Horror movie franchises invariably run stale well before the property reaches its sixth entry. It’s happened to just about every slasher and supernatural screamer in cinema history, from Nightmare on Elm Street to Saw to Halloween. So it really wouldn’t have been a surprise if Scream VI, which releases in Australian cinemas today, fell flat on its (ghost)face. Yet, Scream VI reviews have been pumped out across the internet over the past few days and just about every one of them indicates a massive success for directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, who return after doing a great job on Scream V.
As the movie states, in its distinctively meta way, Scream is “now” a franchise and, according to the rules extolled on-screen by the film’s charismatic Mindy (Mindy Meeks-Martin), the project must substantially reinvent itself with a bigger budget, more explicit kills and more subverted expectations. Scream VI ticks all of those boxes, and then some.
From Ghostface brandishing a shotgun to a character getting killed by being stabbed in the mouth, straight through to a decapitated body stuffed into a fridge, this is the most violent Scream has ever been. And horror aficionados should be greatly satisfied by the left-field decision of moving all the action from the small fictional town of Woodsboro to the expansive concrete playground of New York City.
Leads Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega) are in fine form as they navigate the charmingly self-aware horror movie tropes and weave through the complicated plot, which – and I’m not including any spoilers here – flips the script on one of Scream’s most endearing characteristics as early as the first kill.
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Australian media were treated to a preview screening of Scream VI by Paramount Pictures last night and the credits were met with a standing ovation – rare for a horror film. Add this to the piles of reviews online praising the film’s successful reinvention of the slasher franchise.
For example, Benjamin Lee from The Guardian labelled the film as an “uncommonly good slasher sequel” while Clarisse Loughrey from The Independent concluded that “Scream is a long way from losing its purpose.” You don’t have to search far to find similar Scream VI reviews calling the film one of the franchise’s best.
There are too many twists and turns in Scream VI for me to risk any spoilers. But I will say this. New York City is made to feel as tight and constrained as the typical small town you’d expect from a slasher. Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin have done a tremendous job working in a borderline hysterical degree of tension, using spaces like grand Upper West Side apartments and even the New York subway as intricate set pieces smeared with the kind of palpable terror you’d usually get from dark garages and lonely alleyways.
It’s this use of New York City that helps redefine what Scream could be as a modern slasher moving forward. Yet writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick ensure that it’s not just the location that helps elevate the long-running franchise, which dates back to 1996, turning in a screenplay full of inventive kill scenes and piling on enough pizzazz that viewers would completely forget the fact that Neve Campbell refused to return as franchise lead Sidney Prescott (Courtney Cox’s Gale Weathers is the only true day-one legacy character to return).
Scream VI is out in Australian cinemas today. The movie is currently sitting at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.
