Ryan Conde’s review published on Letterboxd:
My first moviegoing experience of 2022 and what a great way to start it! Scream or Scream 5 or whatever the hell you wanna call it does a great job at bringing the Scream franchise back to its roots. While this movie can't beat the original I would honestly consider it the second-best Scream movie. Maybe it was just the experience of seeing this film in a theater with a crowd but I really had a great time with this film. It has its problems in which I'll get to later in this review but I really want to talk about the stuff that works in this film. The story is well-told enough, the cinematography is great, the musical score is good, the direction is fantastic, and even though it is not Wes Craven directing the film it still really feels like a Scream movie that takes place in the universe of the other four films, the editing is solid, the humor gets some really good laughs, the atmosphere creates some very intense and suspenseful moments, most of the scares are surprisingly effective and are set up well, the characters are all likable and funny rather they be the old ones like Sidney, Dewey, and Gale or the new ones that they introduce, the film's meta-commentary on toxic fandom and horror sequels I thought was really well-handled and nice to see, the kills are amazing with them being insanely brutal, bloody, and violent but never once does it feel like anything was covered up, there are some surprisingly effective emotional moments, the twists at the end of the film on who the killers actually were did surprise me, and the performances are stellar from almost everyone. The teens that we follow throughout the film do a really good job with their roles but it's quite obvious that the main standouts of the film are Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courtney Cox returning as Sidney Prescott, Dewey Riley, and Gale Weathers. They each steal the show whenever they are screen but it's also a plus that they don't overshadow any of the new characters in the film. Each of them feels like they got the right amount of screentime that they deserved. However, it's quite obvious that the film has some problems that do keep it from being as good as the first Scream. The story itself is pretty predictable and despite it being told well you can tell where it is going to go, sometimes the humor doesn't quite work, and while I said that the performances are fantastic there is one actor in this film who I thought could've been much better and that is actually Melissa Barrera who is the main teen character of the film. She is not bad and she does have some really good scenes but most of the time she just has the same facial expression. Even in scenes where she is supposed to be scared she just has this bland expression. Again, I won't call her bad but out of all the actors in this film, she easily is the weakest one out of all of them. Thankfully, those issues in no way ruined how fun and entertaining this film was. Overall, Scream aka Scream 5 is a very good return to the Scream franchise. I can't act like it is entirely necessary for this film to exist but considering that the film is good it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things and considering how well the film did at the box office this weekend I am almost positive that we will get more Scream movies in the future. As long as they have good horror directors behind them I will be more than welcome to see more from this franchise in the future. Anyway, if you are a fan of the Scream movies then you will really enjoy this film. Try to see it in a theater safely if you can because it really makes the experience so much better. I'm not quite sure if you will love it but I'm sure that you will at least get what you paid for. For anyone else though it very much depends on your curiosity factor if you are interested in seeing this film or not. For me, I am very glad I saw this movie especially in a theater, and I am so glad that I was introduced to this franchise. If Scream can still find ways to be new and fresh but also still deliver everything that you love about it then may this franchise live on for as long as it can!
