If you’re a millennial like me, then chances are you’ve grown up watching the iconic slasher franchise Scream. The film, which despite having different storylines, always has a similar premise: Who is the person behind Ghostface?
25 years ago, the first Scream movie starring Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette was released and at the time, no one could have predicted its success. The story, set in the small town of Woodsboro, focused on Sidney Prescott (Campbell), who started to receive strange phone calls a year after her mother’s death. But these were no ordinary prank calls, as the person on the other line was a crazed serial killer donning a white-faced mask and large black robe.
His calls would consist of many questions, with the main one being: What’s your favourite scary movie? The trivia was then followed by a bloody spree.
After the enormous popularity of the first film, the man behind it all, Wes Craven, went on to make three additional Scream movies. Wes, who sadly passed in 2015, was widely considered a master of the horror genre and is perhaps best known as the creator of A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Now, in 2022, Scream 5 — otherwise known as “Scream” — is returning to the big screen and fans can hardly contain themselves. The original trio are back, but this time, Ghostface is terrorising a group of new teenagers in the same small town, and Sidney is tasked with uncovering the truth before it’s too late.
Joining the returning cast members are Dylan Minnette, Mikey Madison, Mason Gooding, Sonia Ben Ammar, Jasmin Savoy Brown and reprising her role from Scream 4 is Marley Shelton.
Many of the new cast are die-hard fans of the franchise, especially Minnette, who was gunning for the role of Wes Hicks since he had first heard about it.
“I had been exuding all this energy of wanting to be in it so (when I got the role) I was like ‘finally!’,” the actor told POPSUGAR Australia. “I immediately jumped right back in and restarted the whole franchise and watched all the movies, and I’m still pinching myself now, it’s crazy.”
In Hollywood, sequels very rarely work, let alone four additional movies after the original. But somehow, Scream has managed to grip viewers each and every time, and the latest addition is, dare I say it, the best of them all. The performances from each member of the cast felt authentic, and it could be because neither of them was told who the killer was.
“Many people had different versions of the script and everyone was feeling each other out and comparing endings, and everyone was suspicious of each other,” Mikey Madison, who plays Amber Freeman in the movie, told POPSUGAR Australia.
But the latest film isn’t just groundbreaking in its storytelling ability, but also in its effort of showing representation across the board. It’s taken time, but for the first time in Scream’s 25-year history, we finally have a queer character. Mindy Meeks-Martin, played by Jasmin Savoy Brown, is quick thinking, smart and brutally honest. She’s also a queer woman of colour. But the movie doesn’t use her queerness as a personality trait, instead, it’s just one of the many parts of her identity.
Jasmin herself felt the entire experience was surreal in many ways, hardly believing that she was a part of such a loved project.
“Whether you’re watching onset or you’re in a scene, you go ‘wow, this is really a Scream movie, and I’m a part of it. How lucky am I!’,” she said during the interview.
Her brother in the movie Chad Meeks-Martin, played by Mason Gooding, shared similar sentiments and said fans have a lot to look forward to when they watch the movie for the first time.
“No expense has been spared. The respect, the homage to the original movies is in full spades,” he said. “(The fans) can feel taken care of and the movie welcomes newcomers if they would like to enter the franchise now. It may also introduce the franchise to an entirely new generation. Scream is tried and true.”
Scream is set to release in HOYTS Cinemas nationwide on January 13.
