"Scream VI" - Film Review
With five movies and a television series, it’s easy to wonder where the Scream franchise could possibly go in its latest installment. The literal answer is New York City. For the first time, Scream leaves Woodsboro and travels to a brand new location. After the events of Scream (2022), Tara (Jenna Ortega), Sam (Melissa Barrera), Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), and Chad (Mason Gooding) try to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the tragic events they so narrowly escaped. Of course, as is the case with every other iteration in this franchise, Ghostface just won’t stop. Where there’s a will to murder, Ghostface finds a way.
The spirit of the Scream franchise is reinvention. Every new movie carries the burden of subverting the tropes of the slasher genre and the Scream films that came before it. Last year’s Scream (2022) was tedious in its winking at the audience, trying to prove how smart it was by reminding the viewers that they were in on the joke all along. No one needed that reminder, though. Self-awareness is fundamentally baked into the DNA of Scream, and the worst thing the franchise can do is point that out at every opportunity.
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Scream VI thankfully gives the audience some credit and dials back the wink-wink, nudge-nudge reminders of its own cleverness. Perhaps it’s the new setting that allowed the writers to feel a little freer and less burdened by the shackles of the franchise. The kills are more gruesome and gritty, but the killer reveal is more obvious. It’s a trade-off that will disappoint some, as the momentous reveal is usually the high point of each film.
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It’s Mindy who points out that the “rules” are different this time around because they’re in a franchise. Why it took six movies for that revelation to occur will remain a mystery, but Savoy Brown’s earnestness in delivering the famed rules speech is enough to excuse that oversight. In fact, it’s the charm of the Core Four of Savoy Brown, Ortega, Gooding, and Barrera that makes Scream VI work as well as it does. Of course, it helps to see familiar faces like Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) and Gale (Courteney Cox). However, when the baton is inevitably passed to this new crew, the Scream franchise will be in good hands.
While it doesn’t reach the heights of the original, Scream VI is leagues ahead of last year’s entry. The setpieces work well to escalate the tension, and the subway sequence is particularly nail-biting. The film’s runtime does somewhat dissipate the good graces those setpieces built, and far too many characters survive a truly outrageous number of stabbings. There’s also the melodrama of Tara and Sam’s strained relationship that culminates in a cheesy exclamation at the film’s climax. Miraculously, Ortega manages to ground some of these overwritten moments, but they’re awkwardly shoved in as afterthoughts in the middle of the action.
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At the end of the day, Scream VI is as close to a Wes Craven-directed Scream movie as we’re likely to get. Longtime fans of the franchise will immediately notice Neve Campbell’s absence, and the fact that audiences were robbed of a proper farewell to Sidney Prescott will forever sting, but maybe the door is still open for her return. Scream VI is livelier than most current popcorn horror flicks and creates enough goodwill that a new Scream (or two or three) will be embraced with open arms.
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