Scream (2022) - Franchise’s latest instalment lives up to the legacy
Credit: allocine.fr
In the infamous town of Woodsboro, another girl (Jenna Ortega) is home alone cooking for herself. The phone rings; we know the drill by now. But wait. This girl, Tara, isn’t the usual Drew Barrymore ditz: when asked what her favourite scary movie is, she launches into an analysis of the dichotomy between brain-dead slashers and art-house with social underpinnings. And so where does the Scream franchise fit? Certainly in both. And filled with updated commentary on the horror genre, its latest instalment once again succeeds in living up to its meta legacy.
Scream 5 – although it was released solely as Scream – is exactly what we can expect a Scream film to be in 2022. Friday the 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street references are out the window, replaced instead with allusions to It Follows, The Babadook, and The Witch, and how much Jordan Peele rocks. Characters are blessed with mobile phones that aren’t the size of their heads, and Ghostface gets to play with the smart home app linked to Tara’s for extra fun. The final flourish is a new group of unwitting students: figuring out whether they are victim or suspect is, as per usual, the fun of the Scream franchise. These are Tara, the “opener girl” who miraculously survives seven stab wounds and a snapped leg, Amber (Mikey Madison), Wes (Dylan Minette), twins Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), and Liv (Sonia Ben Ammar). Also new are Tara’s estranged sister, Sam (Melissa Barrera), who travels from California back to Woodsboro with her boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid) to attempt to reconnect with her little sister, suspecting her dark past is somehow linked to the newest killing spree.
Joining them are the original cast who survived the previous four films: Dewey Riley (David Arquette) is retired and living in a shabby caravan, dedicating his mornings to watching his ex-wife Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) on her morning show. Deputy Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton) is now Sheriff, while Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is a pram-pushing jogger living as far away from Woodsboro as possible. Everyone else is dead, which is the very foundation of one of Dewey’s updated horror rules: it always comes back to the original. When Liv’s creepy summer fling Vince (Kyle Gallner) is killed (a terrible red herring who lasts all of two minutes onscreen) and the gang realise he was the nephew of one of the original killers, those related to franchise legacies figure they need to watch themselves. And yet, though the film’s nature highlights how very aware the characters are about the horror flick they inhabit, none of them do. They stay alone at home, get drunk at parties, attempt to have sex in the bushes – all while reminding each other than none of them are trustworthy. Though this is frustrating (highlighted by Randy’s “turn around” sequence), it’s also the whole point of Scream: whether it’s the characters’ attitudes towards the possibility of their imminent death, or the gore, which new directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have accentuated without nonetheless making more believable, Scream continues to be effective because it doesn’t feel real. That’s what makes it so entertaining, and its jump scares and cupboard door shots a source of nervous glee rather than of genuine fear.
Perhaps the franchise has maintained the legacy, but there are still some uneven aspects to address: as a Scream fan, there shouldn’t be much trouble in figuring out who Ghostface is, for starters, which takes away a bit of the fun. There is, unfortunately, such a thing as revealing too much by being too meta. The other main issue is that the new gaggle of teens are grossly underdeveloped: compared to the franchise originals we know and love, the Scream class of 2022 come across as underused and somewhat less entertaining, compiling a list of suspects that are one by one ticked off without much time for consideration. In this respect, scenes featuring Sidney, Gale, Dewey or even Sheriff Judy Hicks have a particularly meaningful quality about them, as they carry the nostalgic memory of the 90s classic. This is not to say however that the new cast members are unlikeable: Jenna Ortega is an excellent new Scream Queen, and Melissa Barrera gives her onscreen sister a run for her money with her tortured glower and troubled past. Despite at times being too self-referential, Scream’s latest instalment adds some modern twists onto Wes Craven’s 1996 original, continuing to entertain and update itself along the way. If the eleven-year gap between films continues, another one should come along in 2033, by which time Ghostface might be able to kill by hologram or clone him/herself. Something to look forward to.