not the sharpest knife in the drawer 🔪

In 2015, Wes Craven passed away, leaving behind a career rich in bloody masterpieces that earned him the title of Master of Horror. And if we can cite The Last House on the Left or even The Claws of the Night as absolute classics, we also owe him for resuscitating the slasher (sub-category where a psychopathic killer eliminates his victims one by one) in 1996. with Scream. A true phenomenon, the film will have marked as much by its murders as by its awareness of the universe that surrounds it, thus opening the door to what has become a fashion in recent years in Hollywood: the meta. What could be better than seeing characters who are aware of the codes get tricked by a killer using them?

With morbid irony, Scream and its three sequels will have, each at their own level, looked at the customs of their times, ranging from Hollywood criticism in the third installment to the allure of popularity on social networks in the fourth. . Through the Stabs, a fictional saga inspired by the events of feature films, the art of using film in film has never been so well employed. And since the franchise could not be extinguished with its progenitor, business requires, it was necessary to find a replacement, or replacements in this case. From a personal point of view, the choice of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett seemed logical as their Wedding Nightmare seemed to show them as worthy heirs bottle-fed to the works of Father Craven.

A legacy that they did not intend to violate by proposing to return to the never peaceful Woodsboro where a series of murders begins again, forcing a new generation to face Ghostface while the previous intends to draw a final line on the costumed killers.

We call a new cast, we bring back Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette and we leave with a “what’s your favorite horror movie?” “. The idea, although useless, could become pleasant if it was well carried out; especially at a time when the “requels” (remake sequels like Star Wars The Force Awakens, Ghostbusters the Legacy, etc.) have invaded the big screen. Nostalgia being extremely lucrative while offering a considerable time saving for writers lacking inspiration content to use the work of their predecessors.

Scream doesn’t even have the strength to scream anymore

While Scream has done everything to get rid of his number, as a promise of a return to the original, the entire film screams its fifth episode status. Time has passed and Ghostface is sorely lacking in creativity. While we don’t have a bad time and the blood and blade cat and mouse entertainment is assured – so the film should easily attract a new audience – this homecoming shows no inspiration.

Each Craven opus knew how to provoke the unexpected by playing with its clichés, while this Scream is content to multiply the calls back to the original, almost to the limit of parody. It’s just if we will be entitled to a few lines around the famous “requels” while the footage falls completely in the first degree. As if he thought himself smarter than he is, the film connects meta sentences without grasping their relevance, surely finding it more amusing to drown in its abundance of very subtle references … unless calling its heroine Sam Carpenter can be considered subtlety. (www.patchhawaii.org)

Even the original cast have no idea what they’re doing there, failing to make us feel any sense of satisfaction seeing them back onscreen. Although we cannot deny a certain unease with the plastic face of Courteney Cox.

This fifth opus is not a bad copy, but it remains only a copy attempting to totally surf the aura of the first film, until taking again the scenes, without bringing anything new. We could have been satisfied with the efficiency of his gore aspect by half closing our eyes to its shortcomings if it hadn’t been for the pretense of knowing what the fans wanted. Because we know it, and it’s certainly not that Scream.