After enduring an intense “Scream” marathon, my friends and I went and saw the newest “Scream” movie. This time Tara and her sister Sam, who was revealed to be Billy Loomis’s daughter, are on their way to New York City for a fresh start away from Woodsboro. The movie begins with two film students who are obsessed with Ghostface and the Woodsboro murders and seek revenge on their film professor after receiving a bad grade in the class. It doesn’t last long until the real Ghostface finds them and kills the two students. This is one of my favorite intros out of all of the franchise. When one of the students removes his mask, the theater was confused on why there was a face revealed so early in the movie. This opening scene alone was a prime example of fans of the “Stab” movies gone wrong and the excuse that so many earlier Ghostfaces used when asked why they tried continuing the murders.
“Scream VI” carries four of its characters from “Scream” (2022): Sam, Tara, Chad and Mindy, who all have a connection to legacy characters from the original “Scream” (1996). Sam is the daughter of Billy Loomis, who was one of the original killers, and Chad and Mindy are the niece and nephew of Randy Meeks, who was the nerdy horror movie buff that gave the iconic monologue about the “rules to horror movies.” These four are later named the Core Four by Chad because no one else is to be trusted anymore, especially those in the new friend group. Everyone is a suspect when Ghostface is in town.
Even though Sidney Prescott is not in this movie, they are able to distract us from all of the gory fight scenes and classic chases. I can’t even pick one scene that is my favorite, the Bodega scene was so intense. It was the first encounter that Sam and Tara had with Ghostface in this movie. They’re chased into a corner shop screaming for help when the killer follows them and manages to kill everyone inside and gets ahold of the clerk’s shotgun. The silence is so intense when this happens and even the shot of Jenna Ortega crying sent chills down my back. I could feel her fear through the screen. Another scene that I loved was the scene when Ghostface breaks into Sam and Quinn’s apartment. Ghostface sneaks into Quinn’s bedroom, and across the hall, Sam’s new boyfriend sees and is trying to get her attention and the others. Ghostface kills Quinn and begins attacking the others until they try to escape by climbing over a ladder from one window to another. This scene was so intense and extreme. There will be no spoilers but this is arguably the best scene in the movie.
Of course, the director’s were able to keep this movie fresh by placing Easter eggs and homages all around the movie. Even in the train scene, as the Core Four looked around the subway, so many of the costumes were classic horror movies like Halloween, the Babadook and Chucky. Even though the past two movies were directed by a different director, they are still able to connect the movies to flow seamlessly. It really surprised me when Neve Cambell, the woman who plays Sidney Prescott, was not in the film (she told Variety in a June 2022 interview this is because of the low offer she was presented with from Paramount and Spyglass Media). Though she wasn’t in the film, Gale (Courtney Cox) did mention her in the movie and even more surprising, Kirby from “Scream 4,” returned as an FBI agent.
This movie has definitely made sure not to spare any gore in a fight scene or interaction with Ghostface. The phone calls made by the killer are mostly quick and simple, even when
Ghostface made a phone call to Gale for the first time; she quickly ended it by putting him on hold. Ghostface definitely brings more violence into their attacks but without completely heading into a disturbing territory. Many of the scenes leading up to the scenes can somewhat be more intense than the actual fight scene (for example, Ghostface attacking Gale in her apartment and the train scene leading to the subway attack).
Being a meta-horror franchise has only benefited this series; this is a horror franchise that is aware that they are in a horror movie but does not portray as a parody like the “Scary Movie” franchise. “Scream” is a franchise made by horror fans for horror fans and, of course, we need one character to be obsessed with classic horror films. In the original film it was Randy Meeks who was killed off in “Scream 2” (1997). They reinvented the horror buff character through his niece: the newly introduced Mindy Meeks! She carries on his legacy perfectly by carrying on her monologue about how to survive horror movies and the difference of being in a franchise, meaning the violence is more extreme and anyone can be next in Ghostface’s hands. The directors were able to modernize the new “Scream” movies after Wes Craven’s death (the original “Scream” director) and create a new generation of horror fans to create new theories about the killers and clues left around. Even in act three of the movie, though Ghostface can be pretty predictable, it is still fun to guess and figure out who the killer is in this whodunnit!
Lauren Flynnmiller is a second-year Interdisciplinary Studies major with minors in Journalism and American Sign Language. LF954@wcupa.edu