It’s only been just over a year since “requel” movie Scream brilliantly reinvigorated the series after a decade in hibernation. Now we’re back to having numbers (or roman numerals) after the title and we’re leaving Woodsboro behind as we follow the four survivors of the last movie; Sam (Melissa Barrera), Tara (Jenna Ortega), Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding) as they move to New York City and try to put their past behind them. With no Sidney Prescott this time around, the end result is an enjoyable enough ride, but one that’s not quite as strong as its predecessor.
As with all the Scream movies, we kick things off with a brutal cold open. And this is a good one too, getting things off to a strong start and even throwing in a couple of cool little twists in the process. From there we catch up with the “core four”, the name given to the group of Woodsboro survivors by Chad. Sam is attending therapy to help deal with the traumatic events of last year, while Tara is partying hard with her college friends, choosing instead not to let those three crappy days ruin her entire life. We’re also introduced to a bunch of roommates, classmates and boyfriends, so when the news of those opening kills goes public, we already have ourselves a fresh set of suspects.
As the body count starts to mount up help is on hand from legacy character Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox, actually given a lot more to do this time around) and previous Ghostface survivor Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), now an FBI agent with a score to settle. Between them they learn that this latest killer is leaving behind actual masks of previous Ghostface killers at the murder scenes and it soon becomes clear that Sam and Tara are once again the ultimate target. There are more ridiculous visions of Billy Loomis and further turmoil about never really escaping the past, but as Mindy states during the traditional rundown of movie rules, we’re in a franchise now. And all bets are off when it comes to who gets killed and who’s doing the killing.
The Ghostface attacks in Scream VI are very intense and very well executed. The scenes involving the train ride and the convenience store, both of which feature heavily in the trailers, had me on the edge of my seat, as did the battle between Gale Weathers and the killer. It certainly hasn’t harmed the franchise by shifting location and losing Sidney Prescott either, with Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega both putting in some great performances. It’s a great cast overall and, after a brief settling in period, the movie really does confidently hit its stride.
Unfortunately though, the reveal of the killer, and their subsequent monologuing, was pretty underwhelming and fell completely flat for me, meaning that the rest of the final act just didn’t work so well at all. Something else that became increasingly frustrating towards the end was the sheer number of times that characters were able to sustain multiple stab wounds, looking like they’re so badly injured that they’re going to die, only for them to be suffering from nothing more than a bit of blood on their clothing in the next scene! I don’t know about you but I think that if I took two violent stab wounds to the abdomen it would take me a little more than five minutes to recover. It happened far too often and just diminishes the intensity of everything leading up to it if there are no consequences to anything. It’s a shame though, as for the most part this is a strong entry into the franchise.
7.3
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Web developer by day, with a movie and TV watchlist that continues to grow as much as my spare time reduces! My favourite movie is Inception and, despite what everyone says, I do not have a man-crush on Tom Cruise.
