• Director: Matt Betinnelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett
• With: Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Melissa Barrera, Jack Quaid, Mickey Madison, Jenna Ortega, Dylan Minnette, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sonia Ammar, Skeet Ulrich, Kyle Gallner, Heather Matarazzo, Roger Jackson, Marley Shelton
• Music by: Brian Tyler
• Duration: 1h54
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• Rating: 9/10

Synopsis:

Like the original movie 25 years ago, a teenage girl is at home alone when the phone rings. A man wants to play a game with her. With the threat of killing her best friend, Tara’s forced to play along. She barely survives the ghost face masked intruder’s stabbing. Her 5 year older sister, Sam(antha), who left home at 18 due to mental problems, Sam’s boyfriend and Tara’s high school friends visit her at the hospital. Later on in a bar, a guy provokes the friends and is later attacked outside in the parking lot by Ghostface. Sam receives a call from him at the hospital and then he unsuccessfully attacks her. She later reveals family secrets to her sister. Sam contacts one of the original victims, Dewey, for help. He warns two other original victims, Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers, about Ghostface being back. Who is Ghostface? How many more must die?

Review:

Scream (aka Scream V / Scream 5) was a success from the get go and when you watch it, you can clearly see why. It has all the elements the original Scream had plus it ups the ante on some of the killings, even killing off returnees, even unexpectedly so!

Now I’ve said too much without saying a lot!

Woodsboro is back, and a new killer stalks a group of teen friends, starting with Tara who is attacked at her home by Ghostface. But unlike previous movies, she actually survives the attack. The attack on Tara prompts her sister to come back to Woodsboro, after being away for five years. I won’t spoil why she left, but it has to do with her connection to the first killings.

Then one by one the killer offs the group. Sam and her boyfriend Richie contact the previous sheriff of Woodsboro, Dewey Riley. He warns Sydney and Gale not to come back but of course, this is wishful thinking. So the old gang is back at one point.

In the movie, in true Scream fashion, they comment on horror franchises (via Stab) and how the new thing in horrorland is requels (what Scream is for us), there’s even an inside joke about Stab 8 called Stab omitting the number… this movie omitted the 5 as well. (I guess there will be an inside joke in the sixth movie about the use of roman letters?)

And as this is a requel (something between a reboot and a sequel) there are again new rules and who better than Randy Meeks’ niece could give them to the audience? 😀

This one really invigorated the franchise again and I’m sure we’ll get a few more Scream movies before they shut it completely down. Seeing Gale (who will return for the sixth!), Sydney (who will not as Neve Campbell wasn’t agreeing with the fee paid for the sixth) and Dewey (who is back for the fifth!) and Judy (making more lemon tarts). We even get to see Tatum (in a way) and hear some of the actors from previous movies (as a tribute to Wes Craven, who died in 2015)!