Written by James Vanderbilt And Guy Busick
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin And Tyler Gillett
Ghostface (to Dewey): "It's an honour."
The horror franchise that galavanised the horror franchise of the 1990's and after an unrelated MTV series, it's back again to see if it adds little more bite in the horror genre one more time. The results are definitely something alright.
We open with a very familiar scene. Teenager Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) at home on the phone, thinking she's talking to her friend, Amber Freeman (Mikey Madison), only for Ghostface (Roger L. Jackson) to show up and kill her. Except, it's a new decade and there are new rules and this time, the supposed opening kill managed to survive their encounter with Ghostface.
With Tara not ending up the first victim hut still hospitalised, her estranged sister, Samantha (Melissa Barrera) came back to Woodsboro with her boyfriend, Ritchie Kirsch (Jack Quaid) in tow and it's soon revealed that Samantha has a noteworthy history with Ghostface. The noteworthy history being that her father was Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and he's been haunting her subconscious ever since she found this out.
Unfortunately for Samantha, the new Ghostface also knows her secret and it's not long before she enlisted a retired and divorced Dewey Riley (David Arquette) while getting to know Tara's friend circle, which included Randy's niece and nephew Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding), the latter's girlfriend Liv (Sonia Ben Ammar) and Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton) son Wes (Dylan Minette).
As a younger generation, they're a mixed bag of characters that while mostly likable enough don't really stand out too much. Having most of these new characters, including a creepy guy named Vince (Kyle Gallner) who was revealed to be Stu's nephew did feel a tiny bit contrived, even though the movie went to lengths to point out the necessity of bedding both old and new in this 'requel'.
Speaking of the old, this movie certainly gives our three OGs the least amount to do of any movie by far. Dewey probably fared the best in some respects and also worse in a lot of others. As for Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), she's determined to stay away from Woodsboro but like Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), it only took one thing to draw them both back into the thick of things.
In terms of who Ghostface are, I won't spoil their identity but I will say they're the worst killers since Roman and I found myself generally uninterested in them as characters even before the reveal. The motive thought about wanting to make the perfect sequel while framing Samantha as the bad guy and commentary on toxic fandoms however did work as did the team up with Samantha, Sidney and Gale to take them out. While Samantha might not be quite as compelling a protagonist as Sidney, I do respect this movie for making her as different to Sidney as possible.
- This movie had a For Wes credit and of course, Dylan Minette's character was also named after him. I actually wish we had seen more of Wes.
- Rian Johnson apparently directed the last Stab movie that sent the current Ghostface on their mission for that perfect sequel.
- Gale got a morning show in LA and Dewey left her. Dewey also had nerve damage from previous attacks, Sidney married Kincaid and had kids with him and Kirby survived the previous movie.
- Chronology: 25 years since the events of the first movie with the third act being set in Stu's house to really bring things home for all concerned.
Scream (2022) definitely had it's moments and while the third act didn't pack as big a punch as it could've with the killers being somewhat lacking, I do think this movie did manage to breathe a bit of new life in the franchise. Will it lead to another? Maybe it should but I'd be fine if it didn't either.
Rating: 7 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment