With how often I bang on about metafiction in these reviews, this will likely come as little surprise but I fucking love the Scream series. Yes, even the much-maligned third and fourth films; I love all of them. Not only do they serious scratch a lot of my metatextual itches, I like how each instalment thus far has been able to stand out from the others in their own ways (and I mean in good ways). The first one is undoubtedly the most iconic and the scariest; that opening scene remains one of the greatest sequences in any slasher film. The second is the most creative, both in its set pieces and in its reflexivity as far as commenting on its own impact on the very genre it spent so much time poking at.
The third film… yeah, it has its problems, but I’d argue that it’s the most scathing with its observations about horror cinema and the industry that creates it. If you haven’t seen it before, or haven’t watched it since before 2017, I’d advise giving it another try; time has added some new layers to that particular narrative. And as for the fourth film, maybe it’s because the inclusion of Kirby appealed to my previously-mentioned statement that women who love horror movies are awesome, but I consider it to be the most fun, as well as containing my favourite ensemble cast thus far.
With long-time director Wes Craven tragically passing away back in 2015, the idea of a new feature-length continuation being made without him (ignoring the existence of the TV show) kept feeling like a bad idea. Between the Scream films and New Nightmare, the man had a better understanding of meta-horror than most of his peers, and indeed most filmmakers that have sprung up in his wake. But if one had to be made, I’d argue that directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have a better chance than anyone else. These are the guys who made Ready Or Not, a film whose thick veins of subversive humour and awareness of genre tropes made it a surprise hit when it came out. And with one of Ready Or Not’s co-writers also in attendance with Guy Busick, and James Vanderbilt finally finding a solid team to work with again, this has some real promise. And the extent to which that promise is delivered on here is staggering.
Let’s start with the genre basics: Is this scary? Now, while I freely admit to thinking that there hasn’t been a bad Scream movie, I will also admit that the last couple features weren’t necessarily as scary as what came before. They were still fun, but not exactly something to get me sweating in my seat. This film, though, brings things back to the days of 1 and 2, as this is easily one of the tensest entries in the franchise. Brett Jutkiewicz as DP and Michel Aller as editor have a lot of fun banking on one of the series’ biggest signifiers (awareness of what gets repeated in a lot of other horror movies) to create many a misdirect that actively plays on the audience’s expectations. Whether it’s confronting Ghostface or just setting the table for dinner, a lot of this film is made positively nerve-wracking through just how much these filmmakers know their shit.
Part of that magic also comes from Brian Tyler’s soundtrack work, whose more anxious additions are more than a little wiseass in how they play up the suspense; he hits that cheeky equilibrium that helped make Scream stand out back in the beginning.
The kills themselves are both creatively unique and phenomenally brutal, and yet the film follows the track record of the other sequels in that it doesn’t linger on them for so long that it becomes an example of the very thing the film itself is trying to subvert. Sure, we’re well past the days of ‘torture porn’, but the filmmakers know that the emphasis needs to be put on the victims as characters, not just walking slabs of meat for the cutting. Now, the new characters here don’t show the same level of intensive detail as something like Ready Or Not, but in terms of making us care about them before something happens, both the script and the acting chops on display do well. The new faces are all quite good, especially Melissa Barrera in the lead as Sam Carpenter (nice touch), and the returning faces make for some of their best work in the series to date. No spoilers on who exactly returns, because there’s some definite surprises in store with this one.
And along the same lines of keeping spoilers to a minimum, I’m obviously not going to divulge anything about who Ghostface turns out to be in this one. However, there are certain aspects of his motive and some of the backstory that I feel I need to get into somewhat, if only to give this film its proper due for being this freaking good. On the latter point, I’ll say that the way it delves into a certain fractured family dynamic, something that has stuck with this series since its inception, adds a lot of sinew to the main drama, not to mention the relationships between some of the characters. And just briefly while I’m on that point, the way the film tweaks everyone’s genre-savviness into full-blown paranoia about each other does wonders for the chill factor.
And on the former point, why this is all happening, it manages to not only slot itself in nicely with the other films’ use of horror cinema as commentary on quite a few different things, but also brings this right into crystal-clear relevance today; with how vicious Kevin Williamson and even Ehren Kruger’s observations have been in the past, this more than stands up to that tradition.
Except that lens has been pointed completely outward this time around. It’s not commenting as much on horror as a genre or the industry that engenders it (although a lot is definitely said about the recent trend of ‘elevated horror’ and the penchant of legacy sequels to abandon any numbering and just name themselves after the original), but instead on the fandoms of such movies. In the age of the Fandom Menace, of #RestoreTheSnyderverse, of social media becoming a battleground for fans of any given IP to rage against even the slightest changes to their beloved texts, something like this really strikes a chord.
It directly references Knives Out director Rian Johnson as the director of the latest in-universe Stab movie at one point, and considering his own run-ins with zealous fans (and I mean that in the most religious context I can, there’s no other way to really describe their level of hot-headedness), and that’s a pretty big indicator of the exact kind of toxic personalities this film is ultimately commenting on. I mean, I’m a literal ordained priest of a religion based on a character in a movie, and even I am taken aback at just how seriously some people take their fiction.
My overall adoration for the Scream series up to this point might dampen the effectiveness of any recommendations I can make for a new entry, but this is a seriously good horror movie. It sticks to everything that makes Scream (the first two films in particular) so damn good, its approach to scares is quite commendable in returning the series at large back to its roots, and as far as its commentary on modern horror and modern cinema in general, this might contain some of the sharpest writing of any Scream film so far, right up there with the third film. They did Wes Craven proud with this one.
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