Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Starring Melissa Barrerra, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette
Rated R for gory slasher violence and language
Runtime: 1 hour and 54 minutes
In theaters January 14

by A. Freedman, Staff Writer

Note: with the Omicron surge making it likely that many people will wait to see this until it comes out on VOD, this review will be as light as possible on plot details

So much has changed in the ten years since the last Scream movie-but Hollywood still hasn't gotten any more original. When the Halloween sequel/reboot/retcon/"legacyquel" made a bajillion dollars in 2018, it was inevitable that other horror properties would follow in the same direction. Hollywood loves nothing more than repeating a formula to death. Yet another Scream movie was always going to be a tall order, since the beloved Wes Craven, who helmed each one, passed away in 2015. But as The Matrix: Resurrections made abundantly clear, a new entry was going to get made with or without the original creators onboard. Enter Scream, or Scream 5, or 5cream- whatever you want to call it- the latest entry, this time from the Radio Silence filmmaking team (Matt Betinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett and Chad Villela). I can honestly say that they did right by Wes, and that he would be proud.

Having helmed multiple installments in recent horror anthologies (Southbound, V/H/S), the team made their feature debut with 2019's Ready Or Not, a gory, funny, high-concept horror film which proved they were ready for big things. What set Ready Or Not apart was the strong character work, and you can't make a Scream movie without that.

Scream '22 starts off in a familiar way: a girl named Tara (Jenna Ortega), home alone at night in the town of Woodsboro, gets a phone call. In a humorous nod to the changed times, the phone is a landline, and she is content to let it ring, wondering why they still even have the thing. It isn't long before she finds herself talking to a strange man with a familiar sounding voice. Like the opening of The Matrix: Resurrections, you've seen this movie before, but also… something is different.

Melissa Barrerra plays Tara's estranged sister, Sam Carpenter (!) who is called back to Woodsboro when she gets a distressing phone call. Along for the ride is boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid), as well as a specter of Sam's past she would rather not deal with. There she reconnects with Tara's friend group, a lovely crew of great new characters played by charismatic young stars (including Jasmin Savoy Brown- Yellowjackets hive, assemble!). You can probably see where this is all headed, as her journey sends her on a collision course with the big three- Sidney, Gale, and Dewey- dealing with a new Ghostface killer.

Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette are ready, willing and able to "pass the torch" to the next generation of Scream stars. Ultimately though, this is Sam's story. Barrerra, fresh off a star turn in In The Heights, has amazing onscreen presence, and is more than able to fill Neve Campbell's shoes. If there are more Scream movies, she is the biggest argument for why they should make more of them. When it isn't her story, David Arquette shines as Dewey Riley, in a grizzled performance that wears the years appropriately, not unlike how Keanu Reeves played Thomas Anderson in Resurrections (the two films clearly have a lot in common!) This Dewey isn't just comic relief (although he does land the funniest line in the film). If you've seen the great documentary You Cannot Kill David Arquette, you can tell that he put a lot of himself and his personal battles into this role. We are blessed to have him around.

Behind the camera, the Radio Silence team handily and competently direct the hell out of this movie. They know that Wes Craven is a sacred name and they have a huge responsibility, and they manage to nail his tone and then some. It is hard to imagine any other director/s doing as good of a job with it as they have.

Each Scream movie has tried (and sometimes failed) to comment on the state of the horror genre at the time. Scream 2 perhaps succeeded even more than the original at this, as the overpopulation of sequels and knock offs in horror gave it plenty of rich fodder to explore. This Brand New Scream finds just as much if not more to play with, with the way that social media and being online has become an even more massive part of our lives since Scream 4. If you spend enough time on "Film Twitter," there will be a lot of meat here for you to chew on. Yet this Scream doesn't just keep its focus on the horror genre; it expands outward, looking at recent trends in our relationships with other films, in a way that actually comments on how the internet has changed everything. It's the first Scream movie that feels like it has something to say about the world outside of movies. Plenty of people will call this a "woke Scream," but it feels like so much of a corrective to the recent glut of franchise films that have caved in to the demands of their loudest, most toxic fans.

Lastly, this is by far the goriest and bloodiest of any Scream movie. The movie within a movie of the franchise is Stab, so get ready for a whole lot of stabby stabbing. I wish there wasn't an ultra contagious COVID variant spreading like wildfire, so that people could feel comfortable seeing this with a crowd. It'll play just fine at home though, if you choose to wait, or with a slimmer audience if you want to see what it's like a few weeks from now. Whenever you get around to it, Scream will be waiting for you, pumping surprisingly fresh blood into a franchise that demands it.