‘Scream VI’ Review

Stars: Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Courteney Cox, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Hayden Panettiere, Henry Czerny, Dermot Mulroney, Devyn Nekoda, Josh Segarra, Jack Champion, Liana Liberato, Samara Weaving, Roger L. Jackson | Written by James Vanderbilt, Guy Busick | Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

Ready Or Not co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett return for a fun-filled follow-up to their enjoyable 2022 reboot of the Scream series, in what is essentially a sequel to the requel. As such, the oh-so-meta, self-aware slasher franchise continues to be safe in their very capable hands.

This time round, in a nod to 1989’s Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (the theme music plays at one point), the action moves from Woodsboro to New York, as the self-dubbed “Core Four” survivors of the previous movie attend Blackmore College in the Big Apple. They include: Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), whose father, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) was the original Ghostface; Sam’s younger sister Tara (Jenna Ortega), who’s feeling suffocated by Sam’s over-protectiveness; horror movie nerd Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and her hunky brother Chad (Mason Gooding).

Unsurprisingly, it isn’t long before a familiar Ghostface (voiced, as ever, by Roger L. Jackson) makes a reappearance, forcing Sam and Tara to do the slasher movie equivalent of a whodunnit and figure out which psycho or psychos are targetting them, before it’s too late. The list of suspects-slash-potential victims includes: Sam’s “sex positive” roommate Quinn (Lianna Liberato), her cop dad Detective Bailey (Dermot Mulroney), hot shirtless neighbour Danny (Josh Segarra), virgin nerd Ethan (Jack Champion) and Mindy’s spiky girlfriend Anika (Devyn Nekoda), as well as two returning “legacy characters”, reporter Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and unexpected Scream 4 survivor Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), who’s now an FBI agent obsessed with the Woodsboro murders.

The young cast are excellent, so much so that you don’t even miss original star Neve Campbell, who declined to return as Sidney Prescott, but gets a nice send-off here as someone says they should “let her have her happy ending”. Barrera is especially good, comfortably carrying the rebooted franchise as the new star and bringing an interesting edge to Sam that’s sure to be explored further in future movies, as her connection to her father grows ever stronger, unbeknownst to all around her.

The appeal of the Scream movies has always rested on both the sharpness of the horror-savvy meta-commentary and getting the quotient right when it comes to delivering tension, shocks and gory kills. In turn, that means that each new movie is aware that it has to somehow find new twists on everything we’ve seen before in the previous films.

To that end, the film largely succeeds, opening with a terrific spin on the traditional opening phonecall sequence, starring Samara Weaving (who made Ready Or Not with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett) as a college professor who teaches a course in slasher movies, but still finds herself lured into a dark alleyway. The way the scene plays out subverts expectations and is just one of several cleverly thought out surprises the film has in store.

As with the previous instalment, Bertinelli-Olpin and Gillett orchestrate several enjoyable set-pieces, and the New York setting allows for certain New York variations, such as Ghostface using a shotgun in a convenience store (the collateral damage of innocent bystanders is a first for the franchise), a tense sequence set aboard a subway train packed with people in horror costumes (including several Ghostfaces), or a thrilling escape involving a wobbly ladder slung between two high-rise apartment windows.

In addition, the film gives Courtney Cox one of the very best action set-pieces, highlighting the fact that in six movies, her character has never actually spoken to the killer. Her subsequent phone exchange is a great piece of meta-writing, astutely commenting on Cox’s own place in the franchise while ostensibly talking about Weathers.

The only slight disappointment is that the film breaks its own rules a little, particularly when it comes to who it’s actually prepared to kill off, and the impact of several scenes is lessened as a result. On that note, it’s funny that the Ghostface killers do all this extensive research into the past murderers and victims, yet none of them apparently bothers to learn the best places to administer a fatal stab wound.

In short, this is a thoroughly enjoyable sixquel that shows the Scream franchise still has plenty of life left in it. Oh, and stick around for a pitch-perfect post-credits sting – another first for the series.

**** 4/5

Scream VI is in cinemas from Friday.