Scream (2022) claims to be a return to, and reboot of, Scream (1996), when in theory and practice it is little more than Scream 5.
Scream (1996) became a huge hit due to its charming, film savvy characters who found themselves unable to avoid the very clichés they mocked. It was both a critique and an exemplar of the slasher genre, but most importantly, it was smart and it was fun. Scream (2022), on the other hand, finds itself mired down in the mythos of itself, sparing little time for real horror films, and focusing instead on the meta-franchise within the franchise Stab, like some horror ouroboros, an infinity loop where we watch Scream about characters who watch Stab about characters who watch Stab about characters who watch . . .
The film opens with the classic (tired?) vignette: a teenage girl is home alone and gets a call from a stranger. It’s not mentioned enough how Scream (1996) was the first movie to explore the horror of cellphones. It was no longer “the call is coming from inside the house,” but “the call could be coming from anywhere.” Technology not only made the teen victims smarter, but the killer smarter and scarier too. The only difference in the opening scene in Scream (2022) is that the teen doesn’t like slashers—she prefers what the film mockingly refers to as “elevated” horror—and that she can lock her doors with a phone app. Of course, the killer, be-robed in the same Ghostface costume of the previous four films, has hacked the smart house to be able to control the locks too. Taking the Scream franchise into the 21st century would seem the logical next step for the horror series that brought the slasher into the digital age, but this opening scene is the only use of such technology, and it’s never explained or explored further. Her house doesn’t even have a doorbell camera, for cryin’ out loud.
Instead, the killer uses the cellphone like, well, a phone. Scream 4 (2011) toyed with the nascent promise of live-streaming and the proliferation of web and security cams more and better than this movie. In a misguided attempt to get back to its roots (again, Scream 4 already did all of this), Scream (2022) goes back to where it all began, Woodsboro (see Scream 4) and introduces a new crop of young fodder with varying degrees of charisma (see Scream 4) who all have laughable relationships to the characters in the original Scream (1996), while also bringing back the original three: Sydney, Dewey and Gale (see Scream 4).
What results is a dour, overstuffed who’s-doin’-it that doesn’t give any of its characters enough time to rouse or disperse suspicion. What little time it does give our gen Z’ers is spent on them discussing the Stab sequels and all but explaining why the very movie you are watching is or is not a good idea, much like The Matrix Resurrections did, giving the film a semblance of self-awareness which the filmmakers believe is justification enough to make the movie (it isn’t). Calling out all the possible critiques that the internet could say about your film does not make your film immune to those critiques. For all the film’s supposed cleverness, it’s not very smart. But its biggest crime, what the filmmakers forgot amidst all their reddit-savvy gotchas, is that Scream (2022) just isn’t that fun.
