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Scream 5 Movie Review

Scream 5 is a 2022 slasher film directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and starring Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox among others. It’s a somewhat disappointing entry.

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“See, we had to bring the legacy characters back to make it matter“

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Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, a new killer dons the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past. This is the fifth entry in the franchise and the first to not be directed by Wes Craven as he is no longer with us unfortunately. His absence was definitely felt as I found this sequel inferior to its underrated predecessor.

My main issue here is the repetitiveness of its plot. Unlike the fourth movie, there are no clever twists here. Nothing is remotely as exciting as the final scenes in that flick. The story just goes through the motions and this time around the rehashed nature to it was certainly felt.

Thematically speaking, the movie is still meta, although less meta than some earlier entries. It explores the concept of a requel, which is a contested new term coined by movie fans. It also deals with new expectations for horror movies, the idea of elevated horror and even the toxic nature of fandoms. Couple those themes with the movie’s immense emphasis on new technology such as geolocation and home security, and you’ve got a very modern take on this older franchise.

But Scream 5 is simply not scary and its comedic touches are better, but still a far cry from the best entries in the franchise. The main issue lies in the characters. I simply did not care for all of these new characters, though I did like most of the actors. It was nice seeing Mason Gooding of ‘Love Victor’ fame here and he was fun. Tara is a cool new character as well and I liked how the victims were more competent this time around.

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But most of the others aren’t great, the villains are particularly uninteresting and the entire third act should have been more exciting. The movie was too comedic at times, thus not being scary at all. The old favorites got reduced roles here, though both Campbell and Cox still killed it as usual. But the death of Dewey bothered me as it wasn’t really necessary.

Scream 5 has some interesting meta elements and self-parody moments. The modernization of the franchise was also evident here through the use of new technology and interesting commentary about fandom and the current state of horror. However, the movie is still somewhat disappointing as it was a bit too comedic for its own sake, the new cast wasn’t particularly interesting and the final third wasn’t all that exciting.

My Rating – 3