There is a certain point in Scream VI where the film willingly contorts itself into metaverse Everything Bagel from Everything Everywhere All at Once.
As two law enforcement officers go down a line of all the different killers from all five of the previous Scream films, you can tell there’s a palpable sense of “oh my gosh, are we really still doing this?” floating in the air. Indeed, the meta-granddaddy film franchise openly starts to wonder what it’s still doing here.
That’s the undercurrent that makes Scream VI work, an expectedly gruesome piece of horror comedy that honors its roots by vigorously questioning them. If any film series is going to lament that might be starting to run out of gas, it’s Scream, and there is definitely a standard to uphold in self-awareness.
Much like the second film in Wes Craven’s landmark franchise, Scream VI gets nastier with the violence. The parallels between that 1997 sequel and this one are aggressive. Both films followed the Woodsboro survivors as they ventured to college, and both films deal with the repercussions of surviving a Ghostface killing spree. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett take their jobs so seriously to hype up the metanarrative of it all that this feels as much a winking remake of Scream 2 as 2022’s Scream did of the original.
Lost on this series is the ability to absolutely shock, which happens when the getaway car has loses the tread on the screeching tires. A day will come when the Scream films get sucked so far into its self-awareness that it becomes impossible to take a breath without commenting on it.
Thankfully, Scream VI does enough with the New York slasher set-pieces to justify Ghostface’s sixth terrorizing, including one absolutely harrowing sequence on a subway line that will leave you frightened to travel underground anytime soon.
Scream VI feels a bit shaggier than some of the films that came before it, a bit too eager at times to jump into the mayhem without pacing itself. It’s hard to do these legacy sequels with new characters and maintain the same rhythms that came before, ones that admittedly worked better with the original players. Franchise leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega do sound work as the film’s primary scream queens. Barrera’s Sam Carpenter still grapples with her place in the universe as original Scream killer Billy Loomis’ daughter, and Ortega struggles with being looped into all of this as Sam’s half-sister.
Jasmin Savoy Brown’s Mindy has taken the Randy Meeks mantle with aplomb, and there is a sense that these films just could not work without her hysterical running commentary on what’s happening in the movie.
It’s with characters like Mindy that writers James Vanderbilt and Busick can really poke holes in the seriousness. Scream movies have to be one step ahead of themselves, always willing to self-edit when necessary. The real genius of keeping these movies going is being able to openly mock that these Ghostface killings keep happening the way they do and with the same exact people. Outside of Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s gnarly knack for staging Ghostface attacks, their two films in the series have done admirable work trying to comment on our incessant need to keep franchises going when they clearly could’ve stopped eons ago.
Will Scream ever fall victim to what it’s making fun of? It’s likely, and that’s almost kind of the beauty of it. With inevitable sequels probably coming (these are cheap to make and rake in the cash), it’ll be fascinating to see when these films finally wave the white flag and admit defeat. It’ll be a glorious tailspin when that does happen, but Scream VI does plenty to keep the party going.
If you’re a die-hard fan of Woodsboro’s finest, this latest Scream will subvert just a few expectations while fulfilling plenty of creature comforts. If you’re wondering when Ghostface will finally put the knives back in the kitchen, you’ll hopefully find it amusing that this movie series is asking the same question. Scream being its own trash-talking ombudsman will keep these films alive for as long as they’re needed. The filmmakers can take the horror seriously while letting the writers suck the air out of the room when it’s desperately needed.
