Warning: Spoilers ahead for Scream 5
Characters in the 1996 Scream were well-versed in the ground rules for horror movies. As Woodsboro, Calif.’s resident movie geek Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) made clear in the franchise’s first installment, abstaining from sex is your best chance of making it out of a scary movie alive. He also advised you never, ever say “I’ll be right back”—because you definitely won’t be.
More than 25 years later, a new Scream offers some new rules. Early in the film, out Jan. 14, former sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette) lays out updated guidelines on how to survive a horror movie. Dewey’s new rules aren’t as conservative as those shared by Randy—purity rings are so ‘90s, after all—but they’re still pretty meta. You can’t survive nine stabbings across four films without noticing a few patterns. Unfortunately, the new Scream’s final girl, Sam Carpenter (In The Heights’ Melissa Barrera), doesn’t realize how prophetic Dewey’s directives are until the film’s final act.
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Dewey’s golden rule is a direct callback to the original Scream: Never trust the love interest. In the 1996 movie, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) learned this the hard way when her boyfriend and horror fanatic Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) revealed his hometown killing spree was an act of revenge against her mom, Maureen, whose affair with his dad led to his parents’ separation. Maureen was his first victim and he wanted Sidney to be his last so that he could pin the murders on her.
Dewey’s new rules are an early clue that this Scream has much more in common with its source material beyond its title. At their core, the Scream movies aren’t teen slasher films, but are bloodsoaked whodunnits in which anyone and everyone is a possible suspect. Figuring out who’s behind the Ghostface mask is part of the fun—and often the killer is the most obvious choice.
Take the original: Billy’s red…
Source : time
