February 16, 2025

SCREAM (2022) – Nothing much to scream about in yet another rehash of ideas

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Rating: ⭐⭐

scream

Yet another attempt to reboot and cash in on an old slasher movies franchise. The original Scream in 1996 was a bonafide hit being expertly directed by Wes Craven and gave us one of the most memorable opening scene with Drew Barrymore answering a creepy phone call before being brutally murdered. Here some 25 years later, we get more or less the same scene replayed but with a much lessen impact. Once again, the reboot falls into the trap of appearing like a poorer version of the original with basically no new ideas.

Slasher movies don’t generally have great plots anyway so what usually makes them more enjoyable are creative and gory kills, some witty dialogue and characters that we can root for. In this latest Scream effort, we have the kills alright, and even the mandatory return of members from the original cast (Courtney Cox, David Arquette and Neve Campbell) and even a script that one can consider pretty funny. However, here is where I find the main problem. The forced “cleverness” of the script becomes more and more annoying as characters repeatedly explains the “plot” of the story to the audience while constantly poking fun on itself and comparing itself with other spooky movies. The reference to “elevated horror’ for such horror movies like Hereditary was made more than once which ended up sounding like a bad joke being repeated.

The return of the veteran members of the cast was a welcome sight although the way their presence was forcefully integrated to the story made little sense. They came just in time towards the second half of the movie, as we were getting bored with the new characters anyway.

If I have to make a comparison, I would say that this Scream did not deliver as much as the recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot did. Texas Chainsaw Massacre was far more focused on just delivering the gore without the pretentiousness of making fun of itself. Surprisingly this new Scream did exceptionally well at the box office having crossed US$100 million worldwide. Sadly this also means we can expect to get a sequel to this reboot as horror movies often costs less to make and are highly profitable when popular like this.

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