The Movie: Scream
The Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
The Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Melissa Barrera, Kyle Gallner, Mason Gooding, Mikey Madison, Dylan Minnette, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Marley Shelton, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sonia Ammar.
The Story: Twenty-five years after the original series of murders in Woodsboro, a new killer emerges, and Sidney Prescott must return to uncover the truth.
The Review:
For me, Scream is one of those franchises that I am always glad to revisit because I am invested in the characters and interested to see what they have going on even knowing the movie itself might not be that great. The good news is I really enjoyed this movie, it's genuinely a lot of fun, it carries the spirit of the franchise, and is a proper homage to Wes Craven who created the series as a self aware twist on the genre. The twists and turns are all there and all the rules of the Scream universe are firmly in place so the movie is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for without knowing anything about it going in.
At this point in the lifespan of this franchise, this is movie number five, the meta aspect of the stories have turned on themselves rather than on the genre as a whole which isn't entirely a bad thing but I will say it starts to border on parody and is definitely in that territory of jumping the shark. While seeing some of the original characters is great, their inclusion feels a little forced and I was more interested in the new cast members like Melissa Barrera who takes the lead role along the lines of Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott and Jasmin Savoy Brown who does a great job as the new Randy, played by Jamie Kennedy, who was the master of horror movie rules.
As I mentioned, this movie is meant to be an homage to Wes Craven and his original vision for the franchise which comes with some good and some not so good as it ends up rehashing a lot of things from the original movie. Again some of it works really well, but when it doesn't, there are moments that are seriously groan inducing because of how blatant they are. Ultimately though, what this movie comes down to is trying to figure out who Ghostface is this time around and the writing team of James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick do a really good job with keeping you guessing.
Speaking of Ghostface, there are plenty of jump scares, lots of slashing and stabbing, and blood splattering all over the place which for some people will be the most important things about watching this movie so that's a good thing. Some of the kills are pretty gruesome and inventive while others are pretty standard horror movie stuff so really the whole movie is a mixed bag of pros and cons. Oh, and of course the movie starts with a young woman alone at her house receiving a phone call from Ghostface although with a few technological advances mixed in to keep things fresh and current.
The Interview:
Scream is the fifth installment in a franchise that needed a shot in the arm and this mix of old with the new pretty much achieves that. For me, it was entertaining enough although I can see where some might find the heavy meta aspects of the story to be a bit much.
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