Scream: New characters, new rules, new killers – discuss with the spoilers

Scream was a rare horror movie that existed in a world where people actually watched horror movies, so trying to avoid getting stabbed meant being hyper-aware of the rules that were brutally established by two fanboy killers. were go. The series proceeded with predictable diminishing returns, but for a slasher franchise, sequels were still smart at best, creating an increasingly elaborate universe of interconnected bloodbaths and the inevitable films based on them (the intentionally wretched Stab franchise). Were. A decade after the much-underrated fourth chapter, Ghostface is back in Scream (the same title is a jokey reference to a theme in the film, though actually a way of wooing a wider audience outside of the Scream completist), but it’s his Or is it a return from a creative necessity or just a business imperative?

Here’s a really bad-heavy discussion of Nu Scream:

cold open

Ever since Drew Barrymore misspelled the specifics of Friday the 13th and found him on the outside as a penalty, the quality of a Scream movie has been judged within the first 15 minutes, a terrifying start that followed. sets the tone. Scream 4 knocked out our expectations with a fun faux-legged chill within a cold open that led to speculation about how anything the new chapter could do, the stakes raised and the rules rewritten. were written. But while some predicted that maybe one of the OG pin cushions might be at risk, the most surprising thing about Scream 22’s debut is how straightforward it all is.

The set-up is a back-to-basics callback to how it all started with you and Yes Day teen Jenna Ortega as Tara, the sacrificial Casey-sized lamb, this time perhaps less recognizable, but Still fielding trivia questions from Ghostface. There are minor changes – the questions are about the Staub franchise instead of IRL slashers, she’s surrounded by both landlines and smartphones – but the most notable change is that, for the first time in the series, the first victim actually survives the attack.. .

backstory

This is because Tara was actually tempted to seduce her sister Samantha (In the Heights’ Melissa Barrera) back to Woodsboro with boyfriend Richie (The Boys’ Jack Quaid), who is mostly unaware of the trauma that has plagued the town since then. Haunted in. Original Murders. Samantha is a reformed wild child who left town after living in hell and never came back. The killer soon contacts her, teasing that he knows her secret, which we learn is an unfortunate family affair: Samantha is the illegitimate daughter of one of the original killers, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich). It’s a fun, goofy link, and one that’s in line with the franchise’s charmingly soapy mythology, but with a misstep of fan service, Ulrich often appears as a vision to Samantha, leaning into her murderous legacy. urges.

Samantha then becomes the new Final Girl, but with an edge—she might as well be a killer—a different set-up for Sydney’s niece Jill’s fourth film status as the fake-out heroine of the fourth film. Up who turns into a villain. She isn’t the only newcomer to have a connection to the past. Tara’s group of friends includes the niece and nephew of Randy (Jamie Kennedy), who died in the second film, and the son of Judy (Marley Shelton), who was introduced in the fourth. The relationship between old and new inevitably leads Samantha to…

Inheritance Cast

Might get injured walking, but it’s a miracle that the three core Scream survivors are walking at all, having encountered various ghostfaces in every single previous film. One of the smartest touches in 2011’s Scream 4 was setting up the structure of a reboot with a young cast that was primed to take over, but then kill them all as victims or villains (” D0n crap with the original,” quipped Campbell at the end, echoing the widespread reboot fatigue at the time). Here, there is less harmony between young and old, especially as the latter, sometimes criminally, is doomed. We’re previously reunited with Davy (Arquette), now living in a trailer, retired from the force and only seeing his ex-wife Gail (Cox) on her morning show. He is pulled back into the play by Samantha, longing advice on how to survive which leads to an update of the “Here are the rules” speech that advises her not to trust her boyfriend (more on that later). ) and that the motive is somehow connected to the past.

