"Scream VI" - F*ck this franchise!

Josh
Jan 20, 2025
6 min read

Matt Bettinelli-Olphin; Tyler Gillett (2023)

I like scary movies but not this one.

The Scream franchise has been around for 27 years (as of Scream VI) and as a retrospective look at the series, it seems to carry a lot of irony. So here is a quick history lesson of the horror genre. The 90’s was all over the place for horror. We were greeted with the tail end of the horror franchises from the 80s, the movies where you look at the cover and you think, “Oh another one?” Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993 and not the final), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994), Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991 and not the final), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) and the list can go on for a while. And that’s not to say there weren’t some iconic horror films that graced our screen and some that I would consider some of the greatest of all time. The Blair Witch Project (1999), Candyman (1992), Funny Games (1997), or Jacobs Ladder (1990). Note I’m leaving out high-quality thrillers from that time such as Se7en (1995), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) or The Sixth Sense (1999) but I can understand if you would want to include some of them as horror.

Yet, there was one movie that sticks out for being unique. A meta look at the landscape of horror. One that calls attention to the fact it is a movie and was made by one of the forefathers of horror Wes Craven. And that movie was Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994). A movie that adds a meta layer of storytelling where the horror escapes the written words and infects the lives of the actors and crew of the film set. Yet it wasn’t the financial hit one would’ve hoped despite the fresh take on a franchise 7 movies in. But in 1996, Wes Craven had another attempt at a meta-movie. But he kept the meta-horror within the script with characters who viewed life as a movie. Characters who were aware of the tropes that came with a standard flick were put in situations leading to those tropes. This movie was like a pair of jumper cables on the balls to bring some life back into the slasher subgenre of horror. Scream (1996). Yet the irony is that Craven took a chance and popularised another sub-sub-genre of self-aware horror that has been making a comeback in recent years, especially in the overplayed slasher genre. But the Scream franchise has not been unique or interesting since the first movie. It has become the standard slasher franchise it was pushing away from. Scream VI is this. From a movie that evolved the genre, the franchise has not evolved or done anything new since 1996.

Scream [5] (2022) was a movie that came and went for me. I had to quickly jump on IMDb to check out the cast and refresh myself on what happened. But there was no need because the only thing you need to remember about Scream movies is who the previous killer was and how they relate (in most cases) to the original Billy (Skeet Ulrich) or Stu (Matthew Lillard). One might find fun in the meta execution of the Scream formula where each movie references, “We’re in a sequel so X will happen” or “This is a reboot, so the rules are different.” But at the end of the day, you’re distracted asking yourself, “Alright, who in this list of cast is the killer.” As the movies keep going it gets more and more predictable. But after the opening of Scream VI: Lost In New York, I thought, “Oh we’re doing something different…” Spoilers from here on out.

After watching Ready or Not (2019), directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett kicked off Scream VI: Pig in the City with Samara Weaving, a film professor specialising in slasher films awaiting a date. However, she gets a phone call from her date leading her outside complaining that his lost. Convincing her to head into an alleyway, she’s jumped and killed by Ghostface. But in a twist for the franchise, the killer unmasks themselves and this is when a smile grew across my face thinking we did it. We’ve strayed away from the formula. But that was short-lived as our true Ghostface kills our decoy murderer. A Ghostface who wears a mask similar to the Micheal Myers mask from the recent Halloween trilogy with aged cracks covering the pale sun-damaged white colour. And we then begin the “who-done-it” journey we would expect.

Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega), have escaped to New York trying to move on from the events of Scream [5] in different ways. While Sam is going to therapy struggling to express her trauma while being extremely overprotective of Tara. Who seems to have moved on from the events of the previous film and is trying to live a standard life at college, taking risks with shady people in a form of protest against her sister's smothering. As people around start to get killed off, the game of distrust begins amongst the group of friends. Some new, Jack Champion, Liana Liberato, Devyn Nekoda and some returning from 5, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding, including the return of Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and Scream 4’s Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere). Although no Sydney Presscot due to a pay dispute between Neve Campbell and the studio, but also, it’s about time that character can rest). From the limited new faces on screen, the process of elimination is quickly concluded as nothing exciting is done with who the killer could be. Ultimately, leading to a pretty unsatisfying ending.

While Seam VI: Ghostface takes Manhatten carries a message of letting go of the past and the methods people may use to move on, it also raises themes of the out-of-control conspiracies that can arise from internet echo chambers and the idolisation of serial killers. Attention was drawn to Sam as the possible killer due to her killing Scream [5]’s Ghostface in self-defence, as people started to believe the “detective” Redditors. The film also touches on legacy as the killers are the family of Richie Kirsch (Jack Quaid) from Scream [5] which coincides with Sam’s bloodline. But it’s something we’ve seen before back in Scream 2 (1997). I would’ve much rathered a further exploration in the reactionary climate of the internet and the cope of trying to clear your name. But we would rather just do the same thing… again and again while wearing this pseudo-intellectual mask quoting George Lucas, “It’s like poetry, it rhymes.” Even going as far as to have shine full of props and costumes to the movies made before with the ever-growing trend of “Do you remember this?”

And despite the ever-persistent meta-commentary of “We’re in a franchise” and needing to up the stakes in each film where no one is safe, the kills are over the top and cold but aren’t interesting enough to stick with you. As set pieces lack tension or creativity, the only time I smirked was when Ghostface branded a shotgun. The first time we’ve seen the costume brandish a weapon. Yet the tension and weight of each murder constantly drop as our core cast of characters just seems to continue to survive. And by the end, you feel cheated rather than a sense of relief seeing a favourable character survive. The movie went out of its way to contradict its writing about the possible grim outcome of presumably safe characters within a franchise by keeping everyone alive. And I imagine this is done to ensure that people keep returning to see these now well-known stars. Melissa Barrera's performance is pretty decent while Jenna Ortega took more of the spotlight, I imagine as a reactionary response to her jump in popularity due to Netflix’s Wednesday.

Low budget but with a massive worldwide box office return, I only hope Scream VII does something drastically different. This is a franchise that needs a boost of adrenaline. It needs a Wes Craven-like creative to come in and revive the formula. And I don’t think self-awareness will carry these movies much longer as poking fun at one's self is now a common occurrence in modern-day horror and slashers. In a way, you could say it has reached a new level of meta where something that rebooted a sub-gener has now become the thing that it wanted to steer away from.