The fun of the Scream franchise has been its meta-textual commentary, wry jabs at horror, and the guessing game of who the killer culprit(s) could be, and Scream 5 or Scr5am (what it SHOULD be called) is a good-fun B-movie that knows precisely what it wants to be and plays to the strengths of the franchise. We haven’t had a Scream sequel since 2011, and the landscape of horror has changed as well as the landscape of multi-media entertainment. There are new satirical horizons to be targeted. This is the first Scream after the death of legendary horror director Wes Craven, but it’s in good hands with the directors and writer of 2019’s bloody excellent Ready or Not. The fun, knowingly goofy elements are retained, and the filmmakers clearly have love for what they’re sending up. There’s a sequence of languishing shots of a character opening fridge doors and pantry doors and I felt everyone in my theater tense for the eventual reveal of the killer on the other side. Moments like these are the good kind of tension-release giggle that Scream can get away with. The plot is sufficient to gather the “legacy characters” back to the site of the original murders for a new stab at rewriting the movie franchise. There’s even some plot elements that are surprisingly resonant and deeper for a satirical slasher franchise, like tear-filled discussions over loss, abandonment, mental illness, and personal responsibility. There’s a sister-to-sister reconciliation that plays like a straight drama, and it plays well. There’s nothing terribly gruesome or memorable about the kills, and some of the meta-commentary can feel like talking in circles, especially as characters knowingly enact scenes from the original. It’s a copy of a copy, meant to mock Hollywood’s reboots, but it’s still a copy of a copy. Sometimes the knowing winks are obvious, like a shower sequence recreating Hitchcock’s angles, and sometimes the potential homage feels lost in translation. Still, Scream 5 is a fun, ironic, bloody hoot of a movie, and for fans of the franchise a more welcomed return to the creative heights of the original movie.

Nate’s Grade: B