Back for gore
SCREAM Cert 18 ★★★ In cinemas now
Sequels are rubbish, according to the chatty teens in the fifth instalment of the Scream franchise. But, apparently, this isn’t a standard sequel. It’s what one horror-movieobsessed teen calls a “requel”.
Pitched somewhere between a reboot and follow-up, it modifies old scares for a new generation while appeasing fans with “legacy characters”.
In this case, it means Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and Neve Campbell are back to lend support to a fresh consignment of serial killer fodder.
Wes Craven’s 1996 movie Scream was one of the first horror films to flaunt its formulaic underpinnings.
Its masked killer Ghostface was so obviously following the rules of the scary movie that his potential victims knew not to utter the fateful words “I’ll be right back” before taking solo trips to dark basements.
Now the masked killer is back and he’s desperate to reboot his “franchise” with a fresh batch of slayings.
Jenna Ortega plays high schooler Tara who is tormented by a familiar voice on a spookily old-fashioned device called a “landline”.
When the caller asks her what scary movies she likes, she shuns 90s gore for the thoughtful “elevated horror” of her favourite film The Babadook. Perhaps understandably, this sparks the enraged old slasher to take a stab at Generation Z.
As Tara’s estranged sister (Melissa Barrera) hunts for the killer, suspicion falls on “the love interest” and her “closely knit group of friends” before middle-aged survivors are drawn back into the fray. The most memorable sequence mixes comedy with suspense as a cocky teen tempts fate by flinging open doors without thinking about doing the essential checks for lurking maniacs.
It’s a bit too pleased with itself to be properly scary, but there’s still some life left in this serial-aware old slasher.
It’s old scares for a new generation as masked killer is on a reboot rampage