Scream VI

While it doesn’t have quite the same surprise factor that 2022’s fifth Scream film had, Scream VI displays a surprising amount of inventiveness and creativity, taking the franchise out of small-town America and into New York City, while still bringing the brutal horror, dark comedy, character depth and meta-commentary that made the last film so much fun.

Premise:  One year after the 2022 Woodsboro massacre, Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) and her friends Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) have moved to New York city for college, with Tara’s overprotective sister Sam (Melissa Barrera) in tow.  But before long, a new Ghostface killer strikes in the city – one who seems familiar with the entire Stab franchise…

Review:

I’ve been a big fan of the Scream franchise since the first film came out in 1996, although after diminishing returns with Scream 3 and Scream 4, my expectations weren’t particularly high for 2022’s fifth Scream film.  However, that legacy sequel blew me away, and its writers’ and directors’ affection for the series was plain to see.  This sixth film in the franchise now has the opposite problem – a weight of expectation as audiences wonder, can they capture lightning in a bottle again?

The good news is, just as Scream 2 cleverly subverted the tropes of a horror sequel by going in directions that weren’t necessarily expected, Scream VI comes up with some very creative ways of giving audiences everything they love about the Scream films, but with some interesting and fresh subversion of expectations.  The creative tone of this film is set right from the opening sequence, which (no spoilers) plays with audiences’ expectations of what an opening sequence in a Scream film is.

“…takes the story in bold new directions, and is one of the most inventive films in the series…”

In fact, the relationship between the opening sequences in Scream 2 and Scream VI is indicative of the relationship between the two films generally.  Scream 2 subverted expectations by setting its opening murder in a crowded cinema, while Scream VI (again, no spoilers) is set in New York city, meaning that it undermines the whole idea that you’ll be safe when other people are around.  Similarly, Scream 2 moved the action from Woodsboro to a (still relatively isolated) college campus, while Scream VI moves the action to New York city, which is about as far removed from small-town Woodsboro as you can get.  Both sequels take the series in bold new directions, and in many respects, are perhaps the most inventive in the entire franchise.

At this stage, I should just be clear than although this is a spoiler-free review of Scream VI, I will be spoiling Scream 5 (as most people call it!), as it’s hard to talk about Scream VI without referring back to the earlier instalments.

“…the returning characters are so much fun that you don’t miss the legacy characters…”

Part of the success of Scream 5 was due to the fact that the new characters introduced in that film were so well developed, that the movie didn’t suffer from the limited use of the legacy characters in that film.  In this movie, the four returning characters from Scream 5 are so much fun to spend time with that you don’t miss the legacy characters at all (which is no small achievement).  Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega are back as Sam and Tara Carpenter, and they get to build nicely on the character development that they had in the last film.  Both the sisters are dealing with their trauma from the last movie in different (but arguably equally ineffective) ways – Tara is completely in denial, trying to pretend like none of it ever happened, while Sam has become obsessively overprotective of her younger sister, to the extent that Tara finds the attention suffocating, despite Sam’s good intentions.

Joining them in New York are fellow survivors Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin, the twins who are particularly aware of the tropes of the horror genre because their uncle was Randy (Jamie Kennedy) from the first two films.  Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding were two of the highlights from the last instalment, and while it stretched credibility a little that they both survived their injuries suffered during the finale of the last movie, they bring so much to this sequel that you can’t begrudge the filmmakers wanting to bring them back (and that is, after all, what happened with the character of Dewey, played by David Arquette, who was originally meant to die at the end of the first film).

“…Courteney Cox is back for more of an extended cameo than a main role…”

The returning cast from Scream 5 are joined by an assortment of new characters who could all be suspects or victims, but they’re also joined by a couple of familiar faces.  Of the original three legacy characters, only Courteney Cox is back as Gale Weathers, although even then, her appearance is more of an extended cameo than a main role.  There are ‘real life’ reasons why Neve Campbell chose not to return for Scream VI, and I totally respect her decision to stick to her guns over pay – but from a storytelling point of view, Scream VI arguably works better without having to engineer a reason to bring Sydney Prescott back.  Say what you will about the controversial death of a legacy character in Scream 5, but from a storytelling perspective, that was arguably the only way that Sydney would believably come back to Woodsboro.  In Scream VI, there are no such concerns about bringing Sydney back (and Gale Weathers lives in New York, so that explains her involvement).

As well as the return of Gale Weathers, Scream VI also brings back Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), last seen presumably bleeding to death at the end of Scream 4.  Kirby was one of the best things about Scream 4, and the writers of Scream VI have managed to find an interesting idea to bring her back for this film (after an Easter egg in Scream 5 confirmed for the first time that Kirby had actually survived the events of Scream 4).

“…includes meta-commentary on the ‘rules’ of a franchise…”

Just like Scream 5 before it, Scream VI retains all of the essential elements of a Scream film, including its meta-commentary on the “rules” of the genre.  In this film, Mindy explains that the “rules” aren’t just those of the horror genre, or of a sequel … because the characters are all now in a franchise, which has its own unique set of rules.  (Incidentally, be aware that Scream VI contains spoilers for a number of other franchises, including Star Wars: The Last Jedi and No Time to Die!).

Scream VI also incorporates some interestingly topical ideas, like an online conspiracy theory that Sam Carpenter was actually the perpetrator of last year’s killing spree and that she framed Richie Kirsch and Amber Freeman.  Like all such conspiracy theories, there’s no basis for it, and it’s born of little more than a distrust of “mainstream media” and a thirst for scandal – but here we see the toll that such rampant speculation has on those thrust into the media spotlight.

“…balances the tension, dark humour & brutality very effectively…”

Like with the last film, Scream VI contains some very effective set-pieces, which balance the tension, dark humour and brutality very effectively (even if things perhaps become a little far-fetched in the final act).  But overall, there are so many fresh ideas in this film, and it goes in directions that I (for one) didn’t see coming, so I’m willing to overlook any such minor quibbles.  Like Mindy and Chad surviving at the end of the last film, credibility and realism is a small price to pay when the results of the creative decisions are this much fun.

So far, there’s no news on whether the filmmakers and/or any of the cast will return for another instalment, but given where this one ends, I think there could be some very interesting plot threads that could be explored in future films.  Scream VI has demonstrated that an infusion of fresh blood was just what the franchise needed.