Scream VI review: There is still some blood left in the slasher franchise

Ghostface Takes Manhattan

Over twenty-five years after Wes Craven’s original Scream, Ghostface is finally let loose in the big city for Scream VI. While that may sound like a desperate attempt to shake up a stifling franchise (see: Jason in space, Leprechaun in…the hood), the latest Scream installment proves that there is still plenty of fresh blood in the enduring slasher franchise.

Following 2021’s confusingly titled Scream, Scream VI sees the film’s director team Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) back at the helm for this direct sequel. In the aftermath of the Ghostface Woodsboro killings depicted in the previous films, sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) are now living in New York City, trying to live normal lives after escaping the Woodsboro killing spree.

Scream VI – Bigger, better?

Surprisingly, the darkest corners of the internet have something else in mind; a conspiracy theory has spread that Sam orchestrated the Woodsboro killings, forcing her to constantly be on the lookout for unhinged strangers with a vendetta against her and her sister. That paranoia comes in handy when a slate of new killings is attributed to a murderer in a Ghostface mask, forcing Sam, Tara, and a new crew of friends to try to uncover who is behind the mask before it’s too late.

Scream VI brings back a number of familiar faces from throughout the franchise including Courtney Cox as the intrepid reporter Gale Weathers and Hayden Panettiere as Kirby Reed from Scream 4, but the film smartly focuses on the rocky relationship between Sam and Tara. Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega are great as two very different sisters trying to make sense of the madness their lives have become, and provide a strong core for this new era of Scream films.

Can Scream get too meta?

Scream has been a meta horror franchise from the start, commenting on the legacy and sometimes silly rules associated with the genre. That knowing wink made Wes Craven’s original film so refreshing, but at this point, the joke is starting to hit a bit too close to home. With characters in the latest film reflecting on how sequels have to constantly up the stakes, adding in more characters just to keep the franchise alive (and to keep Ghostface knife-deep in new victims), it’s hard not to see that growth as a bit of a detriment here.

Scream VI still does a number of things right. The characters are well-developed, and the new additions to the franchise are so likable that you can’t help but groan as some of them are brutally taken out. On that front, the film holds nothing back; this is far and away the bloodiest Scream entry to date, packed with the sort of visceral kills you rarely see in mainstream horror films.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett know how to ratchet up the suspense; there’s a scene where characters are forced to crawl across a stepladder between apartments over an alley with Ghostface on their tail that easily ranks as one of the best sequences in the history of the franchise.

The idea of a Ghostface killer in New York City is novel, and the filmmakers take full advantage of the idea of Ghostface stalking grimy alleys and the subway instead of tree-lined suburban homes. At the same time, you can feel writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick struggling to craft a new original story while maintaining the extremely convoluted backstory they have to weave into the film. That sense of the cat eating its tail really makes its presence known in the final act of this 2-hour+ film where the series of reveals comes off like an R-rated episode of Scooby Doo.

Montreal as “NYC”

Scream VI is a smart and bloody sequel that nonetheless feels a bit burdened by all of the backstory it feels it needs to weave in. That said, Montrealers in particular will get an extra kick out of seeing our city dressed up as “NYC,” with an elaborate sequence filmed at the National concert hall and numerous readily identifiable Westmount and downtown locations used throughout the film. If only someone had thought to have Ghostface chase them onto the street; no masked killer would stand a chance against our brutal potholes.

Scream VI is in theatres now.