Sixth Time's a Charm

Film: Scream VI
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

It’s entirely possible that my position on the Scream franchise should be taken with a grain of salt. If you think that’s because I don’t like the franchise, you’d be wrong. In fact, I think it’s far and away the best slasher franchise ever created. The reason that you might want to take that at face value is that I’m not a tremendous fan of slashers. I just don’t find them that interesting, so my opinion one which ones are the best isn’t going to carry as much water as it would if I were a die-hard fan. I was pleased that Scream VI was available at a local library, though, and snapped it up as soon as I saw it.

The joy, or one of the joys, of the Scream franchise is that it’s always about something more than just the movie’s plot. There’s always a meta-aspect to the film. Scream was about slasher movies; the sequel was about sequels and the third movie was about trilogies. The fourth Scream was about remakes and the follow-up to that was about reboots. Now, with the sixth film, we get a film about franchises. That means that throughout the course of the film, we’re going to play with, confirm, and subvert the expectations of slasher franchises as we once again dive into the world that features the Ghostface Killer.

Since Scream/Scream V was essentially a reboot of the franchise, we’re going to be working with the second generation of characters with only a little carry over from the original movies. In fact, our only true legacy character here will be Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox, looking very botoxed these days). The studio wouldn’t pay Neve Campbell what she deserved for this movie, and that’s a serious strike against it—no Sidney Prescott gives you a strike on the first pitch.

Anyway, our two main heroines, Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) have left Woodsboro for New York where Tara is going to school and Sam essentially smothers her to keep her safe. We’re going to start with some solid homicides, though, as a new Ghostface (Tony Revolori) kills a film professor and is then himself killed by another Ghostface killer in turn. It’s no surprise that our killer will be in the mask, of course. This time, though, the film takes place around Halloween, and since there’s an in-film franchise based on the Woodsboro killings, we’re going to have lots of revelers dressed as Ghostface to sow confusion.

Our other potential victims/possible killers will include survivors from the last film Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding), Chad’s roommate Ethan (Jack Champion), Mindy’s girlfriend Anika (Devyn Nekoda), Sam’s and Tara’s roommate Quinn (Liana Liberato), Sam’s secret boyfriend Danny (Josh Segarra), and Quinn’s cop father (Dermot Mulroney). We’re also going to get the return of Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), a survivor of the previous two films, and because of this, a link to the pre-reboot franchise. In this film, Kirby is now an FBI agent who specializes in cases like the Ghostface killer.

One thing the Scream movies do well is actually have a significant plot. There’s a lot going on here, and since one of the realities of the Scream-o-verse is that literally anyone can be the killer—even people we see get attacked because they often work in pairs—it’s always up in the air who might be the one (or ones) out for blood. And, because the franchise is about the meta-elements, we’ll get the speech about those elements. This time it’s handled by Mindy, who talks about what it means to be in a modern slasher franchise, including the fact that legacy characters are no longer guaranteed to walk out the other side of the story with their lives intact.

Everything about this works for me. I’m of the opinion that this is the best franchise on average in the genre. There may be other franchises that have higher high points (say, A Nightmare on Elm Street), but none as consistently watchable—a lot of franchises get very bad very quickly. Scream’s low point is almost certainly Scream 3. Scream VI, though, is arguably the best film in the franchise aside from the first one. It’s at least as good and probably better (it is better in my opinion) than the previous film, and a clear step above 2-4. But all of them remain at least watchable, something that can’t be said for A Nightmare on Elm Street 6.

This is far and away better than the sixth film in a franchise has any right to be. If they’re going to stay this good, I hope that we can expect a new film in the series every 18 months or so. If they at least stay smart and continue to figure out something to be about more than just stabbing people, I’m always going to find a way to sit in front of it and see the latest things that Ghostface is doing.

Why to watch Scream VI: Pound-for-pound, this is the best slasher franchise going, and it’s not a close race.
Why not to watch: No Sidney Prescott.