Cracking entry to the franchise [SPOILERS]

I've been a fan of the Scream movies since 1996. I saw the first three in the cinema, and own them all (except Scream 4 - the only misstep as far as I'm concerned). Up till now Scream 2 has been my favourite. When they brought the series back last year I feared the worst, but they did a great job. And this one tops it. It has a fantastic opening sequence and kill, really tight direction, and a cast who do a fine job (led by Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera, who I've fully embraced as the new faces of the franchise). And the kills are fantastically brutal. The New York locations work really well (and are incredibly convincing, considering the whole thing was shot in Canada). Courteney Cox finally gets a full-on, prolonged one-on-one fight with Ghostface. It's a shame that negotiations fell-through for Neve Campbell's return, but we do get the welcome return of Hayden Panettiere's Kirby Reed (last seen in Scream 4), now an FBI agent.

There aren't many negatives... The kills, although seriously hardcore, are limited to characters we barely know and so don't really care about (if this were Star Trek, they'd be 'red shirts'); whilst the film moves at a tremendous pace for the majority, it does lose steam during the climax, although it picks up towards the end; and some of those injuries are IN NO WAY SURVIVABLE. But at the end of the day, it's a movie. We do get a couple of interesting hints as to possible future directions for the franchise (Scream 7 is already confirmed); Sam (Melissa Barrera) possibly on the verge of succumbing to the Loomis curse of her father and becoming a new Ghostface, and several teases that Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) just might return, despite having been seemingly killed in the first movie. All in all it's an absolute blast, and a great addition to my favourite slasher franchise of all. It's up there with Scream 2. 8.5/10.