Scream (2022)

Last night, I made the mistake of torturing myself with the new “Scream” movie, which came out in January. As all of you may recall, I am not a fan of this series. How is the new sequel, which came out a decade later?

Way back in 1996 when the first “Scream” movie was released, which was 26 years ago, the idea of films and TV shows referring to themselves had a lot of currency.

Jim Schembri said in his review, “This imbued the new Scream horror franchise with a bit of pizazz, thanks chiefly to Scream writer Kevin Williamson who, two years later, would gift us with the self-referencing smash-hit TV show Dawson’s Creek.”

Schembri continued, “At that time we were also in the middle of the Seinfeld sitcom phenomenon, which pushed the art of meta-referencing to new extremes, pushed again by the show’s co-creator Larry David in his ultra-meta comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

The director of the first “Scream” Wes Craven, who passed away in 2015, also hit a level with the meta form two years prior with “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.”

Schembri noted, “So the novelty of self-referencing has long since waned, requiring skill and wit to justify its presence, as we’ve seen with Curb.”

There’s no skill or fun in evidence anywhere in the fifth installment in the “Scream” franchise, a terrible slasher film that gives yet another painful example of meta done poorly.

Schembri noted, “Replicating with remarkable exactitude the travesty of Matrix Resurrections, the new Scream film continually winks at the audience about how self-aware it is about cruddy, cash-in sequels that serve up to loyal fans of the franchise a thin, lazy version of what came before – then does exactly that.”

It would be passable if there were a fair number of scares in the film, or maybe any scares at all, but the film is exactly the type of boring, repetitive, predictable slasher sequel it says it won’t be. It constantly talks about the cliches of the slasher genre but fails to go above them or giving anything original or fun.

The story continues the timeline of the franchise. Taking place again in the fictitious town of Woodsboro, Ghostface, the knife-killing masked murderer in the black cloak, is back on murdering kids working its way through the teenage cast.

Going back to the town’s history of horror, Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) looks at the attack on her sister (Jenna Ortega) by Ghostface, who in this sequel is very tech savvy about phone cloning and bypassing security systems.

Possible reasons are looked at, blame is made constantly as the cast reference on the meta movie references to what happened in earlier films, repeated scenes and dialogue with, it has to be said, a really ordinary performance standard.

Schembri is right when he says, “It’s wearying watching such a singularly dumb movie constantly trying to out-smart itself, hitting a new nadir when it quips about how sequels of sequels of sequels have nothing original to offer.”

For every one of its smart meta-nonsense about genre tropes, we still get so much sub-standard slasher scenes here: streets are apparently quiet from teens when Ghostface is on the loose, the omnipresence of security camera suddenly breaks, at one point Ghostface even appears to have super powers. It’s filth, very F-grade.

Members from the original film’s cast come back to reprise their characters. There’s David Arquette, Neve Campbell, and Courtney Cox, who is difficult to recognize.

Schembri ended his review by saying, “Indeed, it’s telling how, given all the film’s supposed self-aware snarkiness nobody dares make any remark about how different Courteney Cox looks after all that rejuvenating facework, and how her mouth looks as though it has been attacked by bees.”

This is the absolute worst in the franchise. No one is likable, the motive is just completely ridiculous, and the cliches are just noted early on. You want to know what is worst: there coming out with a sequel next year! Why!? What is so likable of this franchise that they need to make another sequel!? Stop it already! I know there is a fan base to this franchise, so they might enjoy it, but if you’re not a fan, like me, then don’t see it. However, if you want to watch it, you can see it on Paramount+ if you have a bundle with Showtime, or you can just watch it on Showtime.

Thank you for joining in on this review. Stay tuned Friday when I finish off “M. Night Shyamalan Month.”