Scream VI

ORIGINALLY REVIEWED 3/9/2023

SCORE: 7.5/10

MATURE CONTENT WARNING: THIS FILM HAS BEEN RATED R BY THE MPAA, AND THIS REVIEW CONTAINS DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE THAT SOME READERS MAY FIND UPSETTING.

SYNOPSIS

Scream VI 2023 is a sequel to the 2022 movie simply titled Scream. Released just 14 months after its predecessor, it manages to deliver on most of the aspects of a Scream movie. We quickly are reintroduced to sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter (played by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega respectfully) as well as twins Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin (played by Mason Gooding and Jasmine Savoy Brown respectfully), nephew and niece to Randy Meeks, from Scream’s 1 and 2, as well as in a video cameo in 3. The “Core Four,” as they call themselves throughout the movie, venture to the Big Apple, for college education, or other reasons alike. They are joined by a new group of characters, including college classmate/Chad’s dormmate Ethan (Jack Champion), Sam’s boyfriend Danny (Josh Segarra), and Quinn Bailey (Liana Liberato), daughter of Police Detective Bailey (Dermot Mulroney) and roommate of Sam and Tara. We also get reunited with Gale Weathers (played by Courtney Cox), but she isn’t the only familiar face that tracks the group to New York City, as Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), a survivor of the attacks of Scream 4, heads to NYC to help aid our group as we find them on the run from Ghostface yet again.

SPOILER FREE REVIEW

After news broke that Neve Campbell would not be returning to play Sydney Prescott, I was hesitant to say the least about having another Scream movie, especially so quickly after the fifth movie was released. I felt the same way when rumors of a fifth movie started floating around, because of the passing of Wes Craven. However, just as they assured that the franchise could go on without Wes, it could do so too without Neve/Syd, despite it being rather unpleasant terms of payment negotiations that caused her exit of the franchise as the final girl and main character of the first 4 films, and her huge, while not exactly center roll in Scream 2022.

Throughout the movie, we are subjected to various forms of suspense, and feelings. The story is a great continuation of the last film and offers more screentime to Tara, Mindy, and Chad, which was nice. Due to her condition in the last movie, Tara was sidelined throughout the film, so it was nice to see Jenna have the extra screentime to show her range in acting, which was needed for Tara’s character. The cast and directors had given us some early knowledge about the film, things like confirm that there would be more chase sequences and other missing attributes from Scream 2022, and they held their end of the bargain. I will get into more detail about specific things I didn’t like down below in more detail, but if you enjoyed Scream 2022, you’ll have a suitable time, if not a better one, watching this next installment.

SPOILER REVIEW

The cold opening in this movie is by far the best since the 1996 original. I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of knowing who Ghostface was on a first time viewing, where we can see their side of the killing, and this movie plays with that idea in a remarkably interesting way. Jason Carvey (Toni Revolori) is shown killing Luara Crane (Samara Weaving), a film study professor for the university Jason, Tara, Chad, and Mindy all attend. After he finishes killing her, he removes his mask and suit, packs them away in his backpack, and walks out of the alley onto the streets filled with people, as if nothing happened.

To say I was invested would be an understatement, now I was fully strapped in. As he walks through the campus, he passes by Tara, having a brief conversation with her before returning to his room. Once he returns to his dorm, he starts looking for his roommate Greg. When Greg is nowhere to be found, Jason’s phone starts to ring, caller contact: Greg. He answers Ghostface’s voice at the other end. At first, I, along with Jason, think it’s his roommate/fellow Ghostface killer is messing with him, but soon we both realized that we have been tricked, in a classic Scream twist. This was when I knew that the writers/directors weren’t playing around in this film.

Jason finds Greg’s body in an incredibly tense game of hot or cold over the phone, which causes him to turn and run, only to be killed by one of the three killers we’d be up against in this film.

I wanted to revisualize the opening for you because, in my opinion, it’s one of the most important parts of the Scream movies. Going off that last paragraph, I thought the idea of three Ghostface killers was interesting. Being the sixth film, that connects points from every movie before it, I thought it would be one killer, as they even joke about Roman Bridger (killer from Scream 3) being the only one with the nerve to do his killings solo. The end of the first trilogy, the original ending, to the end of this trilogy passing the torch from Sydney to Sam and Tara.

A big key theme and element to the story is Tara’s process of dealing with the events of the previous movie, or as Sam describes it, her LACK OF processing the events. It gets brought up again throughout the movie, most notably when Sam is holding onto Tara over the railing of a theater, and she quite literally must let her go to take out one of the killers.

What were the elements I enjoyed the most in this movie? Well, there’s a lot. The cold opening must always be innovative, but hold up to the original, and seeing Jason remove his mask was defiantly a great twist. The overall framing and set up to the kills were phenomenal, as were the actual kills themselves. Most notably was the sequence where Tara, Sam, and Mindy must crawl across a ladder, about 4 stories above the pavement, over to Danny’s apartment to escape Ghostface. It might have been amplified for me, due to my minor fear of heights, but I was almost frozen with anxiety.

The movie does a wonderful job at making you feel claustrophobic. Being set in New York City, it captures the feeling of the open city, with dozens of people in the background of each shot. Every shot that takes place outside, you can see upwards of 30 people in the background. They use this very idea very well in combination with the trope first seen in the franchise in Scream 2, where they become cautious of everyone using cell phones around our characters in public when they are talking with Ghostface.

Another great sequence that I wanted to talk about was the subway train sequence towards the end of the movie. New York’s subways are well known to be immensely crowded, and this scene of 3.5 to 4 minutes of switching back and forth between our crew, who due to said crowdedness, got separated onto two different trains, was completely claustrophobia inducing, and I’m not even claustrophobic. It was a scene oozing with tension, that defiantly gets you on the edge of your seat.

Moving from the end of that scene, we jump into our finale fight against Quinn, Ethan, and Detective Bailey. A.K.A the sister, brother, and father of Richie, Sam’s boyfriend, and one of two killers from the previous movie. This is where I had my biggest issue with the film, the motive. I thought the idea of three killers interesting, but unfortunately, I didn’t like the “Billy’s mother” reveal in Scream 2, and this feels like a cheap repeat, just with the father instead. It could be chalked up to meta humor for how sequels work, but the basis for this story followed too closely to the events of Scream 2, and that’s where a big part of the missing 2.5 points comes from. Main character of the last movie, moves to a different area, to pursue a college education, to be stalked by new killers in the Ghostface mask, and one of them is the parent of a killer from the previous movie. Both films were even released the following year after their predecessor, both of which were simply titled “Scream”.

The reveal of the killers itself was well done. Seeing Quinn being “killed” really threw me off, as well as everyone else in the theater. Detective Bailey and Ethan I kind of guessed, but that’s because Ethan’s character was only there for Mindy to accuse as the killer multiple times, and after 5 movies, it was about time that the only, or one of very few, named cops with an importance to the story was the killer. The thing that kills me the most is that these issues only make sense when you get to the end of the movie. This movie had the potential to be an 8 to even as high as a 9. but fumbled the ball on those moments towards the end.