Released: January 2022
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Rated R
Run Time: 114 Minutes
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Genre: Horror
Cast:
Neve Campbell: Sydney Prescott
Courteney Cox: Gale Weathers
David Arquette: Dewey Riley
Melissa Barrera: Sam Carpenter
Marley Shelton: Deputy Judy Hicks
Jenna Ortega: Tara Carpenter
Jack Quaid: Richie Kirsch
Mikey Madison: Amber Freeman
I’m an enormous fan of horror movies. I always have been. Slasher movies in particular are among my favorite kinds of horror movies. This may came across as somewhat morbid and maybe even a little psychotic, but one of the reasons why I love slasher movies are the kills. It’s the main reason why anybody goes to these movie. People are interested in seeing nubile young people getting eviscerated in gruesomely creative ways. Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday The 13th, Halloween, House of Wax(2005). These movies are a pretty good representation of a genre that won’t die, nor should it. To be fair, some of these franchises have gone on for too long and end up being what you might call self-parodies. They stopped being serious and end up being total jokes after a certain number of movies. There was a point during the 90s when slasher movies were…well…going out of style. Then, in 1996, legendary horror film-maker Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson deliver a slasher movie like no other, yet almost exactly like what we’ve seen before. But that was the point. The original Scream from 1996 was a surprise hit amongst movie-goers. It was a film that made fun of horror movie tropes, yet it reinforced them at the same time, because it’s what people expected. It was a cleverly written satire of a sub-genre that was beginning to wear out its welcome. Sadly, Scream is a franchise that has long since gone stale. This new iteration, simply titled Scream, does nothing to change that fact.
25 years after the events of the original Scream, the town of Woodsboro is once again under siege from a masked killer known as Ghost Face. Targeting two young women, Sam and Tara, the killers may or may not have a direct connection to the events from the original film. While new kids are under attack from this mysterious killer, old faces begin to show up to help put an end to the insanity. Sydney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and former Deputy Dewey Riley are the original survivors from the first film. I’m not going to go out of my way and say that the original 1996 film was the most brilliant movie ever made, but it wasn’t a stupid movie, either. It was very clever in setting up what was going on by focusing on horror movies. By focusing on particular “rules” and “ideas,” Wes Craven breathed new life into the slasher film by poking fun at it. The story and character were sharply written, and the set-pieces were spectacular. By focusing on those tropes, the movie, by extension, ended up being an incredibly intense horror movie. What does the new Scream have to offer in that regard? Not a thing. In fact, this movie plays it so close to the way that Wes Craven did it, that the 2022 film has no identity of its own. Say what you will about Halloween Kills as a slasher-sequel, but at least THAT movie took risks in upping the level of brutality to shocking levels. Halloween Kills will be talked about for a while. Scream 2022 won’t be. At least, not narratively.
I’ll just say it: The best actors in this movie are Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette. When these three are on the screen, that’s when the movie really comes alive. The chemistry that these three actors have with each other has always been there since the original movie. Seeing these characters on screen again was wonderful. Everybody else, outside of Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera, are all cannon fodder and not very convincing. Barrera’s character has a pretty interesting backstory that does have an impact on the film’s events, and as a result, so does her sister. Part of what made the original film so interesting, was that the characters were interesting. Even the more annoying and cliche-ridden ones were interesting. Even so, the movie plays it too safe when it comes to stereotypical horror movie characters. Outside of the five main characters in this film, I was not invested in any others. They’re incredibly forgettable.
Let’s talk about the satire aspect of Scream. In the original film, characters responded to a horrible situation by comparing it to then-modern horror movies like Halloween. The original film was a pop-culture sponge of sorts. There was a lot of references to different horror movies and they certain characters were supposed to act. The 1996 film was clever in disguising a traditional slasher-movie by hiding right in the open. As I said before, by poking fun and exposing certain tropes that have been a part of the genre for decades, the film managed to not only be funny, but it also managed to be incredibly intense, even as it was winking at the audience from time to time. But the original film succeeded by not overdoing it. The final act went batshit crazy, but by that point, the audience was hooked and invested in what was going on, so Wes Craven got away with it. This new movie hits you so many times being meta that it stops being entertaining. There were a lot of moments when I was rolling my eyes so hard that I swear I could see the back of my skull. There was so much semi-fourth wall breaking that I almost checked out entirely. There were a couple of moments where I nearly walked out of the theater. That’s how bad it got.
Seeing as Scream is a slasher movie, you would expect a body count. We certainly get one, and the kills can be pretty gnarly. It delivers on the violence, but after seeing Halloween Kills and the original Scream, this movie incredibly tame by comparison. It just doesn’t have the same impact. The pacing of the film is all over the place. It spends too much time reminding you that the events of the past 4 movies actually happened in this film’s world. It was completely unnecessary and it takes you out of the movie. It sucks that I’m coming down so hard on this movie, because I liked the main actors and characters.the kills were decent, but the movie spends way too much time in Wes Craven’s shadow and does NOTHING to escape it. I can see die-hard Scream fans getting a little bit of a kick out of it, but for me, the original film is where it is at, and does it better in every single way. Scream 2022 will be forgotten before summer. Yeah, it’s not a good movie, and an even worse way to end a franchise that should’ve ended 15 years ago.