“Hello, Sidney!” Those classic sinister words are being brought back from the dead, as a new Scream movie is set to hit theaters on January 14th, 2022! Scream 5 stars Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott), David Arquette (Dewey Riley), and Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers), who are all reprising their iconic roles, roughly 25 years after the first movie was released back in 1996. It’s also been a full decade since the last film, Scream 4 was released. This is the first movie of the franchise not directed by Wes Craven, who passed away in 2015.
For newbies to the horror (or satirical horror) genre, “Scream” sees the fictional California town of Woodsboro terrorized by masked murderer Ghostface, who has a love for voice-changers and the need to know: “What’s your favorite scary movie?” Though each Scream movie has a different killer, or in most cases multiple killers, Sidney is the ultimate target of every film, with those close to her, including Sheriff Dewey and tabloid reporter and novelist Gale Weathers, often attacked as well.
It wouldn’t be a Scream movie without a new group of victims and possible suspects. Scream 5 has added some amazing talent to this sequel, including Mason Gooding (Chad Meeks-Martin) and Dylan Minnette (Wes Hicks). YEM fans will know Mason from his role as Andrew Spencer in the Hulu hit “Love, Victor.” He is also the son of Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding Jr. You will remember Dylan Minnette from his starring role as Clay Jensen in the Netflix drama “13 Reasons Why.” Dylan is also the frontman for popular alternative-rock act Wallows.
It’s important to note, each Scream film eventually lays out a set of rules the characters must follow if they don’t want to be killed. The rules come from cliches of old slasher-horror films, which many of the characters throughout the film series seem to be familiar with. The folklore created by the films even inspired a Scream television show, which ran for three seasons on MTV.
The trio of original Scream movie actors paid tribute to horror director Wes Craven during filming. Courteney Cox (best known to many as Monica Geller on Friends) shared the following:
“From the second I walked on the set, I felt extremely emotional and felt a real missing and longing for him,” says Cox. “He had such [a] special, kind, and caring quality about him, not to mention his incredible talent as a filmmaker. I looked up to Wes immensely professionally but also as a friend. I feel Wes would be so happy with the way directors Matt [Bettinelli-Olpin] and Tyler [Gillett] have rebooted this franchise.”
Now that the new film has been announced, anticipation is high. Scream 5 actress Melissa Barrera (who YEM fans will recognize as Vanessa from the Lin-Manuel Miranda film In The Heights) recently shared on Twitter, “Saw the final cut of #ScreamMovie. Y’all ain’t ready.” Star David Arquette was also quoted as saying, “Scream 5” will “be a really exciting, fun film to hopefully relaunch the franchise.”
