Scream VI – Film Review
by M. Quinn

Directors – Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Writers – James Vanderbilt, Guy Busick, Kevin Williamson (based on characters created by)
Stars – Melissa Barrera, Courteney Cox, Jenna Ortega

Scream returns with a sequel to the prequel, so to speak. Yes, this carries on from the events in the last outing, simply called Scream which rebooted the series with a new collection of characters (along with some returning legacy characters) but the basic same premise. This film is set a few months after Scream and finds our main protagonist Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) struggling to come to terms with recent events. In the previous film, we discovered she is the daughter of the first killer Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich who returns in various visions). This has unfortunately made her the target for a multitude of people wearing masks which were inspired by a painting by Edvard Munch. The story starts at a New York University, where Sam’s younger sister Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega who will be known to some of you as Wednesday Adams) is trying to return to a normal life. The chance would be a fine thing, as the pair is once more plunged into a world of mayhem and murder.

So far, so totally normal for the Scream franchise. It seems a long time ago that Kevin Williamson dazzled us with his meta horror tale, with the original Scream all the way back in 1996. The version is a much more straightforward slasher film, although we do get an attempt to go figure out the rules of a franchise. We are told that each film has to be bigger and more spectacular than the previous one, with little regard for the lives of the main protagonists, as everyone is viewed as expendable!

If you’re asking the obvious, where is Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) in all this, you’re right, she’s nowhere to be seen! Has our Final Girl had her final outing? There are enough mentions of her to make sure she is likely to return in a later outing. Courteney Cox does have a larger part than normal in this film and even has a brief battle with Ghostface.

This version is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who worked on the first Scream reboot in 2022, as well as the much-loved Ready or Not back in 2019. Interestingly, the pair are in pre-production with another reboot, this time with the return of Snake Plissken in Escape from New York. While there is already talk of Scream 7, it’s not confirmed if the same team will be involved.

The things I learned from this film? Being stabbed is really no big deal. If you’re stabbed anywhere other than through an eye socket, there’s a good chance you’ll hardly notice and you’ll certainly be up and running several minutes later. Pretty much everyone in the film is stabbed at least once. This has made me listen to the daily news reports in a whole new light!

If you saw the first Scream reboot, you’ll know what to expect from this one as it follows a similar line. It’s a fun and slightly silly slasher film with the odd moment of gore. There are a multitude of twists and turns before we finally discover the identity of the killer(s). As this is another bad year for cinemas, one of the genres that continues to pack them in is Horror, with surprise hits such as M3GAN and more recently Cocaine Bear. Could this film be another Horror hit? Only time will tell whether this will find an audience of young pretty things who like to watch young pretty things get butchered! It certainly delivers on this front.