No.It is not an age of eternal rest, rather than eternal returns. Another dose of the vaccine, another Matrix, another Scream – the saga that seemed buried with chapter 4 (2011) and now in the cinema with episode number 5. What it is neither a sequel nor a reboot, mind you, is a requel (as the experts say). That is, a film that recovers the imagery of a previous film without worrying about a precise temporal location. Nor to reset and start again. In short, a tribute from fans.
For which trouble if they are missing the actors of the parent film. And they responded to the appeal Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott), Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers) e David Arquette (Dewey Riley). Tris unfortunate of the cult meta-narrative released in 1996, and the next three signed all by Wes Craven, again sliced by Ghostface at the behest of Kevin Williamson and the duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett.
And why not, if Trinity and Neo they were resurrected with impunity then what about horror stars being shot and stabbed multiple times. The bad never dies, but neither do the good ones. So how to revive a franchise after 25 years of imitating self-irony on the genre of the original film?
Scream: history repeating itself
Woodsboro, in the notorious town from which Sidney escaped (not without taking away all the wardrobe of leather jackets), Tara Carpenter (Jenny Ortega) is likely to end up like Drew Barrymore in the first Scream: with Ghostface calling you (on analogue fixed while holding a smartphone, attention) by submitting it to a questionnaire on Stab, a fantasy film inspired by the ’96 slaughter launched in Scream 2. Being more ferrata on Babadook, a more sophisticated horror, the girl – with asthma problems, not an indifferent detail – ends up in the hospital.
Friends go to visit her and – surprisingly – his sister Sam (Melissa Barrera), accompanied by her boyfriend Richie (Jack Squaid). Meanwhile, the sequence of murders begins until “there will remain only one or at least a small group including the murderer”. Of the original cast it is Dewey to appear first, follows Gale and finally Sidney, in Woodsboro after an attack by the monster still to the detriment of Tara; but above all for a sensational death.
When Sam decides to run away with his sister still half in plaster, Sidney reminds her that until she personally puts an end to this affair, the murders won’t stop. It is in fact no coincidence that Ghostface has it up with Tara, her friends, Ritchie and Sam. And also with Sidney; who remembers how the murderer always returns to the places of the crime, and to the past.
Tara Carpenter (Jenny Ortega).
Suspense, jokes and cunning
But in fact, it succeeds Scream 2022 not to be older than a 90s cinema course? To survive the ironic universe of the film within the horror film it gave birth to, up until recently self-righteous condemnation from And just like that …? The answer is difficult and simple at the same time. And it depends on the desire to let oneself be carried away by the staging, enjoying the show.
That continues the tradition on the rules of what to do and not to do in a horror movie – like never love, never go get a beer in the basement – adding the odd points of view of the fandoms. Those obsessed groups that argue about Hollywood over and without ideas (in Matrix Lana Wachowski percolates the greedy Warner who wants another sequel), to films that they are only stabs against stabs which are liberation from white oppression: Run away – Get out. And it increases the load.
From which very successful lines such as: “I wasn’t like that, I was radicalized», Placed next to the repeated game of the fridge which once closed (crescendo of violins) reveals the murderer.
Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott) and Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers).
So the move of each character gives way to speculations and theories. A spoilers that could be such and maybe not (“The first to be suspected is the boyfriend, don’t you know?”), To the eternal return: comes out here and there a fourth pivotal character in the saga emerges from the shower scene of Psyco, comes out Dawson’s Creek on a television (series created by Kevin Williamson), and lots of name-dropping, from Halloween to Hereditary – the roots of evil.
These winks are fun, until they become heavy as boulders. They hinder as well the scares. Announce yourself every time someone he realizes that the situation is similar much a Friday 13 (to name a random slasher), and then beware that the monster is about to arrive.
Exhausted by so much pre-alarm, by so much suffocating love for the tradition of Scream, it is not hard to sympathize with Sidney and Gale’s tired air (“Do you shoot? Do I shoot?”).
Also bleeding from milk to the knees for these incapable kids to create their own franchise. To do of the smartphone a mythical object like the cordless, to give streaming the same charm as VHS. In short, to plant it with nostalgia and get busy with the news. Kevin Williamson included, as the kids inside are the worst.
And the killers, who by tradition screamesca are they always two? The script misleads very well. But, if you are an expert on the career of these actors, it is easy to understand who is hiding behind the ghost mask. At least as regards one of the two.
A role whose final parable corresponds to another quote, this time out of the universe of Scream. The most successful homage of the film. The funniest, most shameless, cinematic destination and Hollywood destination.
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