First, it was The Matrix Resurrections that made a stab at being meta. Now the Scream franchise is jumping on the bandwagon by doing the same. This is the fifth installment of the series and while most horror movies are about as dead as their victims, I’m happy to report this one does give the fan base the same old, same old, but it does veer off in different directions with often satisfying results.
When I walked into Scream, I thought what could the filmmakers do to breathe new life into this formerly dormant franchise and it turns out, there’s still plenty more.
This one picks up the events 10 years after the last one and it’s still set in Woodsboro where the original Scream murders took place. A young girl named Tara (Jenna Ortega) is home alone when she gets a call from a wrong number. If you’re a fan of this series, you can already see where this is going.
Of course, it’s revealed to be the masked killer Ghostface once again terrorizing an unsuspecting victim by questioning her about her favorite scary movies. Ghostface severely wounds the girl, but it does end up reuniting Tara with her estranged sister, Samantha (Melissa Barrera). The opening scene is a not-so-subtle nod to the opening of the original featuring Drew Barrymore’s character.
While Tara is recuperating, Sam and her friends get together to discuss who might be the killer even though it’s obvious and who he might strike next. This is where the meta part comes in in such labyrinthine detail that I won’t even attempt to describe. All I will say is that we’re introduced to a new word describing film franchises: Requel.
The kids have an ace in the hole in the form of the original cast returning for another stab. David Arquette is back as Dewey now a recluse after his bitter divorce from reporter Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and even Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott joins in on the thrills to track down Ghostface.
The rest of the movie does follow a certain formula that we’re used to by now: Someone explains the rules of surviving a scary movie, everyone goes their separate ways with jump scares providing a false sense of security until Ghostface can pick them off one at a time.
There is some innovation to the plot twists that I really appreciated even though it can be occasionally meandering and every once in a while, you might find yourself laughing at the contrivances, but those are minor quibbles.
What Scream may lack in white knuckle suspense, it makes up for in maintaining its satiric edge and characters that give us revelations and a possible future. The rest is just a bloody good time.
Grade: A-
(Rated R for strong bloody violence, language throughout and some sexual references.)
