Scream VI

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: B-

              I seem to be in the minority with my dissatisfaction with the fifth Scream film and, consequently, I wasn’t particularly hyped for Scream VI. However, as with Creed III, I’m happy to say that I was moderately pleasantly surprised. While this entry is still far from the best sequel (let alone the original classic), Scream VI is an improvement. It is still riddled with problems and struggles mightily with connecting itself within the larger franchise, but it is an enjoyable slasher movie.

               One year after the events of Scream (2022), Scream VI picks up with our new group of main characters now attending a university in New York City. All is going well, until (dun dun dunnnn!) somebody shows up in a Ghostface costume and starts stabbing folks again. I’m not going much into plot details here since it’s a Scream film and it defeats the purpose if I spoil it, but generally there are a couple of things worth noting. First, the film’s marketing heavily emphasized the New York setting, but this is largely a bait-and switch. While the idea of seeing Ghostface stalk the streets of New York is intriguing, it turns out that New York is damn expensive to film in and the majority of shooting was actually done in much more wallet-friendly Montreal. The film is amusingly aware of this with several references to Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, which was shot primarily in Vancouver. So if you are looking for the movie to do much with the NYC location, you will be disappointed. Ghostface does upstage Jason a bit, though, since Jason spent most of that movie on a fucking boat.

               Second, the Scream movies are known for commentary on different aspects of the horror genre, but the well has pretty much run dry in that regard. The original was a meta-commentary on slasher films, Scream 2 focused on sequels, Scream 3 was about trilogies, Scream 4 parodied remakes and Scream (2022) was about reboots. All of those things are specific concepts that are ripe for commentary. Scream VI is left with commenting on sequels to reboots, which isn’t exactly a lot to work with and stretches the concept of meta-commentary pretty damn thin. When Randy gave his speeches about movie rules in Scream and Scream 2, it felt funny and genuine. When his equivalent in this movie gives the same kind of speech, it sounds pathetically forced and contrived and earned several eye rolls from me.

               The concept may be running pretty damn thin, but Scream VI still manages to twist some fun and surprises out of it. In particular, the opening scene is the best in the series since the original Scream. While nothing is likely to ever top the original, this is the first time since that I have been genuinely surprised by the opening of a Scream film. I didn’t even realize going into it that the awesome Samara Weaving (from Ready or Not and Mayhem) was in the opening scene, but it continues in a way that I legitimately didn’t see coming. Kudos to the screenwriters on that one. The film has some other genuinely suspenseful moments and is surprisingly gory too, with this Ghostface stabbing people about twenty times when two wounds would have done the trick. It is definitely one of the more vicious entries in the series.

               While the new characters still pale in comparison to the original cast, they are better here. Well, at least a couple of them are better. The two lead sisters Sam and Tara (played again by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) are actually interesting this time, which is a massive improvement on the last entry. While I didn’t give a rat’s ass about them last time, their chemistry and dynamic are much improved here and I surprisingly found them to be viable, entertaining lead characters this time around. Unfortunately, the other two returning characters from the fifth film (the other half of the new “core four,” as they call themselves) are still quite lame and had me rooting for the killer every time they were on screen. Courtney Cox again returns and does her normal shtick (not an insult as I love her character, just not much left to say about her). More surprisingly, Hayden Panettiere also returns, making her first appearance since Scream 4 (which I still think is the best sequel). I honestly think that she may have been a backup plan when Neve Campbell declined to return, but that’s fine because she is probably my favorite character in the film and it’s nice to see her back in the fray.

               Speaking of Neve Campbell…..alright, I’m going to vaguely discuss the ending of the film. I don’t think this qualifies as spoilers but I am going to give a spoiler alert anyway. Consider this a spoiler alert for what doesn’t happen. I had hoped (I didn’t expect, but I had hoped) that Campbell’s refusal to return for this film was a publicity stunt and that she was actually the killer. She has threatened not to return for every sequel dating back to Scream 2, so, while far-fetched, it would have been fitting with her pattern and a fun play on her constant hesitancy to return to the franchise. My hopes increased as I watched the movie because that reveal would have made a lot of sense in the context of the story. The film hammers in the idea that the killers have personal knowledge of the Ghostface killings going all the way back to the original movie, implying that they are somebody with deep ties to the lore. The reveal of Sidney as the killer would have been perfect. That’s not what we get and the actual reveal is underwhelming to say the least, completely failing to deliver on the buildup that precedes it.

               Scream VI shares many parallels with Scream 2. Some are obvious (the college setting, the fact that it’s the second time around for many of these characters) and some less obvious (particularly the structure and general spirit of the ending, to be intentionally vague). This is actually quite clever, but also problematic because it lifts my least favorite elements of Scream 2 and it turns out that I don’t enjoy those elements any more in 2023 than I did in 1997. I suppose that’s why I will classify those as the two middle-of-the-road entries in the series with my current ranking, from best to worst, being 1-4-2-6-5-3. So if you like Scream 2, you will likely also enjoy Scream VI.

Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scream_VI#/media/File:Scream_VI_poster.jpg