In January 2022, when the fifth Scream movie got here out, greater than a decade had handed since somebody had final donned the Ghostface masks and terrorized teenagers with threatening cellphone calls and a deftly wielded searching knife. That film, the primary Scream not directed by the sequence’ now-deceased auteur, Wes Craven, had lots of new developments to atone for within the style it ribbed so properly: the rise of “elevated” horror, the tiresome formulae of legacy sequels, and the way a killer who’s reliant on landlines would possibly perform within the smartphone period. The end result was sufficient of successful for executives to green-light Scream VI, which is dashing to multiplexes a mere 14 months later. Maybe unsurprisingly, the follow-up has much less to say.
Scream has all the time thrived on metatextuality: Within the opening scene of the unique 1996 movie, an unseen caller begins quizzing a excessive schooler (performed by Drew Barrymore) over the cellphone about scary motion pictures. The film allowed Craven, a grasp of the slasher type, and the screenwriter Kevin Williamson to mock the drained construction of the style whereas nonetheless delivering a profitable model of it. Final yr, I used to be initially cautious that the franchise’s new management, the Prepared or Not administrators Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, wouldn’t be capable of re-create the tone of such a voice-driven basic. However I used to be reassured by their take, which had actual enjoyable on the expense of the rageful, Reddit-dwelling on-line movie nerds of the most recent era.
[Read: The newest Scream movie skewers fandom itself]
Scream VI retains Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, together with the screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Man Busick, but it surely lacks the earlier movies’ nimbleness to find recent angles on the horror world. The fast turnaround is partly guilty—not sufficient has occurred throughout the style within the intervening yr to essentially be commented on—however the different downside is the prosaic nature of a sixth film entry. Prior Screams satirized the tropes of a regular slasher sequel (Scream 2), the grand finale of a trilogy (Scream 3), the reboot (Scream 4), and the legacy sequel that brings again outdated forged members and mixes them with new characters (final yr’s confusingly titled Scream).
All Scream VI actually has going for it’s that it has relocated its forged to New York Metropolis, following the instance of different sequence that did the identical. (I’m principally pondering of the camp basic Friday the 13th Half VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.) After the final movie’s massacre, Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and her half sister, Tara (Jenna Ortega), have moved to the Massive Apple, the place Tara and their movie-loving friends Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) are attending school. The crew has made some new associates however continues to be stewing over outdated traumas when, shock, shock, one other Ghostface killer emerges and begins slaying co-eds throughout town—whereas implicating Sam within the murders.
Scream VI doesn’t have fairly the identical “legacy” pull as its predecessor. Hayden Panettiere (who gave one of the best efficiency of Scream 4) makes a welcome return because the smart-aleck Kirby, now an FBI agent on the Ghostface case, however Courteney Cox is without doubt one of the solely forged members from the unique movie this time round, reappearing because the dogged tabloid journalist Gale Weathers. As an alternative of that includes a slew of character reprises, the film sources nostalgia from its script, a couple of franchise-obsessed killer who collects mementos from notorious slayings and leaves them at his personal crime scenes. It’s a nonsensical yarn however an apparent method for the movie to look again at its storied historical past, maybe seeking some emotional weight.
At one level, Kirby and an NYPD detective (performed by a snarly Dermot Mulroney, clearly simply right here to have an excellent time) look at a bulletin board coated with former suspects (from prior Scream movies), on the lookout for clues. However the pair would possibly as properly be Hollywood producers attempting to trace a brand new lead on an outdated blueprint, admiring the headshots of Ghostfaces of yore reasonably than investigating authentic materials. The smiling visages of actors similar to Timothy Olyphant, Laurie Metcalf, Emma Roberts, and Skeet Ulrich provide an amusing street map by a grand and gory backstory. They don’t, nevertheless, level the characters or the viewers to a transparent path ahead.
Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett stay gifted at set items, and Scream VI has various arresting moments. The opening sequence (all the time a excessive level for these motion pictures) options an entertaining switcheroo and a plum cameo for the Prepared or Not star Samara Weaving. A intelligent sequence of murders takes place throughout two adjoining condo buildings and makes use of the spatial geography of cramped New York housing brilliantly. And an prolonged, suspenseful scene on the subway is a blast. However there simply isn’t sufficient juice behind the stagecraft. The Scream motion pictures have thrived as a result of they’ve all the time stayed one step forward of their supply materials—however because the franchise grows extra bloated, they threat changing into their very own punch line.
