Scream (2022)
When are they going to stop selling that stupid mask?!?!?!
It's no secret that my love for Scream goes back as far as I can remember. It might be the one series that I have seen routinely over and over and will continue to watch over and over. I put the original Scream in my top 5 horror films of all-time list. So I was so disappointed when Scream 4 came out, not because of the quality of the film, but because it was a financial bomb. Destroying any chance of sequels tied to that story. Maybe the decade-plus time gap between Scream 3 and 4 was enough for people to stop caring about Ghostface. I guess it took a pandemic and limited options to make them care again.
5cream, as it should have been called is exactly what the characters of the film claim it is, a "requel". Not only a sequel and not only a reboot, it's both. Bringing in new characters for Ghostface to slice and dice, while tying in the 'legacy' characters as a hand-off moment. The Force Awakens did this as well, one can only hope future Scream films are written by a single person with a vision instead of whatever the hell Disney did with Star Wars.
We open with the classic phone call to a girl alone in a house. The voice on the other end is familiar to viewers, but not to the woman who wasn't even born yet when the first three Scream movies came out...ouch I'm old. The voice gets her to talk about her favourite scary movie, which she proudly claims is The Babadook. What about Stab the voice asks? She doesn't care for lowbrow horror, she prefers "elevated horror". So we immediately get the sense of where the meta-commentary is going as elevated horror is a term that has gained popularity outside of the horror community. After a few threats, we are treated to the opening attack. Now, I'm going to go into some quasi-spoiler territory I guess, but I will not reveal any big surprises in the film, just this opening one.
WARNING: "Scream 5" spoilers below
The girl survives the attack. Our expectations are subverted as every other film preceding this has the opening sequence involving the murder of a character.
The girl survives the attack. Our expectations are subverted as every other film preceding this has the opening sequence involving the murder of a character.
This attack brings sister Sam, our new lead, back to Woodsboro. Her boyfriend Ritchie, a stand-out performance from Jack Quaid, comes along with her and together they try to solve who the new Ghostface is. All of her sister's friends are suspects. All of this feels familiar and it should because the Scream franchise doesn't do much to shake things up. A killer in a mask kills with a knife, it's someone you know. The kills this time are gnarly. Probably the most brutal of any Scream film, particularly one involving slowly sliding the knife into someone's neck. Good practical effects used made me appreciate the time and effort the directors put into this film.
The new characters, only a few stand out as memorable. There were at least two of them that I forgot even existed for a portion of the film. If any of these characters survive this film, they are going to need to punch it up in the sequels to make me care about them. The legacy characters return, with David Arquette giving the best performance out of the three of them. Sidney is sick and tired of these games and while on the phone with the killer, hangs up from boredom. This is a legendary Scream Queen. One of the reasons I think I connect with this franchise more over the others is because we follow these characters from movie to movie, as opposed to following the killer. Nightmare on Elm Street has Freddy, Friday the 13th has Jason, Halloween has Michael, and Child's Play has Chucky. The Scream franchise has Dewey, Gale, and Sidney. The killer is always someone new. That is something I will always appreciate about these movies over the other generic slashers.
I liked this new entry. I ranked it as the third-best in the series. Then again, I think they are all good with only the 3rd being the black sheep. It's not as funny as the other films but feels just as sharp on the commentary. There are plenty of easter eggs in the movie for Scream fans and it was nice to slide back into the who is the killer motif that films have been lacking lately.