A sequel to a requel! Let’s do better than Star Wars: The Last Jedi, ey? Of course, I rewatched Scream (2022) again the other night, and I can’t believe how great a job the directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett did in honouring the franchise. I’m one horror fan who doesn’t need to go crazy, because Scream (2022) makes me so happy 😍 But I did say at the end of my review for Scream (2022) that I don’t need another Scream movie – I feel the franchise has come full circle; it ended where it started, with opposing villain motives, and an opportunity for Sidney and Gale to walk off into the sunset… so I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to figure out an angle where I can be enthusiastic about Scream VI. The teaser trailer helped a lot; taking this mayhem to New York opens up a larger setting, and I guess these directors have earned the respect to trust that they might have something new up their sleeves, something outside the box. I might also have a few ideas as to where this sequel might be heading myself. So let’s run a knife through Scream VI, and see what spills out 🔪
Tara (Jenna Ortega) and her friends, the twins Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding), have moved to New York’s Blackmore University. Samantha (Melissa Barrera) has followed, and keeps a close eye on her sister to a point where Tara feels smothered. It’s only been a year since the freshest batch of Woodsboro murders terrorized this ‘core 4’, but Tara already plans on forgetting all about it, while Samantha attends therapy, and gets harassed in public for being the daughter of Billy Loomis. But, since this is a Scream movie, it isn’t long before Ghostface shows their face again, making a splatter of anyone close to their target. There are certain ‘rules’ to a new addition to a building franchise, but I wouldn’t expect Ghostface to stick to script – “fuck the movies” is their sentiment after their first kill.
Ready or not? Samara Weaving’s previous partnership with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett has earned her the opening death scene, and in her Aussie accent too ❤ I loved it, I loved her, along with the movie’s decision to reveal the killer’s face in the first five minutes, making me eager to explore a fresh new take. It’s not that I don’t love the original format – of course I do – but after five movies and two TV shows, I thought it might be time we might rev this franchise up the freeway, rip it into sixth gear and see what else it can do. Scream 5 was so sweetly dedicated to Wes Craven by Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, but if we’re doing this, it’s their franchise now. As you know, I went into the cinema not really wanting this movie, but I still left really disappointed, dudes. For starters, to me, Kirby’s ‘death’ is probably the best of Scream 4, and I don’t think this movie ever justifies bringing her back. It’s like Randy; how he is one of the most beloved characters in the franchise, and his death is traumatic, but if the movies were to bring him back it would undercut the fanfare, and that’s how I feel about Kirby (Hayden Panettiere). (That’s how I feel about Stu too, by the way – leave him dead! And let the conspiracies reign in fandom!). But I know there was a wink to Kirby being alive in Scream 5, yet there’s a difference between an easter egg I can ignore, and seeing her again in the flesh. As FBI, Kirby doesn’t find the old cinema, and as a horror movie nut and self-proclaimed Ghostface specialist, Kirby doesn’t remember that Randy died in a van 😮 I admire competence, and all Kirby really offers is nostalgia bait and another suspect for the list.
Similarly, and I’m sorry to say it, but Gale (Courtney Cox) should’ve stayed away too. This Gale is so regressive – Scream 5 Gale evolved beyond needing to be the first reporter on the scene to further her career, and quite grandly stated that she wouldn’t be writing the book again, only to have now written the book again, and return as an eager reporter. I know, most the movies have Gale regress a little bit to account for her on-again-off-again relationship with Dewey, but Scream 5 felt different, matured, and I hate to see it undone. I have an idea of how to fix all this, and what if we only saw Gale for the one scene in her apartment? She called Sam early, and what if Sam answered the phone and told Gale not to come to campus because they could handle it, on good terms, because they are friendly. I think it would’ve upped the stakes to have Gale’s first and only appearance be in her apartment, because we know that when we first see a character and they answer a phone, it usually doesn’t bode well for them. It’s a way of almost having two opening sequences, which are usually the most intense scenes of the movie too, and Gale could end up lying in her own blood waiting for the ambulance, with a quip like, ‘even when I stay out of it, I still get stabbed by these fuckers’. With Gale removed from the investigation, Kirby can now be the one to reveal the cinema lair and actually be relevant, while still remaining suspicious as if she’s the one that lured them there 👻
The romance in Scream VI is a little off-putting, don’t you think? It might be a small thing, but Tara explicitly states twice, to both Mindy and Chad, that she wants to go upstairs with party-dude, and they still stop her. I guess I’m still having trouble with ‘believe all women’. I don’t think party-dude was portrayed so much as a dick to us – he was obvious in his approach, and Tara was aware and accepting. The movie might be trying to use this scene to highlight Sam’s double-standard in her shaky overprotection of Tara, since Sam is engaging in a meaningless hook-up herself with across-the-hall dude Danny (Josh Segarra), but there’s no connective line of motivation that Mindy or Chad better cockblock Tara, or Sam will feel like they let her down, is there? I suppose it’s alright, since Tara admits she would’ve regretted the hookup later on, it’s just a different moral judgement than I would’ve made, and I worry it sends a murky message about independent women not being responsible for their own limitations – ‘no’ means no, but in this scenario, ‘yes’ means no… Moreover, Chad is given no character development from the jock he was in the last movie, to take seriously as a high-school-friend become sudden-love-interest for Tara, beyond a couple smiles and a musical swell. I wasn’t feeling the love in this movie’s execution, and this is the most a Scream movie has ever depended on the romantic investment.
