While it once elicited only hatred and contempt from horror fans, Wes Craven’s 1996 meta slasher film Scream has since become a genre classic, and its sadistic masked killer Ghostface has been embraced by fans the world over. The film examines a group of teenagers being preyed upon by a killer who’s obsessed with horror movies, so that he knows all the ins and outs which teens normally fall prey to during your average late-night cut ’em up. Now, after several sequels, the franchise is looking to pull a Halloween by releasing a sequel/reboot titled simply Scream, and you can check out the first trailer and poster below.
What’s perhaps most interesting about the new trailer for Scream is that it seems to shake off the original film’s self-aware obsession with horror movies. There aren’t any references to other movies or parts of the genre that could inform how Ghostface is operating here; when Officer Dewey, played by David Arquette, says, ‘There are certain rules to surviving…’ he noticeably leaves off ‘a horror movie‘ or ‘a slasher film.‘ It’s as though this world is one where the horror movies of old don’t exist, or just aren’t as much a part of your average youth’s life as they were back in ’96.
Instead, this Scream seems to focus on one franchise in particular: its own. Ghostface’s agenda seems to focus on people related to the original killers (assumedly Skeet Ulrich’s Billy and Matthew Lillard’s Stu), and when the killer meets Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott, he says, “It’s an honor.” In that respect, Scream seems finally ready to embrace the franchise’s place in the genre. The terror is no longer someone obsessed with film, or horror, or murder: it’s Ghostface.
Check out the trailer below:
And here’s the first poster.
Scream is scheduled to be released in theaters on January 14th, 2022.
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Words by Chris Krovatin
