Stab (2020)

Stab (also known as Stab 8) is a 2020 fictional film-within-a-film directed by Rian Johnson. It first appears and is mentioned in Scream 5 (2022 film), simply titled Scream.

It was technically released as early as December 2020 (as seen on Richie's laptop, with the earliest review listed "10 months ago"), but appears to be referred to as a 2021 release, suggesting it may have originally been a limited release, before given a wide-release later.

Its Ghostface (portrayed in real-life by Matthew Lillard) is seen with a flamethrower. According to Mindy, it did not stay true to the Stab structure as a murder-mystery whodunit, and fans on 4Chan and Dreadit maligned the film for "pissing on their childhoods".

It is speculated that the film is a remixed, highly-unreliable and muddled re-telling of the second Woodsboro Murders for legal reasons, using some of its survivors, hence why Judy Hicks is mentioned to appear in a Stab sequel (as the previous occurred before she was a survivor and participant in the Ghostface murder spree).

Just like the film it appears in, the eighth Stab film drops its numerical code as a reference to being a soft reboot, referred to by Mindy as a "requel". It is the first Stab sequel in over ten years, acting as a franchise reboot/revival. The previous Stab film featured Kristen Bell as Chloe, a Ghostface who is revealed in the opening scene was set in the "real world" (Scream universe).

It inspired backlash from fans everywhere, including Dead Meat, a Youtube horror channel. Its release inspired the 25th anniversary Woodsboro Legacy Murders, committed by fanatics Richie Kirsch and Amber Freeman.

Connection to Scream (2022 film)
In Scream (2022), it was revealed that Stab 8 was released but they dropped the 8 from it. It served as a reboot of the Stab franchise with no connection to the other films. This upsets the hardcore fans leading to the reason for one of the killers in the new Scream film to go on a murder spree to give the studio inspiration for a new film.

Common dislikes of the movie include Ghostface having a new outfit and mask and wielding a flamethrower, a Purge style Ghostface, as opposed to his classic mask, robe and knife. Additionally, fans were not happy that it was called Stab instead of Stab 8 and that there was no Sidney Prescott in the movie. As a result of all the fans reactions to the movie, they were deemed a "toxic" fandom and two members of that fandom, Amber Freeman and Richie Kirsch decided to appease that Fandom by orchestrating their own "requel" - reboot-slash-sequel - to Stab 8 using Tara Carpenter and Samantha Carpenter as the basis, hence inspiring a new movie.

However, after Richie and Amber are killed, Gale Weathers reveals that she won't write about them and will them die in anonymity, ensuring no new movies are made.

Easter egg page
The Dead Meat (James A. Janisse and his wife Chelsea) podcasting duo posted a critical review on FILM FAILS of the film on May 7, 2021. It had 122, 096 views (12/20/96 is the release date of the original Scream film). Also, FILM FAILS has 821,939, which is Wes Craven's birthday, August (8), 2, 1939.

A Recommended video in the "All" Section is an interview with Woodsboro Survivor Kirby Reed, with 4.5 million viewers (a possible reference to Kirby as a character appearing in both Scream 4 and Scream 5),

"Every Stab (2021) Kill Ranked from Worst to Worst" as being released 10 months ago (January 2021) to 82,000 views. Another video is seen below this, uploaded by StabHead with the title "Not My Stab! Join the StabHead Army and #RedoStab2021!!!" (released 4 months ago in June 2021) to 12,000 views. The last video is EP118 of True Crime Documentaries, "Did the Real Stu Macher Survive?" (a nod to Matthew Lillard portraying Flamethrower Ghostface).

Trivia

 * Radio Silence revealed in the r/horror subreddit that Hayden Panettiere who portrays Kirby, and Rian Johnson were supposed to cameo together, on making Stab 8, with Kirby now being shown as a filmmaker. Due to Rian's unavailability and their worry about shoehorning Hayden in the film rather than giving her an actual role, it was scrapped.
 * Kirby Reed is seen in the Recommended "All" section on Youtube as Richie watches a Stab 8 video.
 * Additionally, "Charlie" is the name Richie or Amber uses when calling Tara, and given their later disdain for Judy Hicks, as per Mindy's comment on being apart of a "shitty, inferior sequel", it appears more evident some of the Second Woodsboro Murders characters were used.
 * If Charlie is Flamethrower Ghostface, this would be a meta Easter egg, as Matthew Lillard (actor of Stu Macher) would be portraying Charlie, who became the Stu Macher equivalent (with Trevor Sheldon as Billy in Jill's mastermind plan, and Jill in reality) in the Second Woodsboro Murders.
 * An early Scream 5 script from 2019 named Scream Forever stated this was the only Stab film, besides Stab 3 to have one killer. However, the release version states "there are always two killers", seemingly with no exception. Fans have interpreted this to mean the filmmakers, Radio Silence support Angelina Tyler as the accomplice of Roman Bridger).