Scream 6 Review: Bloody Kills And Lackluster Thrills
Is there anything left for the bloody, quippy "Scream" franchise to say? The knee-jerk reaction would be to reply yes — as long as there are new horror movies, there will be plenty of material for "Scream" sequels to riff on. But after the severely humdrum "Scream 6," it might be time to put Ghostface out to pasture. "Scream 6" has a distinct "going through the motions" vibe that becomes tedious and, worse, boring. It's the most disappointing entry since "Scream 3" ("Scream 4" rules; don't @ me).
By the time the main characters gathered around in a circle to once again discuss the rules of surviving a scary movie, I had an overwhelming urge to check my watch and ponder how much longer this would go on. Apparently forever, as long as these movies keep raking in the dough. And I fully expect "Scream 6" to be a hit. It's the latest entry in a popular franchise, and it's selling itself by throwing in a sexy new location: New York City.
That's right, Ghostface is ready to take Manhattan! Except he (or she?!) isn't. Taking "Scream" out of small-town Woodsboro isn't a bad idea at all — which is why most of the other sequels already did the same thing. But this isn't just some ordinary location, folks! It's the Big Apple! The city that never sleeps! And yet, save for an admittedly tense, disturbing scene in a bodega and another on the subway, New York is an afterthought here. The characters could really be in any major city and it wouldn't change anything. I'm not saying "Scream 6" had to take the hokey route of making the city a character itself, but why even bother to relocate to NYC if you're not going to do anything novel with that concept? Have Ghostface take in a Broadway show or something. Go nuts!
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It's been one year since the events of the last "Scream," and the Carpenter sisters — Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega) — have moved to New York with their friends, the Meeks siblings, Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding). While Tara and the Meeks twins attend college in New York, Sam works two jobs and spends most of her time both haunted by what happened in Woodsboro and being extremely overprotective of Tara, to the point where Tara is starting to feel smothered.
Of course, Sam is right to be worried, because new bloody Ghostface murders begin happening all around them. And I do mean bloody — "Scream 6" is arguably the most gruesome entry in the franchise yet, with extremely gnarly kills that linger long on blood, gore, and suffering. It's unpleasant, and that's not entirely out of character — people often seem to forget that while the first "Scream" has plenty of humor, it's also a nasty piece of work — the now-famous opening kill of Drew Barrymore's character is harrowing.
Escalating the brutality makes a certain amount of sense — this is the sixth entry, after all. But it's also so frequently gruesome that it clashes with the goofy, even occasionally campy atmosphere this new movie is going for. But I did appreciate how feral and frenzied the new Ghostface is here — the familiar mask is deliberately damaged-looking, and the physicality of the character is dialed up to the extreme.
If I can make it there I'll make it anywhere
After an opening kill sequence that bucks convention and suggests a much better movie, "Scream 6" grows tedious as it attempts to catch us up with the returning characters and introduce new ones. Here's the thing: the new characters just aren't that interesting. We grew to love Sidney and the original "Scream" survivors, but the characters of this new franchise are merely pale imitations of what came before. And none of them are very compelling, not even the Carpenter sisters.
I suppose Sam's mental troubles — she's haunted by the fact that she's the daughter of serial killer Billy Loomis — could amount to something, but there's just not much there. And while Ortega is having a big moment right now and her star is on the rise, Tara's entire characterization in these movies seems to be nothing more than "younger sister who is always in danger." To make things even more disappointing, the new characters introduced in this entry are so thinly sketched that they might as well have VICTIM or KILLER tattooed on their foreheads. To be blunt, these characters stink, and that makes it very hard to care about what happens to them as they run for their lives.
Still, I'm sure there are things here fans of the franchise will embrace. There's plenty of movie-talk — movie logging app Letterboxd even gets a shout-out — that will sporadically amuse film lovers. The references to both past "Scream" films and other horror movies flow like wine. And fan-favorite character Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) gets to return with a new job that puts her directly in the middle of the story. Also back: reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), who doesn't have much to do, all things considered. Neve Campbell's Sidney sits this adventure out, and while that may rub some "Scream"-heads the wrong way, I will say that it never seems like an issue while you're watching the film. As Gale says, Sidney deserves a happy ending. And trust me — she's not missing much by skipping this movie. You might want to do the same.
/Film Rating: 5 out of 10