Scream

A Scream without Wes Craven was always going to feel sad. One of the few horror franchises that kept the same director over time, Craven brought the world of Woodsboro to life, so there was always going to be some trepidation from longtime franchise fans when approaching a fifth installment directed by Ready or Not Radio Silence team Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.

Perhaps it helps that Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s Scream is not centered on Craven’s final three: Dewey (Arquette), Gale (Cox), and the one and only Sidney Prescott (Campbell). Rather, the fifth Scream’s focal point is a new final girl: Melissa Barrera’s Sam Carpenter, a lonely woman whose attempt at staying the fuck out of Woodsboro is foiled when her teenage sister, Tara (Ortega), is brutally attacked by a new Ghostface killer. Like Sidney discovered in the second and third Scream, running doesn’t always solve your problems, and the town’s legendary franchise-inspiring killer always finds a way to resurface the past.

In 2022, Scream is all about the “requel”: the reboot/sequel that has made a splash in not only horror but with every major Hollywood studio IP (Halloween, Saw, Star Wars, The Matrix, the list goes on). This is how Scream largely gets away with an entirely new cast for this horror whodunit, stacked with characters who are either distant or direct relatives of Woodsboro favorites. On par with the previous films, Scream’s new cast is aces, sharp on-the-rise actors and actresses who are given crunchy monologues to eat up and skeptical alibis to generate suspicion after every kill. Dylan Minnette’s Wes Hicks is a thoughtful homage to the late director, as are twins Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin (played by Savoy Brown and Gooding, respectively), niece and nephew of longtime fan favorite Randy.

But Ortega and Barrera are the real takeaways. Ortega knows her body, catapulting herself out of danger, dragging herself across the ground with pure determination, and her sly quips about how she much prefers “elevated horror” to basic franchise slashers like the Scream movies’ self-parody Stab are delivered with confidence and precision. Barrera melds strength and vulnerability so well, an incredible successor to Campbell’s Prescott. Her Sam also subverts typical horror tropes about mental illness, never presenting it to make her weaker, or for a cheap rug-pull (that said, the CGI visual depiction of Sam’s mental illness is likely to be the only thing that will age poorly in the entire franchise).

What has always made Scream a beloved horror series is how it holds up a mirror to the genre without it feeling gimmicky. It’s why decades later, the Drew Barrymore opening scene is still chillingly perfect. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are huge horror fanatics, so each grotesque kill carries emotional weight and raises the stakes: But they also know when to play moments for laughs, creating a false sense of security so they can twist the knife harder in the next moment. The fifth Scream is an ultimate reflection of the beloved first film, and perhaps its only misstep is that the directing duo didn’t relish in their finale, soaking in some of the beautiful homages they visually set up. Even so, Scream is a blast, a solid setup for more to come.