Review: Scream VI

Scream VI
Cert: 18 / 122 mins / Dir. Tyler Gillett & Matt Bettinelli-Olpin / Trailer

Being a relative civilian at these things and not having perused the film's IMDB page in advance, I wasn't far into Scream VI's runtime before the thought occurred to me that 'oh, that's why this was double-billed with the fifth movie'. Because this new entry features a lot of the prominent (and crucially under-developed) characters from last time, whom I would have otherwise completely forgotten about in the intervening fourteen months. Emotional continuity dictates recent re-watching, here.

It's also worth noting that many of these players were not standing waving in the final frame of that film, suggesting that the Scream-verse is now closer to the Marvel model where central characters apparently never actually die. Not ideal for a slasher. Bonus casting-points should be awarded for the traditional semi-detached opening sequence starring Samara Weaving and Tony Revolori, suggesting that Scream has become Last Of The Summer Wine for millennial actors. Still, fans of arch scripting will be pleased with the line where Courtney Cox explains that Neve Campbell won't be showing up for this one, with all the subtlety of Christopher Lee being announced out of Return Of The King...

GUY

But I digress. To New York now, as 5quel scribes Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt return with directors Tyler Gillet and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin for a tonal reboot of the spiritual reboot which does exactly the same thing but different. Basically, a slasher movie which is in love with itself. And yet with the exception of the first act's Annoying Film Studies Geeks™, the extraneous structural introspection of the last outing is all but jettisoned as the film commits to continuing the storyline of 5, and bringing 4 closer into the ongoing continuity. Because there's little time for meta-smartarsery when you're crafting a convoluted whodunnit*¹.

Ironically, this stripping-down makes Scream VI a far better movie for not constantly talking about how the movie will unfold, but also a more ordinary slasher and arguably far worse Scream movie as a result. I guess you can use that knife to cut the cake but the mask means you can't eat it, or something.

DOLL

And it's... okay. Engaging enough all the time the film is playing, but most viewers will take little away from this. The action and the set-pieces work well (earning that 18 certificate with gleefully exploitative violence), but as welcome as Hayden Panettiere's return is, the whole thing feels like it's running on fumes. Like a series which was relaunched Because Of The Money is already desperately scrabbling around for ideas to justify its existence. Convention would dictate at least one further entry under the title (just to act as a trilogy for this set of characters*²), but it already feels like there's little actual need for that. Not that need was ever an obstacle to a property's rights-owners.

Crucially, Scream V had a superbly climactic ending. This doesn't. It's as muddled and nonsensical as everything leading up to it, where the only redeeming feature is the enthusiasm with which it's executed (much like Ghostface's unfortunate victims).

Ultimately, Scream VI is absolutely fine for an audience who aren't expecting very much, although that hardly feels like the energy to be bringing to part six of an ongoing series (sorry, 'franchise', my bad. I'm never to proud too be schooled by characters smart enough to know they're in a movie, but dumb enough to repeatedly trip up a masked assassin and then run away instead of immediately stoving in his/her head with the nearest fire extinguisher, or at the very least use that to break their wrists or elbows or something, the one flaw of slasher-lore that even this lot haven't noticed).

But hey, those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to reboot them...

*¹ Without wading into spoiler territory, it was quite delicious to watch the scene unfold where Ghostface uses a gun to despatch victims in the convenience store, not least because that same moment in the trailer threw up an online spat with some fans arguing this was out of character, against others pointing out that in the first movie he'd used a garage door as a weapon. In the film itself, it's revealed that this particular iteration of Ghostface isn't really Ghostface which works as a get-out, until you think about the wider format of the movies and realise that this actually is Ghostface in a very real sense, because they all are. That's the point. This, and discussions of collective vs individual identity thereafter, is probably the most interesting thing that Scream VI does in its entire run-time, because it's also the thing the film barely seems to notice has happened, never mind actually spending the time explore it... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² It does seem weird that 2023's Scream VI is scripted to be set one year after 2022's Scream V, and yet all of the returning school and college students from that movie now look about 30. Where were they studying, Rydell High? ^{[ BACK ]}

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