Scream

A desperate attempt to wring nostalgia from a 25-year-old franchise that has long since been ripped off, lampooned, and played out, Scream is also too tame to catch on with a new generation.

Is it a sequel? Is it a remake or “reboot”? Does it even matter? This uninspired follow-up seems more content to rehash the subversive mythology than to take it in any meaningful new direction.

The latest entry again takes a meta approach to deconstructing and mocking the cycle of endless follow-ups of diminishing quality that has plagued slasher flicks for decades. Then it eagerly falls in line. In this instance, the aggressive self-referential winking is more tedious than amusing.

After the latest reappearance by a serial killer in a Ghostface mask in the town of Woodsboro, original targets Sidney (Neve Campbell), Gale (Courteney Cox), and Dewey (David Arquette) decide they’ve had enough. They return to find connections to their own experiences in the travails of teenager Tara (Jenna Ortega) and her friends.

As directed with straightforward technical competence by the tandem of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not), the film yields some intermittent frights and cracks some sporadically clever one-liners while missing the consistent suspense of Wes Craven’s 1996 original.

This Scream was conceived in a different cultural and artistic landscape in which the type of gratuitous violence that has been an enduring genre staple is viewed through a more progressive lens. But this installment lacks the courage to follow through on its edgier ambitions, like the predecessors it’s so keen on shouting out.

Only hinting at the type of provocation that could make the old-school concept relevant in the social-media age, the lackluster screenplay has the audacity to explain exactly whey it’s insulting the audience’s intelligence, then proceeds to insult it anyway on the (probably correct) assumption that said audience won’t care.

Anyway, this new batch of smug and shallow millennials is not worthy of any emotional investment as they conveniently never practice what they preach. Unfortunately, some of them survive until the inconsequential final twist and become candidates for involvement in another inevitable sequel.

The source material shrewdly both poked fun and paid tribute to its own legacy. However, the new Scream works so hard to justify its existence while indulging in many of the same tropes it claims to subvert. You might scream, but not for the intended reasons.

Rated R, 114 minutes.