Scream 2022 review “A bloody good time”

I remember vividly watching Scream for the very first time. It was 1999, I was 10 years old, and the copy of the film was a pirated VHS tape that my friend brought over during a sleepover. It terrified me, even in its dreadfully grainy bootleg video form.

By the time I was legally old enough to watch Scream, Scream 4 had been released – a competent sequel that still managed to show those flashes of brilliance the originally so perfectly demonstrated. In fact, this long running franchise has rarely missed a beat – notwithstanding Scream 3.

With such a good track record, among its horror film brothers, I was understandably nervous about the release of a new edition, simply titled Scream, which follows the current trend of forgoing numbers and straplines – we’re not in the 90s anymore people! But after 11 years, is the franchise still clever enough to succeed among a more sophisticated type of horror?

Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, California, a new killer dons the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past.

This is the first Scream film to not be directed by horror legend Wes Craven following his passing in 2015. Instead we’ve got Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett – fresh from the success of Ready or Not. I can’t think of a better set of hands to take Wes Craven’s franchise and continue his legacy.

The film introduces a fresh group of teens for Ghostface to stalk, and as has been the case for all the films in the series, the tight script allows us to see multiple facets of their personalities. The stereotypical jock isn’t just a sex-crazed athlete, the geeky girl isn’t completely friendless. It’s all very self-aware, and this allows the characters to (generally speaking) make sensible decisions that feel at odds with the genre. It was only last year that Halloween Kills showed that good modern horror is still full of characters that made incomprehensible choices.

This ensemble cast is a real highlight of Scream. We’ve got 13 Reasons Why’s Dylan Minnette, Jack Quaid (The Boys) and the brilliant Jenny Ortega among many, many other talented performers. This new cast is probably the strongest mix of personalities since the original, and that makes them gel perfectly with, you guessed it, the legacy characters.

And it’s in those legacy characters where we find comfort. Courteney Cox, David Arquette and of course Neve Campbell all return, alongside Marley Shelton’s Judy Hicks to add weight to the film. They also provide the emotional grounding that works well with the sharp humour and brutal kills.

Those ties to what came before can make or break a film. Rely too heavily on them and it becomes too much of a crux that you need to add into the story. Don’t tie to them enough and fans will complain about a new direction that doesn’t sit well with them. Well, I’m pleased to say that Scream has managed to get the balance absolutely spot on.

The series has always had some of the best sound mixing in the genre, but Scream 2022 takes that to a whole new level. The kills may not be the most inventive, but they’re bloody, exquisitely filmed and sound absolutely incredible. You really do feel every stab and slash as Ghostface goes about Woodsboro snatching his victims.

Overall, Scream is a remarkable return to the big screen for the dormant franchise. It takes everything we loved about the original film and updates it for the modern era. Fresh, smart, well-written, nicely acted and with an emotional weight not normally seen in the genre, it’s a must-watch for fans and newcomers alike.