Movie review - Scream (2022 edition)

Scream ** (out of 5) ( R) Die-hard fans of the franchise may find this more satisfying than those of us who liked the early ones, but haven’t been salivating for 25 years over the prospect of a finale. For starters, we’re given characters in a horror flick being so self-aware that they’re regularly citing genre tropes in deciding what to do, or NOT to do, to survive in this one. This last gasp in the series does that to death - literally and figuratively. It’s set in the same town as the others, with a new crop of teens all too aware of what happened there before as they strive to identify the latest killer in the familiar hooded mask. That makes the long, recurring discussions about what usually happens and why it does more urgent to the cast, but ever more tedious for the viewer.

The link is amplified by bringing back three of the series’ staunch survivors (David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Neve Campbell) to help the new batch of fresh meat live through the latest incarnation of this cyclical menace. Many die in gruesome ways while examining the patterns and connections to previous slayings in order to discover who’s running amok among them at this time. There’s the customary mix of gore and grins, but it all grows rather tiresome. Familiarity has been known to breed contempt. In this case, it may cause indifference. Unless you’re heavily invested in the fates of Dewey, Sidney and Gale after their previous dances with their devils, this one will seem like a garden-variety slasher flick, indistinguishable from the previous Scream offerings and dozens of successors. Nothing new. Nothing special.

(In theaters 1/14/22)