Scream: A Fitting Reboot

When Scream came out in 1996, the look and feel of horror movies was very different from what it is today. The slasher had been mass marketed and became a cottage industry of its own and the first meta-commentary on the genre (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) had always been released. On top of this, major horror franchises like Halloween and Friday the 13th had most recently released their sixth and ninth entries respectively so when Scream came, it was a breath of fresh air to the genre. The newest entry, like the original, continues the franchise trend of lampooning the Hollywood trends of the last decade.

Scream tells the story of Sam and Tara who are targeted by a new Ghostface Killer and end up in a “requel,” defined in the movie as a film that functions as both a reboot to a franchise and a sequel to the movies that had come before it. It is a logical way to go considering that past entries had taken shots at the genre as a whole and then eventually the world of sequels and broadly the business of Hollywood, but the commentary never goes deeper than surface level. It is not exactly a good sign when Jay and Silent Bob Reboot does the same commentary and does it much better.

Scream also has a voice issue in so much as there is one character who has a unique voice and everyone else just sounds the same. It is a general rule of screenwriting that, after a viewer has watched a movie and they understand the characters, they should be able to read a line from the movie and tell you which character said it. It is not a memorization question, it is a question of being able to identify that each character has their own motivation, their own distinct way of speaking, and their own unique area of expertise. The entire group of teenagers that is friends with Tara all sound interchangeable and one person’s dialogue is interchangeably entirely with another. Instead of five characters, there is really just one character speaking through five faces.

The movie does execute the third act well which will make or break enjoyment of the movie for most audiences. As the twists are revealed and the killers are unmasked, the ending’s action sequences, and sense of suspense are where the movie really finds its footing and makes its mark. Scream has historically acted more as a whodunit than a traditional slasher, so a third act focused on unveiling the truth for both the audience and the characters works better than a final confrontation where it is focused solely on the protagonist trying to face down and kill a borderline supernatural serial killer. Milage will vary depending on what viewers are looking for.

The movie is the strongest of the sequels by a long shot. It is worth the time to see, even if one waits for it to go to home media. Hopefully when they inevitably make a sequel, they touch on the “slasher vs elevated horror” debate that was briefly touched on in this movie. That would make for a very interesting commentary for a future film.

Final Rating: 8/10