Year of Release: 2023
Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Starring: Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Hayden Panettiere, Dermot Mulroney, Courteney Cox, Skeet Ulrich, Jack Champion, Josh Segarra, Devyn Nekoda, Tony Revolori, Samara Weaving, Henry Czerny, Andre Anthony, Liana Liberato, Roger Jackson
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 4
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review
Following the success of "Scream V", the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett quickly reunited with the writing team of James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick in order to continue the franchise, this time around focusing on the Carpenter sisters who survived the ordeal of the prior film (leaving Sydney Prescott out of the narrative since the studio refused to pay actress Neve Campbell her asking fee). The narrative focuses once again on sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter. Tara is now in New York going to college, and being closely watched by her sister, who has become an internet villain since rumors started swirling around that she had something to do with the Woodsboro murders, even though her ex-boyfriend Richie Kirsch and his accessory were in fact the killers. As it turns out, a new Ghostface killer appears, slashing across two students who wanted to kill the sisters, and who goes after the sisters and her close knit of friends. That group includes fellow survivors Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin, their roommate Quinn Bailey, Mindy's girlfriend Anika Kayoko, and Chad's roommate Ethan Landry. As the killer goes after the sisters, causing more death and destruction in the process, a prior victim of the Ghostface menace, Kirby Reed, now an FBI agent comes to NY to aid the group, as does Gale Weathers, and also Detective Wayne Bailey, Quinn's father who is assigned the case. As the group theorizes the logic behind the killings, the slasher manages to cause more death amongst the group, until Kirby and the sisters decide to stage a killbox to trap and destroy the apparently invulnerable killer.
"Scream VI" sadly doesn't quite get to the level demonstrated by the prior chapter, which deftly combined the introduction of a new set of characters, while integrating them into the universe created by the original series of films. At some point these extensions of the franchise become similar to a long standing telenovela, in which multiple threads find a way to attempt some integration with the original aspect of the initial storyline. At this time, the narrative feels more and more diluted from what made the original "Scream" a unique property, mostly because the creative team still hasn't decided to take a qualitative jump and simply start a new thread under the concept of Ghostface, but with a whole new character set. Therefore what we get is a bit of a rehashed narrative, which brings to mind "Scream 2", but with more gore and more gruesome and visceral bloody makeup effects. Concerning character development and considering all the time this group spends interacting with each other, most of what we learn about them is focused on the sisters themselves, as their friends and the newly introduced characters remain barely defined sketches (even Gale stubbornly remains something of a persistent question mark). This film does manage to create a suspenseful narrative courtesy of the progressive disclosure surrounding the next victim, but it's a film that accelerates its action, and seemingly strips some coherence from these characters lives, all with the goal of demonstrating an increased body count. It's a rather humor-less chapter in a franchise, though the cast tries their best with the material they have. Courteney Cox is the best highlight in this chapter, whereas the usually reliable Dermot Mulroney feels lost and out of place. Jenna Ortega plays the character on auto-pilot, the same going for Melissa Barrera. The production team is competent without being particularly memorable. It's a bloody but not exactly memorable entry into this franchise.
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