Scream (2022) Movie Review & Comments

Mark Costello

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Finally a review I agree with on this film. Reinvention not a rehash was needed. Very disappointed.
 
Based on your description, Mark, this feels like an inevitable endpoint for the Scream franchise.

The original was highly postmodern and referential, with at least some smarts underpinning that approach.

I'd argue that we're well beyond the limits of postmodernism, meaning we're doomed to watch the endless regurgitation of intellectual properties, because that's what the film industry has become: an IP driven factory, churning out identikit products for our supposed entertainment, relying on little more than brand recognition to entice people to watch.
 
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Completely disagree with the review.
For me it was a worthy sequel/prequel/reboot.
Up there with recent Ghostbusters film, with enough of the old mixed with the new.
8/10 🔪🤩
 
Yep, pretty much. I didn't hate watching it but it was not a good movie.
 
Completely disagree with the review.
For me it was a worthy sequel/prequel/reboot.
Up there with recent Ghostbusters film, with enough of the old mixed with the new.
8/10 🔪🤩
I thought they were both unnecessary, you can add the new Matrix to that too, want nostalgia, watch the original
 
Think this review is way harsh. Blended the the old and the new rather well I thought. Funny take on the state of fandom and post modernism. It’s not scary, but I’ve never found a Scream film scary.
 
So ruminating on this, especially in comparison to the other nostalgia fuelled busters of blocks we've had recently, and I think the issue with the film is solely in its legacy.

Remove the OG characters and the links to the past movies, but keep everything else - masked killer, smart arse teens, even some of the more....questionable character beats (Melissa Berrera's odd heritage), and call it Summer of Slasher (or some other non-descript title) and the film improves.

Sure the kills are still patchy and I'm not sold on the parody vs meta line (which is still crossed far too often for me), but without the weight of the past (ironically for this franchise, I'm very aware!) this becomes a Blumhouse generic teen fodder flick and its perfectly serviceable.

But you call it Scream, you tie it to that legacy - a legacy of doing something new and different with most entries (sure Scream 3 was way to funny but it moved to the production side of Hollywood and the prescient seedier side of how that used to work, while Scream 4 took to social media in the absolute right way in terms of an update) - then expectations instantly jump.

And I've said all I want to about the treatment of the OG characters - sure, its obviously very personal but on this week's re-watch of Scream 2, when Dewey's theme first plays out, I got actual goosebumps (which I VERY rarely do), but when the film was sold on them being the main characters (top billing, the only cast faces on all the recent marketing blitz) again, expectations were set that they would actually be the films leads.........

So yeah. I understand how some will score this higher - as I said, its a perfectly serviceable if patchy remake of the first film. But for ME, with MY attachments to the franchise, this needed to be different and it needed to be better. And it was neither. So sorry y'alls, I kinda hope that the obvious sequel baiting of our new lead's personality 'trait' setting us up for further adventures with Ghostface never sees the light of day even though I desperately want good Scream films. Which most had been up until now........
 
I'm not sold on the parody vs meta line (which is still crossed far too often for me)

What's the distinction between parody and meta? Both rely on recognition of popular culture tropes that help audiences feel "smart" because the "get it." Yet getting it doesn't typically demand that much of audiences, other than retaining some memory of highly familiar texts.

That's why I find postmodernism increasingly tedious. If all that's left on offer is a lazy rehashing of popular texts, in ways that call back in not particularly subtle or engaging fashion, we're left with an industry with a near fatal absence of creativity.

Having spent huge sums acquiring intellectual property rights, all that's left for what we might loosely term Hollywood is an unending exploitation of the familiar. I'm perhaps in a minority of one who never wants to watch a superhero movie again.
 
Seen this today in the cinema and totally agree with the review. Massive overuse of the work "fudge" to the point it was distracting. The first movie is still a classic, this is a distant parody of a parody of a parody with the violence turned up to cover some really hammy acting and scripting. Worth a watch though and then odd genuine jump. A bit like.the Matrix remake for me, it just reminded me how good the original was and should.have been left alone.
 
What's the distinction between parody and meta? Both rely on recognition of popular culture tropes that help audiences feel "smart" because the "get it." Yet getting it doesn't typically demand that much of audiences, other than retaining some memory of highly familiar texts.

