Scream (2022) tells the story of Ghostface making yet another return to Woodsboro to terrorize a new generation 11 years after the last killings.

Walking into Scream I had high expectations. The Scream franchise is one of the, if not the most, consistent franchises in horror history. None of the Scream movies are bad, only decent at worst. It also didn’t help that this was the first Scream without any involvement from Wes Craven, the director of the first four films, as he tragically passed away from a brain tumor in 2015.

Surprisingly, the directors/producers did Wes Craven and the franchise justice. The movie was able to keep the meta/self-aware aspect of the previous films, while also giving it a fresh touch. To be specific, in the Scream universe, horror movies exist. All of these characters know about Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myers, and they know all of the cliches and tropes that come with the genre.

The movie was also able to keep the franchise tradition of embodying whatever the current trend in horror movies is. This time around it’s “requels.” As explained in the movie, a requel is a soft reboot of a franchise, while continuing the story and bringing back legacy characters, who are characters from previous installments of the franchise.

The movie also had some amazing tension-filled moments and sequences, as well as build ups to good scares. One that comes to mind is the entire kitchen sequence. The entire scene is just the audience waiting for Ghostface to pop up behind the constant doors that are opening.

Sadly, with all of the good the producers did, they did some bad with this film as well. First and most being the new cast and the lack of legacy characters

. Now, while I think this movie handled the legacy characters well (not making them the main focus of the movie and having them sort of on the backburner for most of the film), you need to have an engaging cast. The new cast isn’t necessarily bad, just very lackluster. But, there are a few standouts in Mindy, Mike, and Tara.

Unfortunately, this is the first Scream movie where I have been able to figure out who the killer is. Within 20 minutes, I figured it out, and throughout the movie the characters’ actions only solidified it. Maybe it’s just because I am a big fan of horror movies and watched a lot of them that I was able to pick up on it, but it was just not subtle at all.

Overall, Scream serves as a solid new age installment in the franchise wrapping up some old stories and leaving room for new ones.