Corey Smith

“What if we just remade the first movie but worse?” An incredibly bad way to start off a new trilogy in what was until now a bright spot in the modern slasher landscape. It is amazing how they managed to copy so much of the first two films but lose most of the charm at the same time. My understanding is that all three films of the trilogy have already been shot, but if this first film is any indication, that energy would have been better served just making a sequel to Prey at Night instead of going off half-cocked and burning the fan base’s goodwill. The only decently original scene is the crawl space scene and even that was kind of undercut by the moronic decision by the lead actress to not clamp down on her mouth to avoid making noise. Also, the first two films had fantastic music choices but Chapter One couldn’t even get that right, only having one good song.

Literally the worst horror movie I’ve ever seen. I almost left the theater halfway through but thought that it could have had an ending to make everything else worth sitting through. Spoiler: it didn’t. In fact the third act was downright baffling. The only good thing I can say is that Jessica Macleod’s Bernie is decently interesting and charming.

I have no idea what all the negative reviews were about, because this movie is actually pretty good. It's certainly not perfect but the reviews had me terrified to even watch it. A beautiful story of two best friends and what happens when you suddenly get everything you've ever wanted. Leto and Smith both did an amazing job in their performances, unfortunately some spotty writing did hurt them. Even Matt Smith can't make "doing vampire faces in the mirror" not cringey. There's about 3-4 scenes in the movie that I felt could have been done better and which would have had me give this movie 5 stars. There was also a slightly rushed pace in certain parts but overall a very decent movie. Way better than Venom 2 in my opinion.

A flawed third act keeps this "requel" from being one of, if not the best Scream movie. That being said, Scream 5 is still a solid entry for the series with a great new cast and the same tried and true meta whodunnit/slasher formula that Scream is known for.