Scream Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

Scream's latest sequel is an entertaining - if uneven - addition to the franchise.

Scream 2022
Paramount

While other horror franchises have come and gone, falling by the wayside amid a glut of increasingly terrible sequels, Scream has enjoyed impressive longevity over the last 25 years.

This is undeniably in part because the filmmakers - typically late director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson - only rustled up a new movie when they actually had something worthwhile to offer. Scream 3 excepted, of course.

And now the fifth Scream is here, at once ironically sharing the title of the 1996 original and doing so because, as we all know, numbered sequels beyond three represent a risk to that ever-precious box office.

Though this new Scream doesn't get close to the tenacity or cleverness of the first two films in the series, this is a respectably mid-tier entry that, in the very least, has something to say about the state of modern horror and how we consume entertainment as a whole.

Few are likely to come away feeling that it was a necessary sequel or has carved a particularly interesting direction for future installments, but it at least seems to confirm that Scream 3's mediocrity was a mere unfortunate blip...

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.