Scream VI

Starring: Courteney Cox, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Skeet Ulrich, Dermot Mulroney, Jack Champion, Josh Segarra, Liana Liberato, Devyn Nekoda, Hayden Panettiere, Tony Revolori, Samara Weaving, Henry Czerny
Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Rating: R
Genre: Horror
2023

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: The survivors of the most recent Ghostface killings move to New York City, where they find a new menace awaits.

Review:

Tim: Issues with the naming conventions aside (I'll get to that in a bit), I genuinely have enjoyed the rebooted Scream franchise. The last movie was solid, albeit flawed. This sequel was actually quite enjoyable, too. This might be controversial, but I'll go so far as to say it's better than Scream 2 as a first sequel. It's more flawed than the 2022 version of Scream, but it was still fun to watch.

One of the aspects of this film that really helped elevate it is fully embracing its franchise quality. As expected, there's a meta joke about this being a franchise in the film itself. What that translates to here is a cast that reaches back throughout the franchise's history. We have Courteney Cox reprising Gale Weathers once again from the original trilogy. We obviously have the newer cast members who survived the previous film. But, this time, we also get Hayden Panettiere back, representing the survivor of Scream 4, a decent film, but likely an outlier between two (eventually) more focused trilogies. That's really cool, to have an original cast member, someone from the outlier film, plus the new cast, all together. It gives this film a sense of history and it helps us recognize the scope of this franchise. As it eclipses 25 years, it's a rare horror franchise that really is one continuous story. That's impressive and worthwhile.

As I mentioned, the film continues the franchise tradition of having meta commentary about horror movies, sequels, and now franchises. It's never been as incredible as in the original film, but I genuinely enjoyed this film's attempt to comment on the state of horror franchises in 2023. It really does a nice job of discussing how it's all about franchises now and that means no one is safe. Legacy characters can easily be killed off to continue the franchise (as 2022's Scream did). These moments were some of the better of the film. It showed that the movie did bring some level of intelligence to the story. Now, that being said, this idea is completely contradicted by some of the stupider moments in the film.

That was actually a big detraction for me. The script has many solid moments, but some sheer inane ones. There's too many moments that don't make sense or are so convenient or unrealistic that it caused me to roll my eyes and cringe. These are bad enough that it almost prevented this from being a good movie. I was generally able to forgive the film for some of these lapses, so I'd still consider this a good film. However, it's not as good as the previous one and some of the weaker aspects of the script very nearly sank the film. That was legitimately worrisome. If someone else got stuck on those issues, I can easily see how they wouldn't be a fan of this film. I recognized those moments, too, so I couldn't blame them.

One quick issue and this is minor. I really hate the inconsistent naming conventions of franchises these days. This franchise has Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, Scream 4, then Scream again for the fifth film. Then, because the marketing looked cool, this movie is Scream VI, which picks up the numbering again but also switches to roman numerals for the first time. All I can do is sigh.

Interesting enough, I didn't really miss Neve Campbell or David Arquette too much here. Their presence in this franchise would always be welcome, but Courteney Cox represents the original group just fine. It was fun seeing Hayden Panettiere reprise her role- I wasn't expecting that and it was a welcome surprise. Part of the reason the original cast wasn't missed much is because the new cast members are impressive. I really appreciate what Melissa Barrera is doing as Sam. I find her character interesting and her performance is worthwhile and memorable. She brings a nice change of pace to the franchise and is a definite plus. Jenna Ortega is riding a big wave from now, so it felt like a treat to see her in this role. She gets a bit more to do this time around and her performance is entertaining. Barrera and Ortega make a great pairing and I sincerely hope their story continues at least for another film (and I wouldn't be opposed to more). Mason Gooding continues to add an impressive supporting performance. I enjoyed him and his character far more than I expected here. His presence is really critical to the film. Jasmin Savoy Brown is effective, too. She's the horror movie fanatic this time around and her monologues mostly work. I always enjoy seeing Dermot Mulroney and I was glad he got a substantial amount of things to do in his supporting role. The new cast members are memorable as well- Jack Champion and Liana Liberato both add really strong performances to the film. I thought Josh Segarra was excellent in his supporting performance. I enjoyed his limited role on She-Hulk and I was impressed with what he did here. Segarra is an actor to keep our eyes on. The cast as a whole really did work well- Tony Revolori was a nice addition and Samara Weaving was memorable. This film did an impressive job of pulling in a large and talented cast. That's a big reason why this movie works.

Scream has always been one of the best horror movie franchises. I've genuinely enjoyed these rebooted films. This one is certainly flawed, but it does a lot of things better than most horror movies out there. It tries to be more than just a dumb slasher and it occasionally succeeds. It does worry me that the script seems to abandon all logic at various points. There's too many absurd moments that make no sense. They'll have to watch that for future films. While definitely full of weaknesses, Scream VI still does enough right. I had a lot of fun watching this movie and I appreciated the cast greatly. Let's hope this franchise continues (I'm not sure how it couldn't) and potentially this new trilogy is paid off in the next one.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend:
Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, Scream 4, Scream (2022)