Weekend Watch: Scream VI
Ghostface takes Manhattan
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Ghostface hunts some familiar faces in New York City. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
How do you solve a problem like a Ghostface? Carrying the unwieldy burden of the entire Scream franchise might be a bigger problem, given that we’ve already seen so many different combinations of killers, motivations and victims across the five existing films.
It’s a thorny issue that directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (plus writers Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt) largely figured out with their first effort, the confusingly titled “rebootquel” Scream from last year. They nimbly introduced a new clutch of characters who (mostly) lived in Woodsboro and had connections to past characters, be they slayers or victims.
And with Scream VI, they make the attempt to tackle the logical next step in any franchise: the bigger, more complicated sequel.
It’s something that Scream has done before (let’s face it, there are few facets of ongoing genre franchises that the movies haven’t touched upon in the past, which is another element of that burden), but this sixth entry is expansive yet nimble enough that the seams don’t show too much.
We catch up with sisters Tara (Jenna Ortega) and Sam (Melissa Barrera) Carpenter, who were the primary targets last time around. They, along with twins Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding) Meeks-Martin have moved to New York, looking to put the most recent rash of killings in the rear-view mirror.
Yet while Tara, Chad and Mindy are largely happy to move on with their lives, Sam is still haunted by what happened, in therapy (with a psychoanalyst played by Henry Czerny, a veteran of the directors’ excellent Ready Or Not) and unwilling to let Tara live her life lest she becomes a target again.
As it turns out (because otherwise there’d be no movie), Sam is right to be worried, as the legacy of Ghostface has followed them. Initially fuelled by two college film students (who open the film slaying another Ready Or Not performer), things soon turn more complicated. I won’t say exactly how, as figuring that out is part of the fun of these movies, but suffice to say, when the revelations come, they’re largely satisfying, if a little tortured in terms of making them fit the narrative.
Until that happens, though, there’s the usual parade of our heroes running for their lives from masked killers. The rare location switch from Woodsboro is helpful in this, as the New York locales mean we’re treated to some fresh set pieces, including one set in a bodega, another high-tension moment between apartment buildings and a packed subway train full of costumed revellers that also features a few Ghostfaces.
The attempts to broaden the spread of the killings feel mostly organic, though the script slips in places and some of the plot turns will have you sighing and tutting rather than applauding. The absence of Neve Campbell as core character Sidney Prescott (Campbell passed on the film when the studio didn’t meet her reasonable pay demands) is felt at times, though Ortega and Barrera make up for her in some degree and other surviving legacy cast member Courteney Cox brings her usual sass to Gale Weathers.
It might not completely overcome the idea that we’ve seen pretty much every combination of plot twists in this franchise already, but Scream VI is at least a gory, sometimes scary and mostly fun example of keeping a long-running film series alive, even as people die every other scene.
Scream VI is in US and UK cinemas now.