considered the worst entry in the series until Stab 8 came out.
- It carried on the original-story era that Stab 4 started.
- No footage appears in any Scream movie, and no official storyline has ever been released.
- In the opening of Scream 4, one of the girls says flatly that Stab 5 has time travel, which is by far the worst.
- In Scream 5, Mindy says the franchise goes off the rails with number five.
Unofficial
- A release year of 2008 rather than 2005.
- A plot in which Ghost Face travels back to 1865 to hunt an ancestor called Mary-Anne Prescott.
Connections
- Follows Stab 4.
- Followed by Stab 6.
- Mentioned in Scream 4 (2011) by Jenny Randall and in Scream (2022) by Richie Kirsch.
- Its source book, Clock of Doom, appears in the Scream VI shrine.
- StabMovies.com's fan film Stab 5: Clock of Doom brings back both the title and the time travel.
Sources
- Scream 4 (2011) dialogue transcript, Springfield! Springfield!
- Scream (2022) dialogue transcript, Springfield! Springfield!
- Scream 4, Wikipedia
- Scream 4 Exclusive Movie Prop Auction, Premiere Props, April 16, 2011 (iCollector)
- Scream VI: Identifying All the Easter Eggs in the Ghostface Shrine, Bloody Disgusting
- Stab 5, Scream Wiki (fan wiki)
- Clock of Doom, Scream Wiki (fan wiki)
- Books by Gale Weathers, Scream Wiki (fan wiki)
- Stab (film series), Scream Wiki (fan wiki)
- Ghostface Shrine, Scream Wiki (fan wiki)
- Stab-A-Thon, Scream Wiki (fan wiki)
- StabMovies.com site data: Stab 5 history and Stab 5: Clock of Doom production notes
