Though a new Scream has been in development for a while, the fifth entry in the slasher saga arrives at a time when legacy sequels are a big thing in horror. Ready Or Not directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are responsible for bringing the self-referential slasher franchise back to life 10 years after Scream 4. This time, a new cast must try to survive as the killings resume, but never fear: legacy characters such as Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and Dewey Riley (David Arquette) are all back to investigate.

With the trailer finally landing ahead of a January 2022 release, Empire called up Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett and asked if they wanted to play a game... or, at least just tell us all about their new scary movie. The obliging duo – who were mindful of spoilers, so fear not – opened up about making a Scream movie as fans, discussed characters old and new, and explained just why it might be tough for Ghostface to call someone up and terrify them in 2021...

Opening gambit

In the first major throwback to the original film (and its sequels), the trailer opens with a character receiving a chilling communication from the killer. In this case, it's Jenna Ortega's Tara Carpenter, who soon discovers that her home security system isn't all it's cracked up to be... When the electronic locks are swiftly hacked.

"When we read the script, we read it as Scream fans, excited to see what they [writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick] cooked up for the new opening," says Bettinelli-Olpin. "It hopefully does what the first one especially does so successfully – it grabs the audience by the throat, sits you down and says, 'Buckle up, we’re going to go on a ride! We’re going to have fun. This could get challenging!'"

"We can’t wait for people to see the locks scene in the context of the whole opening," adds Gillett. "It’s such a nod to the idea of somebody pounding on the door or trying to break in – what if they didn’t have to? What if there’s another way to get in that is totally unsafe and totally reliant on our reliance on shitty technology in our lives? There’s certainly an element of commentary in that as well. They did a really good job of writing a modern Scream that doesn’t feel like it’s about all of the technology trappings. At its core, it’s a scary movie about real people and that’s just stuff that exists on the periphery, presenting a real obstacle for the characters in sequences."

Phone home

One other fun element of that opening is that, unlike Drew Barrymore's Casey in the 1996 original, Ortega's Tara initially has no time for the landline ringing in her house – instead, the terror comes in via text.

"A lot of it is the characters, and Jenna in that sequence in particular, treating it like characters that age would treat it," laughs Bettinelli-Olpin "'Why the fuck is this thing ringing over here? What is that, why do my parents still have it?' And owning that, not trying to do fancy footwork as though we all still use landlines."

The old gang's all here

Even though it puts them all back at risk of a slashing yet again, the new Scream will indeed see the return of Sidney, Gale and Dewey. And for anyone who has been wondering where they've been? The filmmakers – who can't say too much – promise you will get answers.

"One of the most exciting things reading the script was finding out where these characters, who we love, are now. Because it’s been 10 years since we've seen them, and they’ve been through some shit," explains Bettinelli-Olpin. "And to see how they’ve dealt with it, that trauma, that grief from the Ghostface attacks, to see where they were in their personal lives was thrilling for us reading it. All Scream fans have the same question. This movie goes out of its way to answer it in a way that is very real, very true and very emotional. It grounds the movie in a lot of ways. It does a great job of introducing us to this new cast, the new cast coming up in this world of Woodsboro, and the legacy cast – how they survived this trauma, and how those things collide, it’s a big part of the story."

"We can say they’ve all focused on trying to put Ghostface into the past," continues Bettinelli-Olpin of the veterans. "And some have dealt with it more successfully than others," cracks Gillett.

Got herself a gun

Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott, a true veteran of surviving encounters with masked killers, is not messing around this time. One of the best lines in the trailer sees Sidney answering the question of whether she's armed. "I'm Sidney Prescott," comes the reply. "Of course I have a gun."

"That was in the script, but that evolved when Neve got involved early on before we were shooting, and we thankfully had these amazing legacy actors to lean on. They were our north star in so many ways," says Gillett. "We wanted to bring them into the process as early as possible, because they’ve lived with these characters for years and know them inside and out. That’s a line that Neve had a suggestion on and we love how it plays in that moment of the story. It’s one of those classic Scream moments where it feels like a movie line but it’s also totally grounded and totally from a place of character and also feels like Sidney! That’s a real response to a question for her. You know you’re in a Scream movie – it’s a warm blanket. That’s Sid and you can’t wait to see what happens next."

New blood

Alongside Jenna Ortega, there's a whole crop of young actors who play characters living in Woodsboro, whose lives are steeped in the murderous history of the place. Several of them clearly have family connections to characters from the past. And that has an impact, especially when they become targets. Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown's characters, for example, have the surname Meeks-Martin, a clear nod to Jamie Kennedy's ill-fated horror nerd Randy Meeks and sister Martha (Heather Matarazzo) from the early films.

"One of the things that was really interesting to us was, in a town that is renowned for something very dark and very specific that hasn’t happened in 10 years, what’s it like to grow up in a place with a history like that and have all of that come crashing into your life?" says Gillett. "And growing up in that town, there’s no way for you to not have some connection with that, via family, parents, all of that. There are more ties than you can count to a history like that."

What's in a name?

There has naturally been a lot of talk, and online debate about the fact the new film is taking a similar approach to 2018's Halloween, working as a blend of reboot and sequel while also carrying the title of the original. The directors are well aware of the comparison...

"It’s not an accident that it’s called Scream. For a multitude of reasons, we’ve had a lot of... feedback... over the choice to call it Scream, all of which is valid," says Gillett. "And it wouldn’t be Scream if it didn’t explore itself fully. That’s the nature of the movies. It understands what it is. And this movie is no different – it understands what it is, and how it fits in the lineage of Scream and in modern horror."

So, does the movie still riff on horror tropes like the original? "I think it’s a mixed bag, it’s not one thing," admits Gillett. "There are a few things at work when it comes to that. We have to be so annoyingly vague!"

Kill and kill again

A Scream movie isn't a Scream movie without some memorable murderlising, and as the trailer promises, this new has plenty of people facing danger at the hands – and knife – of Ghostface. Is there, then, a kill of which the filmmakers are particularly proud?

"There’s a sequence kind of towards the middle of the movie that is one of those," says Gillett, before Bettinelli-Olpin pipes up with, "spoiler!" "Is that a spoiler? There’s a scene that I feel like for us that is one of those rare things that we’ve made that it feels like we’re pulled into the experience as viewers instead of creators."

Filmmakers as fans

They've already established themselves as directors, but Bettinelli-Olpin acknowledges that Scream comes with a whole other layer, because they're huge fans of the previous movies. And now they're making one.

"I don’t think there’s been a minute in this process where we haven’t felt like creators and fans simultaneously," he says. "We never fully can remove ourselves from being fans of the franchise. Ghostface is in a scene and we’re nerding out about that it’s Ghostface on a Scream movie set... 'Oh, we’re responsible for this. Back to work!'

And are they feeling the pressure too? "Definitely!" Bettinelli-Olpin admits. "Down to this interview! But the flip side of those nerves is the excitement of being Scream fans and we’ve been given this incredible opportunity to create a Scream movie for other Scream fans, and also hopefully for a new audience who may or may not know the previous Scream movies. It’s a balancing of that excitement, which is equal to the nerves."

Scream will be in UK cinemas on 14 January next year.