Scream VI Movie Review

“Scream VI” takes the horror franchise to somewhere it has never been before – New York City. The Ghostface killer has moved to the Big Apple, to take a slice out of people there. To paraphrase Sinatra – “If I can slash ’em there, I can slash ’em anywhere”. But the extended string of ‘Scream’ movies is wearing very thin. The plot becomes more and more removed from any sense of reality. SPOILERS AHEAD — but none from this movie!

After the events of “Scream (2022)” – which by all rights should be called “Scream 5”, the survivors have moved away from the quaint little killing field known as Woodsboro. Sam Carpenter (played by Melissa Barrera) moved there to be with her sister Tara (played by Jenna Ortega).

Tara is at college, along with Mindy Meeks-Martin (played by Jasmin Savoy Brown), and she is studying films. Of course she specializes in Horror Movies. Mindy is attending there with her brother Chad (played by Mason Gooding).

Tara and Sam have a roommate named Quinn (played by Liana Liberato). Chad has a roommate named Ethan (played by Jack Champion) Mindy lives with her girfriend Anika (played by Devyn Nekoda). In the same apartment complex is Sam’s secret boyfriend, Danny (played by Josh Segarra).

SPOILERS (NOT THIS MOVIE): When the detective lets the talkative little guy with a limp go free, he realizes that he just let out the crime kingpin known as ‘Keyser Soze’.

Sam and Tara have survived attacks from Ghostface back in Woodsboro. So have Mindy and Chad, who are both related to one of the people from the initial ‘Scream’ movie. They are very anxious that the killer might follow them to New York. But they do not know how right they are.

Some people are murdered right at the start, but these are not related to any of them. Until Mindy thinks back and remembers that it was her professor Laura (played by Samara Weaving) and a fellow student Jason (played by Tony Revolori). So there is a connection.

Sam is seeing a therapist (played by Henry Czerny), and she tells him all about her sad background. This man is later murdered. Now Sam and Tara, along with Chad and Mindy, and really getting scared. Ghostface calls Sam on the phone (voiced by Roger L. Jackson). Sam and Tara are attacked in a corner shop. Ghostface escapes, after he uses his normal big knife – and also a shotgun. Hey, when in Rome, right?

SPOILERS (NOT THIS MOVIE): When the guy who works as a security guard is the sole survivor of a train crash, he meets a fellow who runs an ‘artistic comic boutique’, and only later sees that his new friend was the one behind a bunch of man-made tragedies.

Ghostface attacks the group once more in their apartment, and one of the group is killed. They later find out that Tara’s roommate Quinn was also stabbed. Her father is a NYPD Detective named Bailey (played by Dermot Mulroney). Bailey promises to bring the killer to justice.

They soon meet up with Gale Weathers (played by Courteney Cox). She was one of the original survivors (in ‘Scream’) back from the little town of Woodsboro. Gale has made a lot of money from the ‘Ghostface’ saga, and the group do not trust her at all.

Then the FBI has gotten involved, in the form of Agent Kirby Reed (played by Hayden Panettiere). Kirby is another ‘Ghostface’ survivor (from ‘Scream 4’). Now in the FBI, she vows that she will take down this monster. After living through an attack, Kirby wants nothing more than to put down Ghostface, at least six feet under.

Detective Bailey has some doubts about Kirby Reed, and thinks she might be up to something. The group of college students (Sam, Tara, Chad and Mindy) – along with a few more residents of the Big Apple, start falling victim to Ghostface.

SPOILERS (NOT THIS MOVIE): When the space-travelling man (now on horseback) sees the remains of an old statue at the beach, he realizes that the evolved primates who run this planet are actually on his own planet Earth, thousands of years in the future.

Who else will be attacked, and why has the Ghostface killer resurfaced back where Sam and Tara are now? Well, the story twists and turns into more knots than a toddlers sneakers. There is a chance that people that you might not suspect are the people behind it. Or maybe not – it all depends on how convoluted you might think the story can be. What is the incident that started the murderous attacks against Sam and Tara, and does anyone able to survive? Well you can take a stab in the dark…

SPOILERS (NOT THIS MOVIE): After the underground ‘club’ where all the guys get together to fight each other, the charismatic leader turns out to be the alter-ego of the mild-mannered main character.

“Scream VI” shows that there are limits to a franchise that kills off so many of its characters, and it is really difficult to keep it going. The convoluted logic gets far past the levels of camp that this veers into a form of self-parody. Funny, because the very first ‘Scream’ (back in 1996) was supposed to be a mild parody of Horror tropes when it came out. It was difficult to follow that up, especially when it now comes to the sixth retread of ideas from the first movie.

“Scream VI” takes this franchise into new places, but still has the same old problem of twisting the story around the absurd ending. It seems that ‘Scream’ might have finally been bled dry…