The Scream “requel” resurrects Wes Craven’s vision

Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers ruled the slasher horror scene in the 80s. They were celebrities for our collective nightmares, where they could simply step into our waking reality, interrupting our summer camp or stalking our very shadows. An overhang from Alfred Hitchcock’s slow-boiling black-and-white slasher that was Norman Bates in Psycho, which spawned a number of sequels, the horror genre really took off when John Carpenter’s Halloween reinvigorated and cemented its foundational elements in Hollywood.

It’s a subgenre that has resurfaced many times over the years but none have managed to surpass the genius of the master of suspense’s Psycho or the spine-tingling chiller Halloween. Both films were effectively low budget, so there’s something to be said for the art of crafting a truly terrifying slasher. Both filmmakers weren’t short on passion (and even cinematic genius) but it was their groundbreaking visions and genre twists that set them apart.

Wes Craven revived the slasher genre with Scream

Responsible for writing and directing The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes in the 70s, Wes Craven eventually pioneered one of the best horror franchises of all-time in A Nightmare on Elm Street. A horror luminary, probably best known for Freddy’s undying dreamscape with a reboot every decade or so, his most influential hit franchise is Scream. Coming at a time when the slasher seemed to be dead and buried along with its most famous villains, Scream revived the genre inspiring teen slashers like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend.

Craven’s film featured a masked killer, unsuspecting teenagers and a fairly typical high school scenario but what made it different is that it turned the genre inside out. Being self-aware, Craven managed to reference the genre, and used its cliches to lampoon and push off tired tropes, splintering off in new directions. Using a movie geek’s slasher rules to poke fun with survival guidelines like not drinking, doing drugs, having sex or saying “I’ll be right back”, Craven built an ironic level of horror intensity with new rules for each sequel.

The mantle is passed for the “requel”

Having directed every Scream horror film until he too found himself buried and without a sequel in sight, the mantle was passed on to be resurrected by others. Taking on this tricky balancing act was Ready or Not’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, directing a screenplay written by James Vanderbilt and Gary Busick. The new Scream, technically the fifth film in the series, is titled Scream… even though it’s technically a “requel” – a blend of the words reboot and sequel.

Scream 4 concocted a “10 years later…” situation where several of the original Scream film’s cast reprised their roles to be terrorised by the Ghostface killer. This honour has typically befallen Scream figurehead Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott flanked by Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers and David Arquette as Dewey Riley. In the new Scream, the long-running trio return to Woodsboro 25 years after the streak of brutal murders that brought them all together as the Ghostface killer targets a new group of teenagers… you know, fresh meat.

Assembling the old team with fresh new faces

This Scream’s next generation cast is more diverse, made up of Melissa Barrera, Jack Quaid, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Jenna Ortega. The striking and smart Barrera is best known for In the Heights, assuming the role of Sam – the next “Sidney Prescott”. Playing opposite Barrera as her love interest, Richie, Quaid’s “Pacey from Dawson’s Creek” energy is strong as the two compel Deputy Dewey into assembling the old team. Brown is there to stoke up some of Zendaya’s “MJ from Spider-Man” sass as Mindy while Ortega parries as kill scene survivor, Tara.

Starting with the typical kill scene, originally played by Drew Barrymore or Heather Graham in the self-referential Stab series, the Ghostface killer’s unmistakable voice finds a well-versed horror fan home alone. Starting off faux congenial, the voice made famous by Roger L Jackson coaxes its way into a breezy conversation about elevated horror, poking fun at previous films with a modern depiction of a not-so-vulnerable victim. Sliding from charming to a more sinister “what’s your favourite scary movie?” phone call quiz, things heat up as Tara begins to realise the game is up. Using social media and home automation for an extra layer of modernity, Scream 5 kicks off with an equally weighted standoff that echoes through the rest of the film.

Keeping things meta

Re-engineering many of the original film’s set ups, the filmmakers introduce their would-be teenage victims with a 90s alternative rock backtrack. While the new Scream harks back to Wes Craven’s breakout slasher, it adds a few fun twists of its own, retaining its self-referential edge but updating the environment to reflect more of today’s trends and values. Serving as a tribute with a few inside jokes, returning cast members and even the apparition of a former serial killer, the latest iteration also works as a standalone film.

Injecting humour, intermittent kills, quintessential Scream moments and inside references to keep things meta, the latest Scream is full of creepy surprises. Smarter than most teen slashers, this requel checks many boxes in resurrecting Craven’s vision. Name-dropping elevated modern horror classics such as Hereditary, The Witch and Get Out, the film reflects its own mission and challenges as a reboot and sequel, even identifying its own characters during the elaborate movie geek monologue.

A blood-soaked love letter to horror movies

Scream is a tightrope-walking act, trying to appease old fans, introduce new audiences and continue Wes Craven and Scream’s legacy. Filled with inside jokes using Stab as a way to speak to the Scream series itself, it’s clearly a blood-soaked love letter from two horror movie fans. While budgetary limitations force the filmmakers to get even more creative, this quick-paced sequel offers enough gore, genre play and murder mystery guess work to keep the original slasher’s flame flickering brightly with all the trademark elements.

Much like the Scream 2, 3 and 4 sequels, it doesn’t manage to match the novelty and invention of the first Scream but is entertaining and suspenseful enough to carry the Ghostface mask, black gown and blade onto a sixth franchise film. If you Google “slasher horror film” you’ll find titles like Freaky, The Strangers: Prey at Night, Haunt, Brahms: The Boy II and Red Dragon (all of these are streaming on Showmax). This Scream honours the lore of the original and earns its place among these contemporaries, counterbalancing retro charm with modern affectations and a few Easter eggs to boot.