Movie Info
Movie Name: Scream
Studio: Paramount Pictures/Spyglass Media Group/Project X Entertainment
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): January 12, 2022 (France)/January 14, 2022 (US)
MPAA Rating: R
13 Reasons? I’ll give you one!
When Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) is attacked in her home, her sister Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) realizes she must return to Woodsboro and face the past she was hoping to forget. Joined by her boyfriend Richie Kirsch (Jack Quaid), Sam realizes that the killer must be someone who knows her which could include twins Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks (Mason Gooding), Wes Hicks (Dylan Minnette), Liv McKenzie (Sonia Ammar), and Amber Freeman (Mikey Madison)…and all of them have their own reasons for wanting her dead. With the return of Ghostface, Dewey Riley (David Arquette) finds himself thrust into the role of protector again…and when Dewey comes, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and Gail Weathers (Courtney Cox) can’t be far behind.
Like uncle like niece?
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Scream is a post-modern slasher horror movie. Following Scream 4 in 2011, the film served as a soft relaunch to the Scream series and was not directed by Wes Craven who died in 2015. The film performed well at the box office and received positive reviews.
Scream was a rare movie that I saw twice in the theater. It was a fun ride and forever (for better or worse) changed the slasher horror genre by being self-reflexive. The sequels followed in the line of Scream (sometimes too closely), but always played with the post-modern aspect of a horror film in a world where horror films exist. Scream (sometimes called Scream 5) continues the trend by taking on the same ideas of Scream in 2020s. Due to aspects of the script, a *****spoiler alert***** exists for the rest of the review.
The calls are coming from inside the house…again!
Scream always has an angle. Scream 4 took on soft relaunches and this is another take on the soft relaunch. It is about the type of relaunch that must placate quick to anger fans and must be built on nostalgia…and even the joke of naming it Scream…again. It is both a punk of fans of the Scream series and everything the killers of Scream joke that the movie is about. It is both reflexive and creative. The only problem is that since Scream always has an angle, you kind of expect it, and the repetition is somewhat predictable.
The cast is good. There are a lot fresh new faces as the “new generation” of victims. Melissa Barrera is nice as the lead, but the script of course dispatches a lot of her friends to prove the point of the movie. The returning cast includes the big three of Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette but it also includes Marley Shelton as Sheriff Judy Hicks (previously seen in Scream 4) and a fun appearance by Heather Matarazzo as Randy’s sister who was first seen in Scream 3. Like Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there has to be a sacrifice and David Arquette gets the punishment (which makes sense due to the number of times he scraped by surviving and how much of a physical wreck he is).
Hey…I’ve think I’ve been stuck in this position before
The movie is a decent slasher with a lot of jumps and scares built into it. The movie feels a bit more brutal than some of the previous entries in the series. It earns its R-Rating, and the more brutal the better since it creates a strange balance with the humor of the series.
Scream is a solid relaunch in the series, and it will be interesting to see how it develops. A lot of “nostalgia” based relaunches fizzle after the first movie…Scream in that sense is taking a dangerous path. Most horror franchises don’t live a lot past five entries (at least with any quality). Can Scream keep up the fun? Scream is followed by Scream 6 in 2023.
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