Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Scream 5’ on VOD, a Dizzying Journey Into the Horrors of Meta-Rehash

Scream (2022) – now streaming on VOD – arrives 26 years after the first Scream (1996). They’re easily differentiated: One looks like it was made 26 years ago, and the other doesn’t. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the exact same plot, because that’s funny, ha ha ha, except with cell phones, and Courtney Cox, Neve Campbell and David Arquette are older now. The point is to pass the same plot on to a new generation, led by Melissa Barrera (In the Heights) and Jenna Ortega (The Fallout), playing sisters with a connection to the Ghostface killer. The new film, the fifth in the franchise, coins catchy terms to describe itself, requel and legacyquel, but more to the point, let’s find out if it’s a gleequel or if it’ll just make you want to fleequel.

SCREAM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Tara (Ortega) is tooling around the kitchen one night when the phone rings. The landline. In 2022. I think that’s the movie’s first joke! But how else could the killer with the deranged voice (once again provided by Roger L. Jackson) call her and show her via her cell phone that her friend Amber (Mikey Madison) is about to get stabbed if Tara doesn’t answer a series of trivia questions about the Stab movies, which are the movies in the Scream movies about what happens in the Scream movies, which are about the Scream movies, which are also about all kinds of other horror movies we’ve seen in our reality. Case in point, Tara protests the trivia contest because she says she doesn’t know much about horror movies unless they’re “elevated” horror movies, horror movies like The Babadook, The Witch, and It Follows. And then the killer – well, I’m not going to say if Tara gets Drew Barrymored or not. That might make it less fun for you.

Not revealing what happens in that opening sequence means I have to be vague from here on out, and also means this review is aware that it’s a review, just like the movie is aware it’s a movie about movies, especially the movies Scream (1996) and Scream (2022). Tara’s sister Sam (Barrera) is dragged back to Woodsboro, a town cursed to be the setting of another Scream movie every so often, her boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid) tagging along for support. Everyone at Woodsboro High is freaked out by the new slasher on the loose, especially Tara’s friends, Amber, Wes (Dylan Minnette), Mindy (Jasmin Savoy-Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding), each of whom likes to point out all the horror-movie cliches they need to defy, or maybe follow, depending on if they want to potentially get killed or kill the killer. I can imagine it might be difficult to filter a sensible M.O. for survival in this movie.

As more Woodboroians get knifed – one to the same mid-1990s Nick Cave song, even! – the plot ropes in good ol’ Gale Weathers (Cox), still a TV news reporter, her ex-husband and now ex-cop Dewey Riley (Arquette), and Sidney Prescott (Campbell), a person of nebulous character beyond the fact that she’s a mom who likes to jog. This way, the old characters and the new characters can join forces to work through the same cliches that Scream (1996) satirized, and if my math is correct, that makes them cliches of cliches, but I’m not sure if they cease becoming cliches, or just become uber-cliches, and I think I’m starting to lose this plot.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Scream (2022) so, so very much reminds me of Scream (1996). Duh.

Performance Worth Watching: If Barrera is the new face of the series, it’s a good choice – she exhibits enough charisma to elevate the Scream franchise to something just below elevated horror.

Memorable Dialogue: As a snobby Movie Knower, I agree with the character who delivers this punchline: “I STILL PREFER THE BABADOOK!”

Sex and Skin: None. Shockingly, there are no instances of masturbation in this movie.

Our Take: I dunno, this plot has eaten itself so many times that regurgitating it in the era of heavy Hollywood rehashery may make it relevant in its redundancy, but no less wearying in its comedic repetition. “You know that part in horror movies where you wanna yell at the characters to be smart and get the f— out? This is that part!” goes one line. “Welcome to act three!” goes another. “Something about this one feels different” goes yet another. Guess which one is a lie in a movie that reanimates the same needle drops and set pieces from 1996?

It’s easy to like a movie that likes movies, especially if you like movies. But that’s too easy. If you really like movies, maybe you shouldn’t like Scream (2022), and should yearn for something fresh and exciting, something that has evolved beyond meta-commentary, jump-scare fakeouts and the same old knife-goes-in-guts-come-out kills. But the movie puts one in the mindset to self-examine, and I therefore wonder if thinking in circles about a movie that thinks in circles is entirely the point. That’s why I say “I dunno” in the last paragraph. I just dunno. One thing I do know for certain: This film parrots highly irritating “film Twitter” conversations that should make any sensible individual recoil and shriek. Now THAT’S true horror.

Our Call: I’m ambivalent about this Scream. Longtime fans might be amused at the neo-meta-commentary, but I also feel that any meta-commentary has worn out its welcome by now. It’s not going to hurt to STREAM IT, and utter a pleaquel that the next one has a few more original ideas.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.