Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) picks up the phone late at night, thinking it's her best friend, Amber (Mikey Madison). But it wasn’t. It was the infamous Ghostface, and it wanted to kill her. Fortunately, she survived the attack with only a few broken bones and stab wounds.
A day after, Wes Hicks (Dylan Minnette) informed Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) about the attempted murder of his sister. So, together with her boyfriend, Richie (Jack Quaid), they travel back to Woodsboro to check on her. At the hospital, she meets Tara’s other friends, including the twins, Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brow), and Liv McKenzie (Sonia Ammar). They then find out that this is not just an isolated case, but an elaborate plan to create a re-quel of the popular "Stab" film.
In order to put a stop to the killings, Sam asks for the help of Ghostface's previous targets, Dewey Riley (David Arquette), Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), and Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) to help her fight off the killer.
Reboots, remakes, sequels, and prequels are difficult to love because they’re often terrible. Consider the fact that most successful films have a bad version of themselves. There is a "Terminator: Salvation" for every "Terminator," and for every "The Grudge" or "One Missed Call," there is a rebooted version that lacks the original's heart and scare. In hindsight, most of these are just cheap cash-ins.
However, rebooted sequels have seen a resurgence in the last five years. Just look at David Gordon Green’s 2018 slasher movie "Halloween" and Nia DiCosta’s 2021 hard-hitting "Candyman," which both tackle deep questions about humanity and violence.
But despite their success in terms of story and theme, fans of the respective franchises aren’t that impressed. Horror movies are supposed to be scary and gory. With the emergence of elevated horrors like "The Witch" and "Hereditary," the basic DNA of horror movies is completely rewriting itself. More and more filmmakers are now exchanging "scare" with discomfort and style.
The new "Scream," directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, understands the rules of a rebooted sequel. For example, the story must be expansive and consistent with the original, and in terms of motivation, they must all go back to the past. But "Scream" is not an ordinary horror movie, and these rules don’t generally apply. It’s a meta movie that prefers to keep the viewers guessing by spinning and embracing a number of cliches and tropes. It works because it does not comply with the rules of the game. "Scream" is the game.
"Scream" thrives as one of the best slasher films in the history of cinema, and it’s all because of Wes Craven’s brilliant story structuring and Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett's love and respect for this edifice.
All "Scream" movies follow a formula: it starts with a cold opening and ends with a propitious party that will allow the killer to kill the protagonist. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett's jobs are to just twist some of it, serve the fans of the franchise with great easter eggs, and build on the legacy of the original.
Moreover, what makes this re-quel so compelling is that it pushes things a notch higher. "Scream" did not settle into rehashing the story. It delves deeper into meta-commentary than its predecessors. It takes a jab at everything that it can, from biases towards elevated horrors to toxic fans of the genre. It sometimes goes a little overboard, but that’s exactly the point. "Scream" must flip the curtain off the table and let all of the genre's conventions fly and break on the floor. As the movie suggests, the slasher genre is dying and filmmakers are having a hard time introducing new concepts. However, it argues that there’s really no need to follow the crowd and settle on high-concept films. Sometimes an honest horror film is enough to throw viewers off their chairs and leave a lasting impression.
"Scream" is also a passing of the torch of some kind to Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera. Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette have been with the franchise from the very start, and they’re beloved by fans for their unique interpretations of stereotyped heroes. But with Ortega and Barrera leading the cast, fans can guarantee that the franchise is in good hands. The performance of the two makes it clear that they are certified scream queens and the kind of modern and sympathetic protagonists everyone can easily root for.
The other supporting characters are also great. They can all turn your heads around. Jack Quaid, Mikey Madison, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Dylan Minnette, and Sonia Ammar all played their roles perfectly as naïve youths and horror fanatics, spitting out facts about the genre.
"Scream" is essentially the movie we didn’t expect we needed. It’s bloody, scary, and funny. It’s consciously reinventing ways to keep everything exciting and entertaining. Most importantly, this movie proves that old concepts can work. You only need to be creative about it.
4/5
