How can fandom be toxic? It’s about love.
Let’s talk about the cold open to this movie. It kind of takes things back to basics by stripping things down to the model of the original film: one girl alone, on the phone. The sequels continually tried, with variable success, to expand on things: Scream 2 took us to a crowded movie theater, Scream 3 worked in some stunt driving (!) and Scream 4 went way down the rabbit hole with rug-pull after rug-pull. This time, though, it’s just a girl, this time Jenna Ortega’s Tara, on the phone with that same spooky voice. The movie was mere minutes old when I was realizing something really surprising. I was invested already. Jenna Ortega’s performance in that scene is incredibly good and I realized that I cared, that I was, for the first time since Drew Barrymore, really scared for the person in the cold open. This is genuinely scary in a way that the movies really haven’t been since the first film, scary in a dark and upsetting way. The fear and terror feels grounded in reality; this isn’t a scene about being meta (okay, it kind of is) as much as it’s a scene about really hooking the audience with some genuine fear. And then the film threw a curveball that genuinely shocked me; our cold open victim actually survives. I was glad about this for a couple of reasons, but mainly because it meant the movie was doing something right. The movie had managed, with one scene, to both return the franchise to its roots and establish that it was blazing its own path. It was telling us to expect an old-school Scream movie and telling us not to expect anything. I was all in.
And, if you’re expecting a twist, let me put your mind at ease. This movie is fantastic, start to finish; at several points, I just kind of stopped in my head for a second and thought, “Wow, I am REALLY enjoying this.” It’s phenomenally good. The cast, both the returning veterans and the new generation, are all excellent. Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega are fantastic as the troubled sisters at the heart of the story; their relationship feels real and compelling and if the franchise does continue for a sixth film, it’s that relationship that is going to pull me into it, I think. I really want to see these two characters explored. Barrera gives a really good performance; there’s a moment near the end where the movie needs her to become a badass in the way that Sidney had to and Barrera, no pun intended, absolutely kills that climactic moment; it was exactly the cathartic explosion of intensity that I wanted. I have to give special mention as well to David Arquette who gives what I think is the best performance of his career; I get it, he’s David Arquette, how high is that bar really? But the point is that he's fantastic as a more damaged, traumatized and bitter Dewey. I can’t take time to single out a lot of other people, so I’ll just say that the ensemble cast is fantastic: Jack Quaid, Dylan Minnette, Mikey Madison, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy-Brown and a returning Marley Shelton. Of that group, I think Savoy-Brown registered the strongest to me; she’s got charisma to burn, man.
So much of this film really is about restoring weight and meaning to the violence. I remember Craven’s philosophy in the first film; the horror is when you stay on the faces as the people die, right? None of the following movies fully embraced that darkness, but this one does and the violence is more compelling and brutal here than it has been in a long, long time in this series. There’s a death at one point where a character is stabbed through the neck and the camera lingers in a profile shot as we see the knife go in and the character die as the killer impassively watches. It’s moments like that where the film elevates itself. And, yes, much has been made of that BIG death at about the midpoint of the film and rightfully so; it is genuinely shocking in a franchise where certain characters had just become untouchable around movie three. And it doesn’t feel cheap, it feels earned and powerful and it’s a great scene from start to finish. “It’s an honor,” the killer intones as the death blow is struck and you can feel that love all through the film, the love that the directors have for this franchise. And so they strike the perfect balance, in my opinion, genuine affection and respect for the franchise, but not slavish reverence.
And I think this movie really succeeds where Scream 4 didn’t in that it creates a new generation of characters that I want to follow. And I’m going to say something that I really would have never thought I would say; I’m fine with Scream carrying on without Sidney. I think this movie does it exactly right; Sid’s really a supporting character in this movie and, for the first time, she isn’t central to the plot. This allows the film to give character development to some of those other characters and I feel like Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega in particular really build interesting characters and an interesting relationship. A sister relationship is something new to this series and I think it could be interesting; these are two very damaged young women and their relationship is complicated, but their bond is strong. The fact that I’m excited about Scream 6 (or are they going full meta and calling it Scream 2; I hate this trend of just giving movies the exact same name as previous movies in the franchise, by the way) speaks to just how much I loved this movie. It’s fantastic and the series has literally been brought back to life for me; while I like Scream 4 very much, I didn’t really care when it was over to see another movie. It was fine for that one to be the end; but after this Scream, I’m all in for this to keep rolling. The phone lines are open. 4 stars.
tl;dr – affectionate, but not overly reverent sequel both honors the franchise and blazes its own path with a great cast and great performances; worthy of standing next to the first two films. 4 stars.