Released 26 years after the original Scream, the confusingly-titled fifth film in the horror franchise that had devolved into a parody of itself captures a bit of the old magic with a "requel" introducing a new cast of potential victims and/or killers (Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Mikey Madison, Dylan Minnette, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Sonia Ammar, and Jack Quaid) while returning the familiar faces of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Dewey Riley (David Arquette), and Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) back to Woodsboro.
The new Scream is certainly derivative, but (like the original) it plays with the characters' understanding of both horror movies and experiences with previous attacks. The results are better than expected, although for me things fall apart in the final act with the reveal who is under the Ghostface mask and the reasons why (to be fair, not all that dissimilar to problems I had with the original Scream).
Kicking off with recreation of the original film's opening, while bringing in more modern technology to play a role, the script by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick needs you to buy into the idea that any one of the characters could be the killer, and, based on the previous movies in the franchise, there's likely to be more than one. The new Scream never quite manages this. I quickly settled on the likeliest of suspects and nothing in the film's various twists ever sold me on the less likely villains. Even if this aspect of the film doesn't quite work, and the big reveal feels anti-climactic (one of the consistently biggest problems with the franchise), there's plenty of fun slasher moments throughout with more than a few nods to the original film and meta-commentary from the characters.
Watch the trailerReturn to Woodsboro featurette
Meet the New Blood featurette
- Title: Scream (2022)
- IMDb: link
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