Scream (2022) – Film Review

Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, California, a new killer dons the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past.

The newest Scream movie is something we will all be screaming about because not only does it find clever and ingenious ways to justify its existence, it also serves as the best film in the franchise since the original, and is absolutely jam-packed with plenty of humor, exciting kills, hugely affecting emotional beats, and brilliant twists that you will never see coming. In other words, it’s Scream at its best. The late filmmaker behind the previous four entries, Wes Craven (to who the film is dedicated), would be immensely proud.

If I’m going to be completely honest with all of you, I had almost no expectations leading up to this film’s release, for a couple of reasons. For starters, it’s a January release. Anybody who watches films regularly and follows the release schedule for the new year knows all too well that the first month of every year is absolutely loaded with atrociously bad horror films that the studios dump on us so early on in the year in the hopes that by the time December comes, we’ll forget it even exists.

Take 2020’s The Grudge for example – a movie that aimed to be a franchise reviver that ultimately ended up being a franchise burier. It was the first release of the year, hitting theatres on January 3rd. The movie was met with such a poor reception though, that almost everybody that went to see it didn’t remember ever watching it just a few months down the road. If you were to ask somebody today if they remember the 2020 reboot of The Grudge, they would be scratching their heads.

Of course, not every single January movie is bad. We have had some genuinely great stuff amidst a pile of the dumpster fire. Perhaps my favorite January release of all time would be M. Night Shyamalan‘s Split (2017), and the 2019 sequel Glass. However, those two films are exceptions to the rule.

The other reason why I wasn’t too eager to see a brand new Scream movie was that I was worried it was going to be a tired cash-grab that did nothing to justify its existence. I was praying there wasn’t going to be some outrageously dumb line in this new film where somebody pulls a Poe Dameron from The Rise of Skywalker, saying something along the lines of “Somehow, the Ghostface killer has returned”.

Gratefully though, I could tell from the second Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett‘s brand new Scream started that it was going to be a highly clever and worthy follow-up to Scream 4 and boy is it ever. Of course, Craven’s original Scream film from 1996 is always going to be hailed a classic as it should be, but there are a couple of things this movie does better than the original film in my personal opinion.

This is without a doubt the funniest film in the Scream franchise to date but the humor also never feels like it’s taking away from the more dramatic and emotional elements to the film either. Screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick had a good understanding of when to make things funny and when to let them be totally serious without a single moment of the tension being broken. There is one scene in the second act that genuinely had me tearing up because of how emotionally devastating it was. During this moment, I was praying that the film wasn’t going to throw in some dumb joke to break the tension of the moment, and to my surprise, that never happened.

Scream has always been a franchise that pokes fun at horror tropes and tries to acknowledge just how silly so many horror movies can be, which I’ve always adored because it takes a lot of risks. These movies could end up being humongous backfires where, in the effort to poke fun at these tropes, the film ultimately falls victim to them. And yet every Scream movie to date has never failed in that regard, which is just unbelievably impressive.

A lot of moviegoers are going to want to watch this new Scream movie for all of the legacy characters returning (I don’t blame you), but I was absolutely shocked when I realized about halfway through that I was loving the new additions to the cast just as much. How in the world is Melissa Barrera not starring in every movie these days? Seriously. She has done a handful of movies filmed in her home country of Mexico before, making this her true breakout film in North America, and I can only pray that this film opens the gates for her to even more exciting projects.

In the role of Samantha Carpenter, Barrera delivers an emotionally charged, hilarious, and oftentimes terrifying performance. This film asks her to do so much and yet she always rises to the occasion and makes it look easy. Throughout the entire film, we understand that Carpenter wants to do everything she can to protect her younger sister, but when some unsettling secrets from her family life spill out, it creates a huge rift between the two sisters, who get into a fight in one of the film’s most memorable moments.

The film finds beautiful yet haunting ways to explore both the immense grief and agony coursing throughout both sisters. This is something I truly never expected to see in a Scream movie because this could’ve easily just been a slasher with nothing else to say but the screenwriters truly wanted to include something more. They wanted to craft characters that would be well-loved and remembered just as strongly as the legacy characters.

And speaking of those legacy characters, they are all fantastic here and the roles that they all play here are truly shocking in many ways. Neve Campbell has truly never been better in the role of Sidney Prescott. Here, all you need to do is take one good look into her eyes and you can see the immeasurable grief that she’s endured over the course of her life. What I love about Prescott in this movie is how, even though she never wants anything to do with Woodsboro or the Ghostface killings ever again (who can blame her?), she nevertheless decides that she needs to investigate because she knows firsthand just how terrifying it is for somebody to be chased by a masked killer.

Courteney Cox is also great once again in the role of Gale Weathers, who takes more of a backseat in the story than the others, but the film still finds interesting and satisfying ways to bring her character into this story. But easily my favorite performance in the entire film comes from David Arquette in the role of Dewey Riley.

In the previous films, Arquette played Riley as a police officer that would stop at absolutely nothing until the Ghostface killer was found and killed. He was a ruthless cop but he still managed to have a bubbly and lovable personality to him. But he’s done this so many times that it’s worn him out. As a matter of fact, in this new Scream movie, we learn early on that he’s retired since the events of Scream 4. Nowadays, he sits in a dingy home and watches the news all day while doing little else.

We understand that he doesn’t necessarily enjoy this lifestyle one bit, but he also doesn’t feel comfortable stepping back into the shoes and uniform once again. The film does some legitimately incredible things with Riley’s character here, and he quickly became my favorite player in the entire film. All of these characters combined make for the best cast of any Scream movie to date.

I just really wish that Wes Craven were still here with us for him to see this movie because I know that he would have absolutely loved it. This has Craven’s name written all over it. Maybe he’s watching it from up above with a big smile on his face. I can only hope so because Scream is an outrageously entertaining comedy slasher brimming with clever, self-aware humor and truly shocking twists that you’ll never see coming.