Twenty-five years ago Wes Craven’s Scream breathed new life into a flagging genre spawning three sequels and the hilarious parody series Scary Movie. For many, this franchise sparked a love of horror but for eight-year old me it gave me a suitably terrifying boogeyman and something of a love-hate relationship with the slasher genre as a whole. So I had to put on my big girl pants for our latest trip to the cinema, as we were going to check out the fifth film of the franchise, Scream (or Scream 5 if you prefer).
“What’s your favourite scary movie?”
The film opens with the obligatory, and iconic, cat-and-mouse phone call that sees teenager Tara (Jenna Ortega) playing a twisted game of scary movie trivia focused on the in-universe movie franchise ‘Stab’ that was inspired by the events that traumatised the residents of Woodsboro back in 1996. When she gets a question wrong, Tara is viciously attacked, stabbed multiple times by someone wearing a Ghostface mask, but she survives bringing her estranged sister, Sam, back to town. As well as setting the tone of the movie – honouring the legacy whilst maintaining its own identity – it also serves as a great opportunity to bring viewers like me back up to speed.
Sam’s boyfriend Ritchie joins her for moral support despite having never seen a ‘Stab’ movie and knowing nothing of the blood-soaked story of Woodsboro and Sam’s family history, and together they hunt for the identity of the new Ghostface bringing in the expertise of former-Deputy Sherriff Dewey Riley.
Playing with some stereotypical story tropes, Scream is not afraid to call out the clichés of the genre; no-one should go down into a basement on their own, the killer is never dead unless you shoot them in the head and the friends are always suspects. Tara’s friends – Wes, Amber, Mindy, Chad and Liv – know enough about the town’s bloody history and the ‘Stab’ movie franchise to know that one of them is the likely killer but they also provide the audience with a succinct, yet quietly funny, explanation of the new Hollywood trend of Legacy movies or, as our suspect teens call them, re-quels.
Speaking of legacies, David Arquette’s return as Dewey Riley is supported by both Courtney Cox and Neve Campbell as they reprise their respective roles as reporter Gale Weathers and Sidney Prescott. But what the film does particularly well – more so than perhaps some other recent Legacy films – is the fact that these legacy characters are nostalgic yet purposeful, not detracting from the story or affect the pacing in any way.
Playing with their audience a little bit, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett mock the very concept of legacy films that they are themselves delivering, derides the influence of toxic fandoms and drags out the tension of some jump-scares to the point that it becomes frustratingly comedic before turning the tables with some impressive and atmospheric set pieces, culminating in an epic – yet not completely unexpected – killer reveal and action-packed final showdown.
I actually liked Scream much more than I thought I would. It has a well constructed, well paced and well thought out story that doesn’t take itself too seriously, staying true to the spirit of Wes Craven’s legacy whilst carving out (no pun intended) its own identity.
