For a movie that takes pleasure in poking fun at consistently lame “requels” (sequels that are actually reboots), the new Scream is surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, kind of lame. Entertaining and satisfyingly gory, this requel is still more of a lackluster retread of the original than it’d like to admit.

While Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette return, the primary cast features the talented combo of Melissa Barrera (In the Heights) and Jenna Ortega (The Fallout). And a pile of inevitable minced meat. The plot doesn’t matter much, but safe to say a bunch of young people die in Woodsboro and a pair of Ghostface killers are to blame.

2022’s Scream (why not just call it Scream 5? The movie gives you an answer, sort of) succeeds in a few places. The main attack sequences are legitimate and in line with the quality of other Scream movies; directors Matt Bettinelli and Tyler Gillett land a few thrilling sequences that maybe don’t match the best moments from the first couple, but still stand on their own. Barrera and Ortega are great in their respective roles, their characters well written (well, aside from some weird hallucinations). The movie also elicits a decent number of laughs, even if only some of the meta commentary lands as intended.

What’s frustrating about Scream is that five movies in, a franchise that prides itself on making fun of convention while flipping things on their side… feels trapped in convention, with little unpredictability. There’s nothing new to see here, the killers’ identities are not surprising in the slgihtest, and practically everything happens exactly as you’d expect. The third act, while fun at a basic level, feels like a lesser version of the original’s; in its attempts to be clever, the movie begins to feel utterly routine.

While it’s great to see Campbell back in action, she looks tired and bored, largely because her character has been reduced to the wise sage who’s been there before and wants to tell you about it. Cox gets the same treatment. Arquette is the only returning cast member who seems to give a damn, but he even he feels exhausted at the notion that he's back yet again.

If you’re a fan of the Scream franchise, this new iteration delivers enough thrills and blood spatter to satisfy the itch. Sadly, the franchise feels incredibly stale at this point, one beholden to the kind of formula the earlier films mocked with ease.

Review by Erik Samdahl.