We are reunited with Judy, a minor character from the previous film, and Randy’s sister Martha, allowing for a short scene with Heather Matarazzo who appeared in the third (an Easter egg later called “Survivor Kirby”). Showing a YouTube link to an interview with “Reed” also confirms that the Scream 4 fan favorite, played by Hayden Panettiere, is still alive). Davy reluctantly calls Sydney to warn him, which allows us to learn that she now has children and is married to Mark (who we can assume to be Patrick Dempsey’s Mark from Scream 3) but away from her. requests to stay. After Scream 4 Survivor Judy is killed along with her son Wes, we see the return of Gail eager to the story, who shares a poignant, if larger context of the series’ repetition, the scene with Dewey — because of Added poignancy. Off-screen history shared by Cox and Arquette. But any chances of a romantic reunion are cut short when…

great death

It had to be for some time. Every new Scream teased the death of one of the old guards (the 4 trailers suggested it was Gail’s turn) and the latest featured of the main trio, after marketing for only minimal scenes, was seen as a given. was that someone had to go. But as the only returning cast member to get even the slightest bit of character texture this time around, it’s a shame that Dewey is the one who finds himself on the chopping block. This is an effectively bad way to go; A hospital corridor that sees the killer stabbing Dewey both in front and behind her simultaneously, bragging terrifyingly that “it’s an honor” to have someone so discredited (violence out of the ordinary) feel more). But it sucks some of the energy out of the film, leaving Gail and Sidney to mope before heading to the climax…

killers

In the final act, all the characters are drawn into a house owned by Billy’s partner-in-crime Stu, which is the location of the extended bloodbath finale of the first film. This is where Tara’s best friend Amber (Better Things star Mickey Madison) lives, and where she is hosting a drinking, non-advising memorial for her friend Wes. The teens are partying through the grief, while also starting to question which of them might be the killer (this is the craziest of the screams ever). There are notable callbacks to the original — Amber heads to the garage to pick up the beer la Tatum while Randy’s niece Mindy (Yellowjackets’ Jasmine Savoy Brown) imitates her uncle’s drunken horror film Couch-Watch — but they mostly leave us unscathed. serve to remind us how little we know about or care for underdeveloped teens this time around, despite strong performances across the board. There are so many of them and they have little to do, which is why when killer #1 appears — Amber — it’s met with an “Oh…that one” shrug.

Madison does well, recycling her frantic shit from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but the effect of her betrayal with BFF Tara is less a stab and more of mild grazing. Then in another callback, killer #2 is exposed – Richie, the Scream Queen’s boyfriend, is once again evil. Quaid’s rant is a bit repetitive, but amid the gaffes, there are some good half-hearted thoughts, all of which explain the how and why…

Requirement

So while previous Screams have satirized sequels, trilogies and reboots, this time it’s the “requel”, also known as the Legacy sequel, when the old characters return with the new blood that Mindy previously described in the film. was explained. What’s driving the two killers this time is the fury with the eighth Staub film, which angered fans by jumping the shark all over, giving Ghostface a metal mask, a flamethrower, and a sleeveless muscle tee. . Staub’s super-fans Amber and Richie met on Reddit and hatched a plan to get the series right. Had they created a more faithful set of murders, the next Staub movie would be forced to tell that story, therefore saving the franchise. So the real villains are toxic fans (“How can fandom be toxic?” Richie asks), something that someone who spends at least five minutes on the Internet will be on board with, and even if the writing is a bit heavy-handed ( The whole Last Jedi brouhaha, directed by Rian Johnson after stab 8, is a bit much), it’s still a smart-ish way to justify a return to Woodsboro.

Yet despite being aware of the rules of a request, the authors are not able to follow them very well. What made The Force Awakens such a success was a well-calibrated mix of old and new, but here, the original cast is so sidelined that they ultimately feel like reluctant cameos. Gail and Sydney are really doomed and while Campbell and Cox manage to combine some magic with the characters for their long history, they are almost unnecessary in the messy finale (as soon as it comes to shooting Gail a lot). bad idea). Their existence in the end seems to mean less to the producers than the existence of new ones, all seemingly doing the same thing for the next chapter (essentially doing the same thing Scream 4 was ridiculing). A strong box office opening shows there’s more to come – but what next?