The new Scream (2022), starring Neve Campbell

Scream.
Picture: Paramount Photos

The central problem of any Scream sequel is how one can do justice to the self-aware, tongue-in-cheek high quality of Scream with out both straying too far into comedian pointlessness or meta-disappearing up one’s personal meta-ass. Not each Scream sequel has achieved this steadiness; one may argue most haven’t. Partly as a result of director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson’s sensible, scary, and even form of shifting 1996 authentic was itself one thing of a poison tablet: It got here preloaded with all of the po-mo self-reflectivity one might ever need, going down in a world the place generations of slasher motion pictures had already ready the victims for all of the style clichés they have been about to confront (and normally fall prey to). Any try and one-up the film was probably doomed to fail, as a result of it had already one-upped itself, and it had performed so whereas additionally managing to be completely terrifying.

The brand new Scream at the very least appears to grasp this on some elementary degree. It has a back-to-basics high quality which may, at first, lull you into considering it’s a extra simple reboot. It opens with the compulsory girl-stuck-at-home-talking-on-the-phone assault, as teenager Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) is questioned by a mysterious voice that at the beginning appears pleasant, pretending to be a good friend of her mother’s from “group,” however rapidly devolves into the slithery, menacing cadences of Ghostface, who likes to quiz his or her victims about horror movies (or, in Scream-speak, “scary motion pictures.”) After all, that is 2022, so Tara, it seems, is extra of an A24 gal and prefers so-called elevated horror. “Ask me about It Follows! Ask me about Hereditary! Ask me about The Witch!” she shrieks as issues get extra determined — not lengthy earlier than she’s stabbed to inside an inch of her life, together with her leg damaged for good measure. It’s a hanging sequence, primarily as a result of the proficient Ortega makes Tara’s concern palpable as she goes from boredom to terror.

The assault on Tara prompts the intervention of her estranged older sister, Sam (Melissa Barrera), who alongside together with her boyfriend, Richie (Jack Quaid), returns to the city of Woodsboro to handle her sibling and likewise unravel who might need performed one thing like this. Tara has, as one may count on, a detailed cohort of pals, all of whom could possibly be the offender however most of whom will turn out to be victims. Sam additionally enlists the assistance of former sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette), who’s now divorced from TV character Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and dwelling in a trailer with bottles of liquor strewn round. Dewey in flip calls Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), prompting her to return to Woodsboro as effectively — no nice shock there, as each earlier Scream film has been, on some fundamental degree, Sidney’s story.

We quickly be taught that almost all of Tara’s pals have some connection to the kids from the unique Scream. A pair of twins, Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), are the nephews of Jamie Kennedy’s mouthy, long-deceased horror fiend Randy Meeks, and their lounge TV has been rechristened the Randolph Meeks Memorial Theater. However because the callbacks to the unique movies accumulate, it turns into clear that is no typical reboot or typical sequel … Or, effectively, wait, possibly it’s really fairly typical for our instances: One useful lounge back-and-forth amongst these movie-savvy children quickly explains to us that they’re all dwelling by means of a “requel,” a type of tasks that brings again the unique characters to present it some official heft, whereas passing the torch to a brand new technology of heroes.

The films cited are the current Halloween movies that introduced again Jamie Lee Curtis, however a extra applicable reference level could be The Pressure Awakens, which introduced again beloved Star Wars heroes however made them background gamers in a youthful forged’s story line. There’s even a Pressure-ghost of types — as one of many first movie’s villains, Billy Loomis, performed by a digitally de-aged Skeet Ulrich, recurrently seems in mirrors and such to converse with Sam.

Actually, the cosplaying Empire-wannabe villains of The Pressure Awakens have extra in frequent with the Ghostface of this Scream — as we’re instructed early on that this mysterious killer (or killers; there are sometimes a couple of) have to be a heavy-duty fan who simply needs to deliver the outdated Ghostface magic again, in response to the liberties taken by the eighth entry within the Stab franchise. (The Stab motion pictures, as you could keep in mind, are the Scream motion pictures’ stand-ins for the Scream motion pictures, serving as each a wink-wink, see-what-we-did-there echo of what occurred with the Scream motion pictures in actual life and a cautionary story about all of the horrible instructions the Scream motion pictures might have taken.) We’re instructed that Reddit and 4chan have lit up with irate haters who took exception each to the fictional Ghostface’s newer weapons (together with a flamethrower!) and to the Stab motion pictures’ turns towards social justice. If the earlier Scream movies have been all concerning the commodification of horror, this one is concerning the obsessive toxicity of fandom normally, whether or not it comes from horror nuts, Star Wars nerds, or Ghostbusters obsessives.

Okay, however did it must be so lifeless? One of many the reason why all of the meta-textual bloviating of the unique Scream labored was as a result of Williamson had an amazing really feel for the hyperarticulate ramblings of suburban teenagers; his dialogue wasn’t reasonable, essentially, however it created its personal world. (That’s possibly one of many the reason why so most of the younger actors from the primary Scream really grew to become stars, one thing comparatively uncommon for the slasher style.) And Craven, at his finest, cleverly blended humor and horror: He might undercut a second with fun, however he additionally used that to make the second scarier. The rationale Ghostface is at all times form of a klutz in these motion pictures — irrespective of who they might be — is as a result of it makes it that rather more terrifying and tragic when the killer inevitably succeeds in gutting the sufferer.

However these new characters don’t actually come to life in any significant manner, and if they will’t come to life, their deaths (or near-deaths) turn out to be quite uninteresting. Regardless of the variety of the forged, all of them appear to be variations of each other. Ortega’s Tara is the one excessive level, maybe as a result of she spends a lot of the film wounded and significantly susceptible, and thus set other than the group. As her sister Sam, the ostensible hero of this movie, Barrera is especially wood, however that’s most likely as a result of she’s saddled with traces like, “And that’s why I modified, and I bought bizarre and I bought distant with you, why I went and began doing each drug I might get my fingers on, till I couldn’t take it anymore and I left you.” (The actress was one of many stars of final yr’s Within the Heights, and she or he was enchanting in that, so we all know she will act. I blame the script, credited right here to Zodiac scribe James Vanderbilt and Man Busick, however who is aware of what number of studio fingers these items undergo.) The few moments of real emotion within the new movie come primarily from the older characters, however it’s not essentially due to something they are saying or do on this film. It’s as a result of these of us who noticed the sooner photos have already shaped some attachment to those folks.

Administrators Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who have been beforehand answerable for 2019’s acclaimed horror-action-comedy Prepared or Not (which Busick additionally wrote), do a pleasant job dealing with the cat-and-mouse chases between Ghostface and the victims, an indicator of any Scream film, however usually are not as assured in the case of mounting any precise scares. They’re extra , it appears, in not mounting scares: One scene that has somebody opening closet and fridge doorways repeatedly — with its nods to the horror trope of characters all of a sudden exhibiting up behind these doorways, a cliché already addressed in earlier Scream motion pictures — elicits realizing chuckles however will not be really suspenseful and even mildly horrifying. It does really feel, nonetheless, like one thing you’d see in a Scream film, so possibly that’s the purpose. This new Scream is so decided to be a Scream film that it forgets the first, unspoken rule established by the unique Scream: You may promote something to us, as long as you make it scary.