Andrei Girard’s review published on Letterboxd:
I was really excited to watch this film, and it managed to pleasantly surprise me and disappoint me, in equal meassure.
The kills are neat. Likewise, the sound design is impeccable, doing a wonderful job at building suspense. The cast is great too. It was cool seeing Sidney, Gale and Dewey, but honestly, they are underutilised here, which is a shame. And, Sam is honestly not an interesting leading character. Anyway, there are a couple of interesting characters like Mindy, Chad and Tara.
It definitely tries to resemble the original, and it does it in some ways, but at the same time, it sort of feels different. Of course, it follows the same formula, but it adds some new elements to make it feel a tiny bit more distinctive, even though it often runs out of fresh ideas. However, it wasn't as fun or as meta as the previous installments. It occasionally makes fun of itself like the rest of the franchise, but this film takes itself a bit more "seriously". At least, it tries.
Something I really liked about this, is how it fools with you, making you anticipate for something that's coming for sure but not exactly as you were expecting it. Although, some jumpscares were really annoying. On the other hand, there are some story choices that are quite disappointing. One in particular that really got me mad, you'll know what I mean when you see it. It's certainly not a clever move. Extremely upsetting.
There are two main twists, one of them was so obvious that you could see it coming a mile away, but the other one was unexpected to me.
It's far from perfect, but it's enjoyable for the most part. I had some fun with it.
EDIT [March 7th]: I actually did not like it as much as the first time I watched it last year. Now that I was able to pay a lot more attention to everything, I realised how nonsensical it is as a whole. Like, a lot of it doesn't make any sense. Besides, I found it quite derivative, even though it tries to distinguish itself from the rest whilst at the same time, pay homage to the franchise. It's not a bad film, but it's not exactly a return to form. Hoping this upcoming installment is better.
