Scream (2022)

Elevator Pitch: It is 25 years since the small town of Woodsboro was terrorised by a serial killer known as “Ghostface”, since he wore a mask not unlike the image in the painting “Scream”. And now here he is again, terrorising the young people of the town, starting off with  an attack on Tara Carpenter, who survives though her mother who is the sheriff, is stabbed to death outside the house (although plot summaries don’t seem to think this). Ghost face goes on to stab other people and eventually  Sydney Prescott and Gale Weathers (characters from the earlier films) arrive determined to sort it all out. The arm themselves and make their way to the house where many of the killings in the earlier films took place. How ill they get on?

Content: No sex or nudity, just a bit of snogging between boys and girls and two girls. Other than that almost continuous attacks on young people with a lot of blood, although the stabbings do not always result in death or, indeed, serious injury. However, people having their throats slit seems to kill them. Ghostface is also shot multiple times, but does not seem to suffer any injury.

A View: There seems to be no point in going to see this film unless you have seen one or more of the previous four, since it seemed to mostly consist of in jokes  only evident to fans. I noticed that a young person in the same row as my wife and I laughed several times. We were puzzled as to why some stabbings were fatal, and others conveniently minor. I was going to say more, but just in case you’re on your way to the cinema I won’t. I can’t remember why I’ve given it one point, but maybe because it does have a beginning and an end.

I have looked out a few other gory outings all of which are, in my view, better than this outing: Piranha 3D, Don’t Breathe, Bad Times at the El Royale .