Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Cast: Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding
Have I Seen it Before: Nope, brand new. Well, sort of brand new.
Did I Like It: No review of this film will probably be complete without reckoning with the elephant steadfastly refusing to enter the room, Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott**. Campbell’s decision to not participate in the film did nothing to remove her from the suspect list. That the filmmakers were still able without skipping a beat to get this film into theaters inside of a year after the release of Scream (2022) tells me pretty clearly that Sidney was not a vital part of this story. Watching it unfold makes it pretty clear that the film probably wouldn’t have room for her. Campbell claims that she was being undervalued by the franchise she has brought so much to in the past, and in a series where it is important to not believe much of what we are told, I believe her completely.
That aside, I find this new film to be an exercise in half measures. The opening sequence—with Ghostfaces upon Ghostfaces being hunted by other Ghostfaces—is promising to the point that I think the series may have found a new lease on life that I was never completely convinced had been earned in last year’s entry. What’s more, spending time with the new “core four” characters this time was so engaging that I doubled down on my desire for six more Screams to come. This doesn’t even cover the fact that Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox, the only original cast member to return, even though I have sneaking suspicion that Matthew Lillard is in a cell somewhere, waiting for Scream 7–Sceaivii?—to come find him) gave Ghostface the fake out we all didn’t know we had been waiting for for nearly thirty years.
And then the ending happens, and most (but not all) of that promise goes up in smoke. Difficult to talk about the ending of a Scream without playing all of the available spoiler cards, but it’s a little disappointing that the new character played by the most famous actor in the cast winds up being behind it all. That’s a rule that will get you to solution of most crime procedural episodes before the second commercial break. That the whole affair ends up being a barely warmed-over rehash of the series-best Scream 2 (1997) doesn’t help anything. And the fact that both the protagonists and the villains of the piece could all come together and agree that Sidney Prescott should not be bothered right now strains the credulity of even the most naive of moviegoers. Namely, me.
Maybe we did need Sidney and Neve Campbell after all.
*Or is the title really SCREAIVI? I’m honestly not sure.
**Which I absolutely typed as Sidney Bristow originally. Thank Wes Craven that I was able to catch that one before sending the review to the press.