Review:
"Scream"
Release Date: Jan. 14, 2022
Rating: R Running Time: 114 minutes Subverting expectations is the name of the game played by the creative forces behind the fifth film in the durable Scream franchise. Simply titled Scream, this exercise in terror and franchise film deconstruction by the filmmaking collective known as Radio Silence makes its intentions clear early and often. To explain how, though, would spoil many of Scream’s welcome surprises and only serve to inadvertently reveal too much about this legacy sequel’s twists and turns. And, as even the most casual fan of this franchise knows, each Scream is a whodunnit built around the surviving cast members scrambling to unmask and then stop a new serial killer who assumes the identity of the infamous Ghostface in each new installment. The men behind Radio Silence—a.k.a. Ready or Not directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, stepping in for the dearly departed Wes Craven—know better than to mess with this formula. So whatever tricks they have up their sleeves, it’s done either to misdirect in all the right ways or to set up a satisfying climax that ties into Craven’s 1996 Scream without being too trite or overly nostalgic. Needless to say, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett whisk us back to Ghostface’s hometown of Woodsboro, California, the only city in the United States that remains committed to the continuing use of landline phone service. As with past sequels, Scream unites key legacy characters with potential new victims. Why is Ghostface back in Scream? For the same reason Hollywood makes sequels, reboots, and remakes. If that’s too vague, go back and watch the first four Screams. More important, Scream makes a better case for reviving Ghostface than did Scream 4, therefore making it a more logical extension of the initial trilogy than Wes Craven’s 2011 swan song. Regardless, Neve Campbell’s perennial final girl Sidney Prescott, Courteney Cox’s news reporter Gale Weathers, and David Arquette’s now-retired cop Dewey Riley come together for their fifth encounter with Ghostface. (Scream 4’s Marley Shelton also makes an unexpected but appreciated return as the recently promoted Sheriff Judy Hick.) They are joined by franchise newcomers Melissa Barrera as Sam Carpenter, the older sister of one of Ghostface’s first victims, and Jack Quaid as Sam’s boyfriend Richard. Ghostface’s other targets include Sonia Ben Ammar, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Mikey Madison, Dylan Minnette, and Jenna Ortega. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett move Screamalong at a brisk pace and maintain a keen sense of balance between the franchise’s trademark dark humor and bloody kill scenes. Most of the encounters with Ghostface are executed with vigor, although one murder in particular ends in disappointingly anticlimactic fashion after an unbearably tense build up. Despite their obvious desire to do a few things their way, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett—along with credited screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick—avoid making any sweeping changes to the franchise as they pay homage to and preserve the legacy of director Wes Craven, who died in 2015. They also keenly observe the rules put in place 25 years ago by Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson while expanding on them to reflect the evolution of the horror genre, Hollywood’s growing dependent on the franchise film, and toxic fandom in the era of social media. Plus, there are plenty of Easter Eggs for franchise devotees to seek out. There is one highly questionable decision made in Scream to visualize a new protagonist’s fragile state of mind, one that proves jarring in all instances. It simply is an unnecessary use of technology that did not exist when Craven and Williamson first launched the franchise. So it feels like a case of Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett doing something that they can do—perhaps out of a misguided sense of fan service—instead of doing something that is essential to shed insight into the damaged psyche of a character positioned as the franchise’s potential new Sidney Prescott. Unlike the superfluous Scream 4, which killed off all its new characters of consequence, Scream’s goal is to pass the torch from one generation of Ghostface survivors to another. And, for the most part, Scream offers several memorable new characters who display enough guts and ingenuity to inherit the franchise from Campbell, Cox, and Arquette. Now, if this is the last brush with death for Scream’s core three legacy characters, they are treated with the utmost respect and all receive a fitting sendoff. While Campbell, Cox, and Arquette take a back seat to the franchise’s fresh faces, they are integrated into the proceedings with ease and necessity. Also, Scream does not pretend life has not happened to Campbell’s Sidney Prescott, Cox’s Gale Weathers, and David Arquette’s Dewey Riley since the events of Scream 4. Sidney’s now married with children, allowing Campbell to convey a mother’s protective instincts toward the teenagers terrorized by Ghostface. Always defined by their on-again, off-again love affair, the currently separated Gale and Dewey seem lost without the other. Gale, of course, throws herself into her work. Dewey starts his morning crawling into a bottle of booze and watching Gale on television. That we continue to care about Gale and Dewey getting back together can be directly traced to an enduring intimacy forged in tragedy between Cox and Arquette over the course of five films. Early in Scream, a disheveled and demoralized Dewey calls Sidney to impact the news no one wants to hear again: “Sid, it’s happening again, some idiot in a Ghostface mask …. But something about this feels different,” Dewey tells Sidney after Ghostface’s first attack. Yes and no. This Scream feels very much like a direct continuation of the first two films in the franchise in tone, spirit, and execution. At the same time, this Scream succeeds more often than it fails in pushing forward a franchise that lost its way after a tiresome trilogy capper and contrived fourth entry. Scream makes a persuasive argument that it is time to move past Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and Dewey Riley if Ghostface is to live to kill another day. Robert Sims Aired: Jan. 20, 2022 Web sites: https://www.screammovie.com https://www.facebook.com/ScreamMovies/ |
|