Scream 2022

Scream is another franchise I’ve always enjoyed that recently came out with a new movie; a “requel”, as Mindy explains. As with Batman and Halloween, I want to get my thoughts down about the movie, just for a little something different than my usual top 10 lists. Once again, I will be reviewing this in terms of positives and negatives. SPOILERS ahead…

Positives:

1). As meta as ever:

Part of Scream’s initial appeal, and what helped it revive horror movies, was that it was simultaneously a legitimate slasher movie and a very meta, comedic deconstruction of the genre.

For fans of the franchise, fans who do not like to be disappointed, this movie was as meta as the original, arguably even more so, since it constantly referenced the Stab Franchise, the Scream universe’s meta stand-in for the Scream franchise that is based on the original Woodsboro murders. Not to mention every reference to what happened in the previous movies. This might’ve been the most self-referential movie of all time.

2). Explanation of the “re-quel”:

Mindy was a great character, and having her as the new version of her Uncle Randy was a nice touch. Her explanation of re-quels vs reboots vs sequels was spot on, and served as a nice reference to her uncle explaining the rules, while also explaining the recent direction of the genre to viewers.

3). Opening scene was pretty good:

As I’ve said before, the opening scene of the original Scream is one of the best opening scenes of all-time, and is the one horror scene that truly scared me. This was never going to outdo the scene in the original, but I think it did a nice job of referencing the original, both visually and comically while still being decently scary.

Although the Carpenter’s house looked different from the Becker’s house on the outside, I thought some of the interior looked like Casey Becker’s house, which was a more subtle reference to the original. Also, having Tara survive the attack was a nice subversion of our expectations.

4). I like how they didn’t tell us who the Carpenter’s mother and her husband were:

In my opinion, a big mistake in Halloween Kills was all of the ret-con stuff referencing characters we didn’t know existed at the time, and giving them screen time in flashbacks or spending too much time on them in the present. Scream 2022 references that the Carpenter mother was impregnated by Billy Loomis while dating someone else, and they ultimately married and he served as the girls’ father.

I don’t know whether I liked the whole tie-in, but I respect the fact that they didn’t flash back to show them in high school, or didn’t add too much screen time to that aspect of the backstory.

5). Wes’s death scene had great tension:

Following Hitchcock’s “bomb under the table” theory, Wes’s death scene was really drawn out, with a bunch of false jump scares. The killer references Psycho, which makes you think it’s happening at the shower. Then Wes is walking around the house, just a sitting duck. Every time he turns or opens the refrigerator, we’re expecting Ghost Face to be lurking behind it, but no. They make us wait.

Also, I figured the mother would get killed, but it could’ve been in a car accident racing home or via ghost face at the house. It was nice that they kept that option open.

6). The basement scene was also good tension-release:

A subtle reference to the garage scene from the original, and similar to Wes’s death, there were some false scares and everything was drawn out.

7). Neve Campbell rules:

I’m always happy to see her in things. She’s an underrated actress.

8). Nice Covid reference at the end:

Once the killers are revealed and they’re in the kitchen, they hit Amber with a jug of hand sanitizer, and she reacts to it, which I thought was a nice reference.

Negatives:

I’m going to talk about the two killers, specifically, at the end of the list.

1). They telegraphed the fact that there were two killers very early on:

Part of this isn’t their fault, since the original Scream opened our eyes to the possibility of having two killers, so it was on all of our radars.

However, there were a few moments where someone was on the phone with Ghost Face and then was attacked immediately, to the extent that the Ghost Face who attacked couldn’t have realistically been the one they were speaking to. This happened in the opening scene with Tara. It happened in the early sequence when Sam was attacked at the hospital.

In the later hospital sequence, they showed the killer with some type of blue tooth device, which would’ve been a fine explanation for jumping from the phone to attacking so quickly, except it was not visible in the previous two attack scenes. And wouldn’t they have heard the killers talking?

All of this is to say that the twist in the original Scream of having two killers was great, I just wish that for this movie it was less obvious.

