Twenty-five years after the initial emergence of Ghostface and the litany of copycat killers that followed, another serial slasher takes hold of the otherwise quaint town of Woodsboro striking fear into its residents both past and present.  Ghostface’s identity remains a mystery, but the victims can all be traced back to those affected by the previous murders which leave the town on edge, and nobody is safe from suspicion.  

With more than a decade since Scream 4 (2011), and creative force Wes Craven’s passing in 2015, it was unsure if there would ever be a continuation of the Scream franchise.  Writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick decided to pick up the mantle and with directing team Matt Bettinelli and Tyler Gillett, they crafted a well thought out homage – or “requel” – to the iconic meta-horror franchise for Paramount Pictures. 

The fifth installment, titled only as Scream, opens very similar to the 1996 classic which finds a teenage girl home alone getting ready to watch a movie.  Ghostface plays a familiar game with Tara (Jenna Ortega), but the trivia revolves around a franchise called Stab which we come to learn is based off of the Ghostface killings.  Scream has always been a very self-aware franchise citing in 1996 the rules for surviving a horror movie, so it is not surprising that in 2022 the characters are all very well versed in the genre.   

Its awareness is, unfortunately, the biggest downfall of the 114-minute slasher – only 3 minutes longer than the genesis film.  Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) is a huge horror fan and helps to navigate the updated rules of the game to this new generation.  As mentioned, this film is a self-proclaimed “requel” as in both a reboot and a sequel.  It is following in the footsteps of many legacy franchises both in and out of the genre, though it is hard to tell if the writers are being more cheeky or critical in calling it out.  Mindy delivers a pretty big breakdown on this fascination with rebooting iconic works with a mix of new and old cast members; an exhausting exercise touted as Hollywood’s compromise with audiences who demand new ideas but will only shell out money for films that will scratch that nostalgic itch as every studio in town strives to find the perfect back catalog title to be the big bang event creating a “cinematic universe” of their very own.  It is almost an unfair criticism of the film, though, as if you trim the fat by cutting all of those knowing winks, you have a very brutal, no-holds-barred slasher, but you lose what made Craven’s mid-90s horror film so unique. 

What this newest version of Scream does incredibly well is its violence.  Ghostface is very present throughout the film and quickly racks up a solid body count.  The attacks are all very different even though they are committed using the same trademarked knife.  It is in the settings of which they take place that allows Ghostface to stalk the future victims coupled with the camerawork and our own prior knowledge of how horror setups work that finds us still creeping ever closer to the edge of our seats as the music begins to crescendo and we become astutely aware of every blind spot in the room. 

The large ensemble cast are all mostly enjoyable, though this round of high schoolers are especially dry.  Mindy and Tara are straight off of the Reddit boards, Chad (Mason Gooding) is grating as the empty-headed jock without any real moment of redemption, and his girlfriend, Liv (Sonia Ammar), is equally grating though absent for much of the film’s runtime.  This is not so much a slight on the performances as they are all filling the tropes well, but the writing does not do the young cast any favors.  The one standout here is Wes (Dylan Minnette), named after the creator of the series, who was not only written with care, but his arc was very well throughout, too.  Minnette, as he has proven in the past, brings great life and depth to his characters and it will be exciting to see him break out of the high school roles and into something more adult. 

As for the adult cast, it becomes a reunion tour of the survivors of the previous installments.  A deep understanding of the middle films is not necessary as Scream does a good job at filling in who is who and how they relate to each other.  Performances are all mostly solid, and the adult cast – like the Wes character – all have the benefit of a more interesting story, but the cast just seems tired from returning to the well to reprise their characters from over a quarter of a century ago.  With franchise staples: Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), and Dewey Riley (David Arquette) among others, they help to drive the actual plot and are not just treated as expendable fodder for Ghostface which keeps us engaged, but does set the series up for its own “Skywalker Problem” in that when does the series need to break away from its past to secure its spot in the future. 

Its troubles aside, Scream does well as both a slasher and an engaging whodunit.  The large cast is cumbersome to handle, but as their numbers dwindle, the writing team finds their footing and keeps the film moving along at a pretty steady clip.  There is very little downtime in Scream which helps keep the audience engaged in the mystery and the thrills, and while it is far from a perfect film, it fits well within the realm of the franchise and of these “requels” it is one of the more successful ones in finding and achieving the balance of new and old.