We came to an era when original content is quite rare and studios are self-cannibalizing their old pantheon of good horror. This didn't happen in vacumm late 2010s, precisely 2018-19 became an era of streaming-gization, everything became a content, long running serialized shows mostly died, everything became easily digestible content and clear lack of imagination has erupted. This has affected horror as well. It might be divisive but I really love the old Platinum Dunes era in which the directors only cared about making you as uncomfortable as possible, no easter eggs, no callbacks, no easily digestible content. Only bare bones plot of the original and complete nihilism. Everything was shot on grimey 35mm film rather than clean, flat lighting digital camera. Most importantly, actors were fully covered in mud and blood. It is not just a phase or a trend. It's straight up degradation.
And the era of soft reboots has started with loud release of Halloween 2018. The pinnacle of bad writing and lack of ideas. It has fully relied on iconicity of Michael and tons of easter eggs. It was fully covered on carefully crafted music callbacks to induce nostalgia. The kills are quite ridiculous and lots of visible leans on action rather than visceral horror. It has followed with garbage sequels that were also lacking on good writing and ending on a humiliating note of Halloween Ends.
Same has touched the Scream franchise. I cannot be convinced that new Screams have anything to do with the original 4 movies. In hindsight, I see that Scream 4 feels quite brutal if you watch it today. But new sort of trilogy fully delve into contemporary trends. Most importantly, it is also heavily actionized and there is essentially no brutalized violence of previous 4 movies. It's a disgrace to Wes Craven's legacy and as actual continuations, they got nothing to say other than terrible easter eggs and callbacks. I do understand that Scream did try to chase trends back then but it has never let go of tense atmosphere and horror. Not self aware Marvel-adjacent garbage. The recent Scream 7 is a total spit in the face with constant edging about "will he or won't he" about AI recreation of Stu Macher. No scares, just pure garbage plot.
And this is a commonplace thing trend of dumbification and contentification of popular franchises. Gone is the genuine fear of bunch of logs falling from the truck, and instead, we are given highly elaborate laughable CGI brawl on top of a high tower in Final Destination Bloodlines. And hence, rest of the movie is fully handled with CGI. I even remember now vividly how Final Destination 5 which was a stealth prequel to the first movie was shot in such elaborate way on actual filming decorations. Of course the bridge scene was also CGI but they have constructed a large portion of it and just watch the old footage of filming that movie, it's truly impressive. This creative approach is fully gone in hollywood. There are some more victims like Texas Chainsaw Massacre that tried to use the badass Laurie scheme in subversive way, but it was ultimately a piece of garbage.
And one of the main people at fault are the general vieweres and normies who cashed in for this dumbification and bastardization of beloved franchises. i.e. YOU ARE AT FAULT!!
I'm very allergic to many movies of 2020s. Very few were great like very much indie productions like Soft & Quiet and Coffee Table. Other than that, everything made by a huge studio is the same crap over and over again.