Retaining the ‘Creaminess’ of the story, we are welcomed with a girl alone in the house doing a random short when she gets a call asking what her favorite scary movie is. Now, even those who haven’t followed this franchise know what happens after a random stranger talks to you on the call late at night & you’re alone at home. Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) is hanging around chatting with her best friend Amber (Mikey Madison) when the franchise’s bad guy Ghost face shows up, attacking her.
Tara survives & reunites with her long-long sister Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), who is back in her hometown with her boyfriend Richie (Jack Quai). Sam, to tackle Ghost face, takes help from Dewy (Dewey Riley), a member of the OG Scream trio. Dewy with the help of OGs Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) & Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) agrees to help to find out the identity of Ghostface. We all know how this ends, so let’s stop BSing around.
Writers James Vanderbilt, Guy Busick try to do exactly what Ehren Kruger did with Scream 3 but under the guidance of the franchise’s master Wes Craven. Is this better than Scream 3? A 100% yes. But, was that even a bar to match? Nope. Unfortunately, the gold standard of this franchise remains to be the one that started this all. This one does get the closest as compared to whatever tomfoolery the makers did after the original, but even that doesn’t make this one anything memorable. In the name of elevated horror, this doesn’t elevate a single thing. If you can see jumpscares coming at you from miles, those aren’t jumpscares those are just scares that aren’t even scary.
A character suitably defines the story of every Scream in a single line: “Every decade, an idiot thinks it’s a great idea to put on the Ghostface mask, kill his friends and get famous.” This also describes my feelings for this franchise as a whole. Every few years, few creative people think it’s a great idea to put someone behind a Ghostface who’ll kill his friends, in a village that has seen more deaths by an unknown stranger behind a cheap mask than COVID-19. In this franchise, the only thing more important than COVID-19 vaccines its town Woodsboro needs is better security cameras.
Brett Jutkiewicz’s camerawork is the only thing that retains the feel of a horror film bettering the lazy writing at many places. Michel Aller’s editing is crisp & doesn’t stretch the sequences but that doesn’t help in adding many unwanted ones.
Melissa Barrera as Sam will convince you about how much messy the situation is, but that won’t necessarily mean you’d want to be in it. Her performance is just as it should be in such films but is led down by multiple other weaknesses. Similar thoughts for Jenna Ortega, who plays Tara. Her efforts are pretty visible but in the end, they absolutely aren’t following the right direction.
Dylan Minnette should at least have 13 reasons why he chose this role & one of them should be a fat paycheck. The OG stars Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Neve Campbell are just to lend a helping hand & they’re just about okay at it. Nothing wow.
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