‘Scream’ review: Smug, bloody and fairly entertaining

Who is behind the Ghostface mask this time around? Photos: Handout

Everything new is old again. In 1978, the year Halloween came out, the stage thriller Deathtrap opened on Broadway, with a plot (like its reference point, Sleuth) about a desperate mystery writer tempted, lethally, by the persistent clichés of his chosen genre. Like a lot of fabulously profitable escapism, it was a contraption about itself, and it worked just well enough and no better, with a jolt or two in between wisecracks.

In the thriller-adjacent genre of slasher films, the 1996 Scream worked the same self-referential way. The gore amped up, it made its mark, directed by Nightmare on Elm Street master Wes Craven (as were the first three sequels). The 2022 Scream is dedicated to the late Craven. Directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin sprinkle homages to Craven’s cutting and framing everywhere, starting with the introduction of the kitchen knives in the prologue.