Scream (Mini-Review)

Scream is the fifth movie in the Scream franchise. Samantha "Sam" Carpenter is drawn back to her hometown of Woodsboro when her younger sister Tara is attacked by a killer dressed up as the infamous Ghostface. Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers are also drawn back to the small town to try and stop another series of Ghostface murders. Scream was released in 2022. It was directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. It stars David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Melissa Barrera, and Jenna Ortega.

The Scream movies have always focused on topical conversations about horror movies and their sequels. The fifth Scream movie focuses on 'requels'. What is that? Well it's a movie that isn't exactly a remake or sequel...basically. You can think of it as a way to do a soft reboot of a series so as to not upset fans. So while there are legacy characters, the main focus is on the new characters. For example: while Sidney Prescott appears in the film, it takes a long time for her to become involved with the plot.

I was one of the people that didn't understand why the fifth Scream movie wasn't named 5cream. Basically you can tell when a series has hit rock bottom when letters are replaced by numbers. The movie actually addresses that question directly. Turns out that the movie was commenting on the fact that series release their prequels or sequels with the same title as the original. Which is honestly something that bothers me. The Thing is the title of a film by John Carpenter as well as the prequel to that film.

Tara Carpenter is attacked at the start of the movie and yet she survived. This struck me as weird since if you're attacked at the start of a horror film, chances are that you should die. As the movie went on the Ghostface killers this time around didn't tend to leave people alive. At one point another character said this might mean Tara is the killer.

It's always fun going into a Scream movie and trying to guess who the killer could be. The usual rules do help you figure out the killer. Such as one of the friends will be one of the people helping to commit the Ghostface murders. I didn't guess which friends warranted enough suspicion to be considered the killer until near the end of the movie. There was just a moment that seemed a little too suspicious to be coincidence. One friend's hair color made me automatically eliminate them as a suspect.

For a short amount of time I thought that Sam was the killer. From time to time she sees hallucinations of her dead father. So if her grip on reality was unsteady, it could be that she was committing the murders without realizing it. But as the film continued that theory became near impossible to support.

I would recommend Scream to those who love the Scream franchise. I would also recommend Scream to those that like a fun horror movie.