“F— the movies.”
Ghostface, the Edvard Munch-masked slasher villain, spits that phrase early in Scream VI. And while it’s probably unwise to take advice from a homicidal maniac, it’s a lesson the latest installment in this 27-year-old franchise should have taken to heart. When Scream VI focuses on being an intense slasher movie, it’s often successful; when it tries to further this series’ exploration of film tropes, it’s dead on arrival.
It’s been a year since sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) were the targets of psycho killers intent on remaking the slayings that haunted Woodsboro in 1996. They’ve traded the suburbs for the city and headed to New York with their friends and fellow Ghostface survivors Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy-Brown). Sam is seeing a psychiatrist to work out her trauma and deal with the bloodlust lurking below the surface (courtesy of her now-dead serial killer father); Tara distracts herself with parties and school. But it’s not long before, just like Jason Voorhees, Ghostface decides to take Manhattan (and, as with that franchise, New York is once again played by Canada).
Scream (2022) was a surprisingly smart and successful reboot, with directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett reinvigorating the franchise with both humor and suspense. It put a new spin on old ideas, balancing reverence for Craven’s 1996 classic with an infusion of fresh blood. They wisely go for a change of pace with this sixth entry, losing suburbia for a metropolitan maze in which Ghostface stalks the heroes. And while this isn’t the series’ first venture outside Woodsboro, the urban setting provides a refreshing shift. The film also takes place around Halloween, which means everyone is also wearing masks of horror icons – including Ghostface – heightening the suspense.
Forty years ago, there was a new slasher film in theaters nearly every week, most of which were populated by amateur casts and fledgling directors who fumbled their way through chase sequences and piled on the gore to distract from a lack of substance. Scream VI would be seen as a masterpiece of the sub-genre had it been released in 1983. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillet are masters of horror set pieces, and Scream VI has several instantly iconic ones, starting with an opening kill featuring several misdirections to keep the audience on its toes. The directors understand that scares depend on pacing and geography; you have to know where the killer is at all times and how quickly they’re gaining on their victims. The film’s highlight is a dizzying escape attempt between two apartment buildings, and there are also crackerjack sequences in a bodega (although Ghostface as an active shooter might be too close for comfort), and a scene on a subway takes an idea David Gordon Green played with for his Halloween reboot but perfects with exquisite timing. The film is gory but never over the top, and there are a few sequences that could legitimately be called scary.
It helps that the film is populated with likable characters portrayed by skilled actors. This is famously the first film in the franchise not to feature Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, but much like Sylvester Stallone in Creed III, she’s not really missed. Barrera and Ortega have earned their places at the center of the franchise. Barrera is particularly good as Sam, who struggles with understanding her past trauma and protecting her sister; Ortega is a charismatic actor who easily has taken up residence as the heart of this new iteration. She’s funny and smart, and can go toe-to-toe with Ghostface quite well. Gooding and Savoy-Brown bring welcome humanity and comedic spice, creating a core group of characters that we like enough to care whether they live or die – which, it should be stressed, has not always been the case with this sub-genre.
As a slasher movie, Scream VI often works quite well, and its first hour is fun and thrilling. But as its title announces, this is the sixth movie in a franchise that’s been around since the late-1990s, and when the film has to deal with the obligations that come from being a Scream movie, it fumbles the ball.
Scream 4 (2011) and Scream (2022) succeeded because, after more than a decade away, they brought back the franchise to comment on new genre trappings. The last film, in particular, had something to say about Hollywood’s penchant for reboots and legacy sequels. Coming just a year later, Scream VI’s screenplay by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick struggles to find anything to say about horror movies and instead just kind of shrugs and suggests that now it’s all about franchises. The sequence where Mindy lays out “the rules” of the type of movie the characters find themselves in – usually a highlight of this franchise – is clumsy, failing to articulate what might be different this time around. It offers up a banal “no one is safe” – a rule the movie ultimately breaks several times, with multiple characters appearing to meet their end only to be revealed to be fine. And while these are likable characters who audiences would like to see in further movies, it robs the film of its edge.
While Campbell might be off screen for this movie, the film entices Courtney Cox back as reporter Gale Weathers, and then makes the decision to do the character dirty by hitting the reset button on any lessons she learned in the last film; true, Cox gets a tense sequence with Ghostface, but even there the film ultimately pull its punches. It also brings back fan favorite Hayden Panettiere, who played film nerd Kirby in Scream 4, but does nothing interesting with her aside from giving her a fairly entertaining moment to play movie trivia with Mindy.
Courteney Cox in “Scream VI.” Photo Credit: Philippe Bossé – © 2022 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
And while Scream VI works well as a straight-on slasher, it’s a pretty disappointing mystery. The script tosses several suspects and red herrings into the mix – from Kirby and a grizzled New York detective (Dermot Mulroney) to the motley crew of roommates, classmates, and love interests that always populate these films. There’s an attempt to suggest that maybe Sam finally snapped from confronting her bloody legacy, but since she’s now the hero of the franchise, it’s never plausible or taken too seriously. The final twenty minutes deflate entirely, with a killer reveal that makes no sense and abandons interesting ideas the movie set up about fan culture. It doesn’t help that the actors suddenly shift into a higher mode, turning the characters into shrill caricatures with comedy that feels totally out of place.
Much of Scream VI takes place in an old movie theater that serves as a shrine to Ghostface, filled with mementos from the early films. At this point, the film isn’t hiding Easter eggs; it’s cooking an omelet. And while it’s an interesting setting, it serves as the biggest clue about what is wrong with this entry – the franchise hasn’t moved to New York so much as disappeared up its own ass. There’s a really good slasher movie in here, but the movie prefers to be a lackluster Scream film instead. Maybe next time, the tag of “New city. New rules.” should instead be replaced by “New ideas.”
