Scream (2022) is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett, featuring a screenplay by Guy Busick & James Vanderbilt. It stars Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Jack Quaid, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Dylan Minnette, Mason Gooding, Mikey Madison, Marley Shelton, Sonia Ammar, Kyle Gallner, Heather Matarazzo, Chester Tam, Reggie Conquest, and Skeet Ulrich. 25 years after the events of Scream (1996), Billy Loomis’ daughter, Sam Carpenter (Barrera), is drawn back to Woodsboro when her younger sister, Tara (Ortega), is attacked by a new Ghostface. In order to catch the killer(s), Sam and her boyfriend Ritchie (Quaid) enlist the help of ex-sheriff Dewey (Arquette), now a washed-up alcoholic after being dumped by Gale (Cox). As the body count increases, Sidney (Campbell) and Gale (Cox) eventually have no choice but to join Dewey, Sam, and Tara’s various teenage friends in their effort to crack the case before it’s too late. 

Unlike Scream 4 (2011), which only teased fans with the possibility of shifting away from Sidney Prescott as the franchise’s main focus, Scream (2022) embraces the idea. Sam, Tara, and the rest of the new characters are strong additions to the franchise, with the only issue being that the script often tries a little too hard to make them likable. Characters such as Mindy Meeks (Brown), Randy’s nephew, are just slight variations on deceased legacy characters, but without any of the magic. Instead of endearing us to these characters through nostalgia, it actually makes us resent them. It often feels like they’re trying to replace dead characters, which is one of the handful of reasons the film feels uninspired.

 I love the original Scream, which is exactly why I don’t particularly appreciate many of this 5th installment’s similarities. Instead of implementing them in a way that would give fans a new perspective on, or experience with, the moments it references, they’re mostly presented as a lazy collection of moments/scenes that essentially boil down to “Remember this?” What’s even more annoying is that even the few differences in the characterizations are surface-level, at best. For example, it’s not a particularly meaningful change to introduce a character who’s basically just Randy, but female this time. To be clear, I’m not really annoyed that she’s a gender-swapped legacy character (which works for the film’s meta commentary); I’m more frustrated that the script uses this to distract us from the fact that, in terms of character, she’s the exact same person. These similarities would be more palatable if the character ever felt like an improvement on Randy, but that’s simply not the case

Despite the experience feeling a bit too familiar, it occasionally succeeds in treading some much-needed new ground for the franchise. The writers make the tough choice to kill off the franchise’s first legacy character since Scream 2 (1998), reestablishing the palpable life-and-death stakes that help keep the series from feeling like a typical Marvel-adjacent blockbuster. If this weren’t enough, the film also establishes itself as the most brutally violent installment yet. The kills still lack creativity in the sense that they’re mostly just different variations of a stabbing, but it’s clear that Ghostface somewhat relishes the act more than ever before. In what I now consider to be one of the franchise’s best “stalking” sequences, Ghostface slowly presses his blade through the throat of one of the teenagers, then proceeds to bait his victim’s mother with the dead body.

Unfortunately, these well-established stakes are undermined in the third act by the decision to portray Sidney and Gale as superheroes, their plot armour so thick that it almost feels like an insult to deceased characters like Dewey and Randy. Instead of being recognizable as the authentically flawed protagonists we’ve seen develop and change for four films, they now come across as mythic figures who exclusively embody what the writers know we love about them. Unfortunately, this makes them come across as stagnant caricatures of their past selves, fully in service of the fans instead of the story being told. They no longer feel like real humans who’re actually changed by their experiences–just cartoon characters who aren’t subject to the same reality as everyone else. 

Thankfully, the film succeeds in capturing most of the elements that fans associate with and love about the Scream formula. The reveal of the killers is surprising, and their motivations are among the strongest in the franchise, despite their lazy parallels to the original film. When the climax pops off, it’s crazy fun until the credits roll. Again, the script tries a little too hard to intentionally create badass moments for the characters, and they’re extremely forced, ranging from forgettable to cringeworthy. That being said, your opinion of these elements will depend on your personal taste. 

Overall, this isn’t a perfect Scream film, but it mostly does justice to the legacy of the late Wes Craven. It’s not my second or even third favorite film in the franchise, but I wouldn’t argue with anyone who feels differently. The biggest issue here is that the film feels devoid of new creative ideas, even though this was the perfect opportunity to push things in a fresh direction. It relishes what we love about the original, but fails to form its own identity. Everything else about the experience works for me as a Scream fan; I just hope that, in the future, they don’t rely on this formula of regurgitating earlier films under the guise of honoring what came before. Honoring is not the same as copying, but I guess Paramount will say whatever it wants if it thinks it’ll help sell tickets. Thankfully, the film is a lot of fun–just not very intelligent or original. B-