That's why I find postmodernism increasingly tedious. If all that's left on offer is a lazy rehashing of popular texts, in ways that call back in not particularly subtle or engaging fashion, we're left with an industry with a near fatal absence of creativity.

Having spent huge sums acquiring intellectual property rights, all that's left for what we might loosely term Hollywood is an unending exploitation of the familiar. I'm perhaps in a minority of one who never wants to watch a superhero movie again.
The first film used 'meta' incredibly well to address long-held criticisms of these types of films - less a 'look how many movie references we can cram in', more a clever way of both acknowledging the criticisms and the genre itself, but then using them to wrong foot the audience by both subverting the tropes (two final girls? Both of whom had actually engaged in pre-marital sex? Two killers?) and then using the tropes themselves to wink at the audience who is then expecting them to be subverted (the going to the basement alone for beer? I'll be right back?????).

And while this latest version did something similar on a couple of occasions:
I'll admit, I was wrong footed by the boyfriend being the killer after Dewey pointed the finger at him right at the very start! Doh!
too often it didn't, falling back into the use of meta as nothing more than a smart arse 'look how much I know about horror' - witness the cringey opening dialogue with the first kill about 'elevated' horror which said nothing at all about the film or the character:
it wouldn't have been so bad if the girl then demonstrated that she may know about 'intelligent' horror but it left with no smarts at all when it came to dealing with 'simpler' horror...but it didn't. She did everything right, everything sensible, wasting the entire notion of using that discussion to enhance the plot/film

And totally agree - postmodernism now needs to be something different because its been done. Ironically postmodernism now IS absolutely the new cliche-riddled trope........it needs to evolve or at least be used differently before it becomes any more of a parody of itself.
 
I never thought scream was much cop in the first place, so easy pass
 
Thing is with regards to the original characters, for me they were involved in the most logical way they could be.
Anything more at this point is kinda absurd. Which in itself is daft, as we’re talking about horror parody here, but hey, this is what we’re dealing with,
 
As others have said, not required.
Just aiming for the next generation to bring the Scream franchise back but for me it was weak and too predictable and painful to watch. Love the marketing guys "A true horror classic" statement LOL
 
Watched this last night and was disappointed. Glad I didn't pay the $20 I almost did last month to buy it.

Not quite as unnecessary as the lastest Matrix movie, but not far from it. Scream 2 covered a lot of this already. Scream 4 I really enjoyed and was different enough not to be another rehash, but apart from some good deaths (but not great), great 4K PQ and SQ, this was nothing really.

Hopefully that's that.
 
Watched this last night, I didn’t have high hopes but wow what a let down! There’s nothing redeeming about the film whatsoever.
Likely the worst film I’ve seen in a long time and I'm a fan of the first 3.
 
I agree with everything Mark has said about this film in his review. It's the worst of the series, and it's way too up its own backside with all the meta and self referencing that it can't be taken seriously, the drama and tension is lost because it's constantly trying to show you how smart it is when it isn't. Sure the previous Scream films had it but they didn't beat you over the head with it like this one does.

One scene in particular where someone is watching Stab at home on tv, the movie within the movie from Scream 2, replays itself in this movie in the exact same room that it took place in from Scream, that Stab was based on.

None of the new characters are particularly likeable and the returning OG cast have little to do except for one. There were some interesting ideas behind the motives of the killer but it felt weak in execution. I had partly worked out who it was and the direction they were going in.

I think the series has hit a dead end at this point. I think they would have been better to establish a clean break from the OG cast and set it in a totally different location with a new ghostface killing a new batch of people. The only callback would be that at some point they find out this happened 25 years earlier but the surviving members can't be found as they changed their identities, except for Gail Weathers being she's a public figure.

It would be the requeal that is mentioned, a remake of sorts but set many years after the events of the first film. This way they are free to take it in a different direction, lose a lot of the meta references and not be so reliant on tying it to the previous films and characters.
 
haven't seen the first. Is it worth the watch?
Probably shows it age a bit now, but it was a game changer. I still love it, have not time for Scream 2022 at all, it’s just a remix of the first.
 

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