Scream (2022) Review
Although I’ve never seen the first Scream (past Drew Barrymore’s iconic Psycho homage) one thing probably linked to Scream 5’s existence which potentially became the soul of its premise: The internet was just getting started around the year we were introduced to Ghostface. IMDB had been around for at least 2 years, forums began taking off by the time Scream 2 came out, and “Y2K” was essentially the reason the franchise went dormant for over a decade (that and the fact having adults play the leads instead of teenagers also contributed). In fact even Wes Craven didn’t seem too privy to include details about the internet once Scream 4 was released as it was hard enough referencing reality shows in general. Before I get to Scream 5 let me just say that I’m not an expert on horror movies. I do, however, know for sure that although I didn’t grow up in the 90s enough to see what was right and wrong with horror I did grow up in the decades that followed. The 2000s, at their worst, were nothing but torture porn, and Ring knock offs while the 10s were either repetitive found footage horror or inspired (and even good) horror movies with bland, uninspired premises barely worth watching unless they had a big name star like Stephen Lang or Emily Blunt. It’s not that I’m unwilling to give any good horror movie a chance. It’s that, to me personally, horror movies are one of, if not the most, perfect outlets to combine imagination with intelligence. For this they’re also the most delicate, and even fragile outlets, depending on how the result turns out. When done right you get works like Psycho, The Cabin in The woods, or It Follows, which demonstrates filmmakers essentially growing an essence of their souls and handing them to you. When done wrong you either get stuff like jump scare saturation, torture porn, unwatchable movies that are not even worth naming, or the kind of horror films that will only scare you due to the spiders that have made their webs around them due to their lingering presence in the bargain bin. If I’m starting to sound like I at least WANT to be a horror film fanatic then that’s essentially the kind of mindset that both Scream and Scream 2022 seem to prove: Fandoms have always existed, it’s the form of expressing it which has shifted. Without getting into spoiler territory it would make sense that, just as this would be the first Scream movie that’s not helmed by the director, we would see a drastic change in the storyline for anyone who has kept up with these films after long enough for the sake of keeping the unpredictable horror elements going. Another thing that I can definitely add, however, is that Scream 5 is very much aware of the previous installments that came before and subtly manages to bring back characters that were even killed off as a way of developing the story. It’s almost like the one friend you knew from Elementary school that never left yet started visiting you only once a decade as time went by. As I mentioned before I’ve only seen two out of five of these movies, which is also as much of a “hardcore” horror fan as I consider myself. But they have been a staple even as they’ve gotten trickier to make, like all good horror movies in general.