There’s also that thing about justifying characters making dumb decisions because they don’t know what genre they’re in, but the Core 4 know what genre they’re in! They went through all this a year ago, and everything that was said about friends and kill circles ended up happening, so I don’t understand why Mindy is giddy at telling everyone the ‘rules of a franchise’, when her girlfriend is either going to get killed or be the killer. I’ve never had a problem with the self-aware application of Scream before, I suppose because Sidney was always basically alone – there’s been a plausible skepticism in her friend circles, or an integrated point on desensitization in nineties and naughties teens, to dismiss what the nerd is saying. But the Core 4 have each other, and while I may believe their decision not to leave New York to remain together, there’s no reason why they don’t lock themselves away from the rest of their friends, and cut off half the suspects! I thought Mindy’s speech was setting up for an instant breakup from girlfriend Anika (Devyn Nekoda), where Anika is offended but ends up wriggling her way back in with Mindy against her better judgement because Anika’s just too sweet to be a killer – we may’ve even seen similar plot moves before, but this makes more sense than for Mindy to do nothing, and then be shocked when Anika falls to her death; you just told everyone this was going to happen a few scenes ago, and did nothing to stop it! I just, I needed a reason why the friends of the Core 4 weren’t able to flee campus, at the beseech of their more experienced friend’s persistence. I also held a theory over from Scream (2022), that Mindy or Tara might be a new killer, as we’ve never seen a returning character reveal themselves to be in on the spree. This new movie was dropping hints that Tara might be suspect, but I’m ultimately glad it never went this route.
How about our killers…? I dunno. I’m sure when people came out of Scream 2 back in 1997, they might’ve been a bit confused as to how a perpetrator was Billy Loomis’s mother – but I wasn’t there for that, and I’ve always loved Laurie Metcalf’s unhinged performance in hindsight. Pairing her with Mickey, is also one of the strongest dynamics of the franchise too. To that end, this movie’s revelation could grow on me, but it’s still recycled, and perhaps poorly executed – Ethan (Jack Champion) already strikes me as the worst Ghostface, and Quinn (Liana Liberato) is hardly in the movie long enough to be a proper suspect, although the twist that makes it so is alright. I could believe that Wayne (Dermot Mulroney) pulled the original Ghostface mask from evidence, and even gathered DNA from all the previous killers, but to take enough evidence to fill an abandoned cinema has got to be too much for people not to notice it being taken, or that it’s missing, c’mon! It also flies in the face of Ghostface saying ‘fuck the movies’ before the opening title, when he obviously cared enough to support his son’s interests, tracking down all the inspirational memorabilia for his pad. Swiping one mask to pay homage to your son’s passion in death and vengeance, is a little different than bringing home little prezzies along the way for your son’s hobby that you think is lame – and sometimes less nostalgia is more, I think. But I should also say that this movie is deliciously bloody, and that lead Ghostface is powerfully menacing in his movement and murdering. The stab sequences from the convenience store, the apartment, the opener, and the subway, are very memorable, but the kill scenes should be grand, as a creative prerequisite for these sequels, counting for next to naught if the story between them is too fluffy or inconsequential. I also wish the movie had maneuvered to allow Jason (Tony Revolori), the killer from the opening act, to live for at least a third of the movie, perhaps replacing Ethan as the third Ghostface, and I imagine him even being present for Mindy’s ‘rules’ speech, to offer the audience a different dynamic. I imagine Jason still gets killed off before the end, but knowing a Ghostface killer earlier and having him be integral to the flow of the movie, was a concept I definitely would’ve enjoyed exploring a little longer.
Man, I’m so tempted to bomb this movie, but it’s not that bad; it’s just generic, boring in parts, and wasteful. It comes only a month after Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania too, making it two movies from franchises I adore that will be far removed from my Top 10 Favourite Movies at the end of the year, and that’s disappointing. Where there are some of us expecting a poor showing from Marvel right now, walking out of the cinema for Scream VI, this one hurt. It’s such a shame because although I don’t ‘own’ the franchise, I took pride in my favourite horror franchise being great, where most horror fanatics have a complaint to make about one or more of their favourite franchise entries, but I didn’t with Scream – sure, Scream 3 is a little weak, but it’s not a bad movie conceptually, with clear production limitations. There’s actually lore in Scream (2022) that ‘Sidney’ appears in all the Stab movies, except the last one, and the last one sucked 😬 Well, I doubt this is going to be the last Scream movie, but it is the first one without Sidney… appropriately. I may be being a little harsh on directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett for producing something I consider lackluster, when James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick are the writers responsible, with Vanderbilt acting as a producer as well, but it’s usually the directors that garner the most praise, so I think the buck must start with them too. I just suppose if you keep stacking sequels like stones, it won’t be long before they’ll topple, and the franchise will become a derivative of its former self. I wanted better for this new generation, and I’m disappointed.
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