Scream VI Review: A Rushed, Less Meaningful Sequel

Credit: Paramount Pictures

Ken Jones, OnScreen Blog Chief Film Critic

The Scream franchise has always been one that has an eye toward self-awareness. It namedrops horror movies, monsters, and villains liberally. It also subverts and embraces the tropes and traditions of horror movies in equal measure and often with a knowing, almost too obvious at times, wink to the audience. Franchises continually need to spice things up. Scream 2 and Scream 3 left Woodboro for college and LA, respectively. Following in the footsteps of Friday the 13th Part VIII, Scream VI is taking a stab at the Big Apple and bringing Ghostface and his slasher antics to New York City.

This is the first movie in the franchise to not have any involvement from Neve Campbell or David Arquette, who both basically said their goodbyes in 2022’s Scream to varying degrees (though never say never). The baton has been passed to the new generation, with only Courtney Cox’s stalwart Gail Weathers reprising her role from the original franchise. 

A year after the events of the previous film, the four survivors of the latest Ghostface killer attack have left Woodsboro behind to live in New York City and attend college. Half-sisters Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega) are at odds with how to move forward with their lives, as Sam seeks counseling and processing while Tara just wants to move on and live her life.

That quickly becomes impossible when a new Ghostface killer appears and starts terrorizing them along with their friends, twins Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding) who also survived the last movie, Quinn (Liana Liberato), Ethan (Jack Champion) Anika (Devyn Nekoda), and Danny (Josh Segarra). Quinn’s father, Wayne Bailey (Dermot Mulroney) is a detective who winds up investigating the new murders, along with a returning Hayden Panettiere reprising her role as Kirby Reed, who survived Scream 4 and now works for the FBI.

Whether an intentionally cynical ploy or an unintended byproduct of needing to do something fresh with the franchise, it is interesting that the franchise relocates to New York City at a time when the fears of inner-city violence are being hyped on cable news over the last few years.

The story setting is also around Halloween, so the costume quotient is up throughout the city and on campus, and thus an added layer of general apathy toward antics that most bystanders assume are just simulated violence instead of actual violence by someone in a Ghostface costume.

Scream movies have always been very self-aware, providing commentary on the horror genre as well as on horror fans. This time around there is the obligatory scene where a character lays out the “rules” for what can happen this time around and how everyone is a suspect, but there is also commentary about conspiracy theory culture and how we live in a post-truth society.

Sam, walking home from a party, gets recognized on the street and someone dumps soda on her while calling her the real killer from the last movie and that she framed the actual killers. 

Ghostface this time around is a bit more aggressive, willing to use a shotgun in a tense convenience store scene instead of simply relying on the knife that is the killer’s calling card. I’ve personally never done a deep dive on whether there is a consistent internal logic in how the killers use the Ghostface façade to get to their victims when they’re spread out. Having rewatched Scream-Scream 4 recently, there were a few that strained credibility, but they were probably 75% logistically sound and I’d say the same applies with this chapter in the franchise. 

Oddly enough, Scream VI takes more than a few cues from Scream 2. In Scream 2, there was a scene on the campus quad where the killer talks to Dewey, Gail, and Randy on a cellphone. This time around, a similar scene takes place in Central Park with several of the characters trying to trap the killer by tracing the phone call. The final act of the film, much like Scream 2, takes place in a theater, only this one is abandoned and has been turned into a Ghostface museum/shrine with various artifacts and collectibles from the previous movies.

This last act, where the killer or killers are revealed is what these Scream movies ultimately hinge on, and, sadly, this one ranks toward the bottom of the list in terms of overall quality of the killers, slightly ahead of Scream 2 and Scream 3 for killer reveals.

The reveal felt strained, and the acting was incredibly over the top and hilariously unhinged. It undermined what was shaping up to be a decent sequel and really left a disappointing taste in my mouth; the territory felt too familiar after 2022’s Scream had felt fresher. 

In hindsight, it is not surprising that Scream VI feels like a letdown; much like Scream 2, Scream VI was rushed into production after the financial success of the previous film. There is likely to be another sequel in the pipeline as these movies make bank. But this entry felt rushed and like it had less to say overall than the commentary from 2022’s Scream.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

For context, my ratings of all the movies of the Scream Franchise

Scream (Original): 4.5/5 stars

Scream 2: 3/5 stars

Scream 3: 2/5 stars

Scream 4: 2.5/5 stars

Scream 5: 3.5/5 stars

Follow OnScreen Blog on twitter or facebook @onscreenblog