2). The Billy Loomis hallucinations:

Meh…I don’t really see the point. It just felt like a forced bit of fan service to get Billy in there. Also, flashbacks are one thing, but a hallucination of a person speaking to another character is something they did in Animal House and The Waterboy, in other words, it’s silly. Also part 2, Billy is a “bad guy”, but now he’s encouraging his daughter and helping her find a weapon when she’s in dire need?

3). Was Amber tall enough to realistically be the killer?

I know I may be losing the forest for the trees, but it feels wrong to show a killer be taller than the victim in most attack scenes and then one of the killers winds up being an actor whose height is listed at 5’3 1/2″. I’m completely suspending disbelief and going along with her being strong enough, etc. But then it comes out that she’s the one who killed Dewey, and David Arquette is listed at 5’10 1/2″, and the two were clearly close to the same height when they were fighting.

The problem, to me, is that it’s deliberately misleading the audience and then doesn’t make the reveal of the killer’s identity feel earned. People are trying to figure out the killer and some may have ruled her out because the killer is always at least as tall as their intended victim.

As another example, take Psycho; the twist in the middle (shower murder), is perfect. However, the twist at the end (that the mother in the chair is a skeleton and it’s actually been Norman the whole time) is tainted for me because earlier in the movie, Marion (and the audience) hears Mrs. Bates yelling at Norman from the lobby of the motel. That’s in there to deliberately make the audience think that Norman is in an oppressive relationship with his mother. It feels cheap when it turns out she isn’t real. We’re supposed to believe his impression is that good?

It’s about the movie misleading the audience for a cheap surprise later. Good twists/reveals are satisfying because we couldn’t guess it, but it makes complete sense with the information we have.

4). The reveal of Stu Macher’s House:

It’s cool that they brought it back, BUT it just seems like something that all of the characters would’ve known about and commented on, and therefore it shouldn’t have been revealed to us in the manner and time it was revealed. Everyone that we see is aware of the original Woodsboro murders and referencing them constantly. It seems insanely unlikely they wouldn’t be completely aware of what house they’re going to. It seems like it would warrant a comment of some kind. Would you really want to go to a party at a former Ghost Face’s house, where he co-murdered a bunch of teens when it’s known that Ghost Face is back? He’s probably going to show up. Which brings me to…

5). How is no one prepared?

They made fun of Wes for carrying a taser, which is a realistic response from teens. But again, these murders have happened, and they’re happening again, and these kids are a) still going to that party, and b) no one’s packing any type of weapons? No shot.

6). Is Ghost Face wearing body armor?

I know there are fun fan theories about the mystical powers of the Ghost Face costume. And I suppose Ghost Face has never lost a fight while in costume, however, in the hospital, Ghost Face gets shot a bunch and not only survives, but isn’t hurt, and then the killers aren’t hurt the next time we see them. If they just revealed that they were wearing body armor, I would’ve been fine. But we’ve never seen Ghost Face just take 3+ bullets in the chest and keep going, like s/he’s…the G.O.A.T.

7). The ending/motive:

The toxic fandom motive is a nice idea, very meta in line with the franchise. However, in practice it’s just kind of unsatisfying. I find I’m either interested in no motive or just traditional stuff like money, etc. The more of a “story” it is, the less interested I am. But I know that’s just me, so this is more of a nitpick.

8). Okay, finally, the killers identities were kind of obvious (to me):

I know this point makes me sound like a tool, but to be fair, I did not guess the final killers for any of the previous four movies. So, it could’ve been a fluke this time, but I think they may have just tipped their hand more than they realized.

For Amber:

a) Before ever meeting her, Ghostface apparently stole and cloned her cell phone. That wasn’t a red flag, since Billy and Stu cloned Mr. Prescott’s cellphone in the original, but it’s a little suspicious how easily this could’ve happened without yet having been introduced to the character.

b) Early on, Amber seemed to be very close to Tara, closer than all of the others. She was very serious about it all which made her seem more intense, with the possibility of being psychotic.

bb) Also, being very close to Tara opened up the possibility that i) She would be most likely to know the security codes to disable the alarm in the opening scene, and ii) Once it’s revealed that Sam has a family secret, she would be the most likely person outside the family to know it. Especially since in the opening scene, Tara mentions that her mother is an alcoholic, once it was clear they had a family secret, it seemed highly likely someone could’ve gotten it out of her while she was drunk; something they revealed to be what happened at the end of the story. I mean Quirrell did it to Hagrid, just sayin’.

c) That actress, Mikey Madison, was in the Manson family in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, so range-wise, we know she can go nuts believably.

d) This is much later on in the movie, so maybe it’s not fair, but it seems crazy she would’ve been throwing that party given how serious and concerned she was about the murders the whole time. I know it was to commemorate Wes, but it didn’t jibe with how she behaved earlier. In the original, Stu Macher was at least a goofball who talked about sex/drugs/booze all the time, so it made complete sense that he would throw a party despite a killer being on the loose.

e) When she went downstairs to get the beer, Mindy shows up and provides great commentary about why that’s a dumb idea, but, again, given how subdued and concerned she’d been the whole time, it seemed like she would’ve wanted a buddy to go with her. This observation happened late in the movie so maybe it doesn’t count.

For Richie:

f) It was less logical, but I just had a feeling as soon as he walked on screen. For one thing, he was tall, and the killer in the opening scene was tall.

g) Maybe I’m a jerk, but given that his relationship with Sam was only 6 months old relationship, he seemed way too eager to join Sam back to Woodsboro where people were getting attacked by a copycat murderer replete with a costume.

If they were in fact that close, maybe Sam would’ve shared her secret with him, which she clearly hadn’t because Richie finds out when the audience finds out.

h) His complete lack of knowledge about the Stab franchise didn’t totally make sense since he referenced being aware of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Given that there had been eight movies in the Stab franchise, it seems like he would’ve heard about it.

i) Also, his complete lack of knowledge seemed like it could’ve been an opposite play, where we didn’t suspect him because he wasn’t into horror movies, but then it turns out to be him all along.

j) This is much later on, but why would he help facilitate everyone leaving the party if he’s scared about a killer showing up? The Principal Hembry hanging from the original was a believable reason for teens to leave the party. This just seemed forced and made it obvious he was a killer, though, to be fair, it wasn’t too long before the reveal.

k) Also, this was close to the reveal, but after clearing everyone out, he goes downstairs to get a beer? They were supposed to be stopping by to get an extra inhaler, and he was driving. There’d be no reason for him to get a beer unless he planned on staying.

8.5) No one else struck me as killer:

Yes, my slay-dar went off from Amber and Richie almost immediately, but another big part of the experience of figuring out the killer, is process of elimination, and no one else really made me think they might be the killer.

Both Sam and Tara got attacked in the beginning while by themselves, so neither could be the killer. That can work if another character is there as a witness, like with Billy in the original Scream, but it doesn’t work logically if only the audience sees it. Also, Sam was the main character, so, I never thought it was her.

Mindy was basically the “Randy” of this movie, which fit because he was her uncle. She couldn’t be the killer because she was the meta character explaining everything. They couldn’t have her explain the new rules of the re-quel, and then make her a killer, because it would be too on the nose, someone else has to explain what’s happening.

Her bother Chad doesn’t talk that much, and we don’t really get a big feel for who he is. He doesn’t get enough screen time to be the killer.

I would understand if people thought it was Wes, but for whatever reason, he just didn’t strike me that way. They made a thing of his unrequited crush on Tara as a possible motive, and that was what happened in Scream 4, so…it didn’t seem likely.

Despite these negatives, I did enjoy the movie. None of them will be better than the original, but this new version was entertaining and brought back the self-referential voice that Wes Craven imbued in the original. It’s hard to imagine what they’ll come up with for Scream 6, but they’ve earned the “right” to make another movie.