Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Scream VI’ on Paramount+, in Which the Slasher-Spoof Series Self-References Itself to Death

Scream VI (now on Paramount+ and streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) is a sequel to Scream (2022) which was a requel (you know, a remake AND a sequel) of/to Wes Craven’s O.G. Scream from 1996, and if you can keep track of all this, can you please come over and untangle my Christmas lights, because I assume you’d be good at it? The refurbed self-referential meta-franchise – which officially identifies itself as a franchise now, in its own dialogue, as movies in this franchise are oh so wont to do – is now in the talented hands of cast anchors Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) and Melissa Barrera (In the Heights), while Dermot Mulroney and Jack Champion (of Avatar: The Way of Water fame) bring fresh blood to the ensemble, and old-blood stars Courteney Cox and Hayden Panettiere reprise their roles (with the notable absence of Neve Campbell, who opted out over a salary dispute). With barely more than a year since Scream (2022) ate its own tail for our amusement, let’s see what this new film has to offer – besides the newfound star power of Ortega, who surely helped make it a $100-million-plus-earning box office hit.

SCREAM VI: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: COLD OPEN: Sorry, not gonna spoil it. It wouldn’t be a heavy-duty Vader-is-Luke’s-father kind of spoiler, but some of you Screamies would surely appreciate it if I didn’t drop names and whatnot here. But I will say one of the characters is an assistant film-studies prof who teaches a class on 20th-century slasher movies, which likely would make for a boring and repetitive semester, but two or three classes in a modern cinema course? Yeah, sure, maybe. Anyway, it also establishes that the Ghostface killer is on a fresh rampage – in New York City! Which just so happens to be the new home of sisters Sam (Barrera) and Tara (Ortega), who GTFO’d from Woodsboro after the events of the previous movie. Their friends Chad (Mason Gooding), who shares a little sexual tension with Tara, and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown, who delivers all the self-referential movie-trope dialogue, tagged along. And the “core four” have a couple new friends in Ethan (Jack Champion) and Quinn (Liana Liberato), fellow students who surely have roles to play in this plot, even if they just end up the subjects of Ghostface’s knife-goes-in-guts-come-out routine.

Ghostface makes his presence known with impeccable timing: It’s two days before Halloween, when costumed New Yorkers cavort in public spaces. Some of them think it’s fun and rad to dress like not just Ghostface, but Freddy Kreuger, Pinhead, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, the creepy girl from The Ring, the twins from The Shining, etc. All the easier for a real killer to just blend in, right? Tara is going to college and Sam is seeing a therapist who, when he’s done shrinking heads, goes home and watches genre classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, of course. Tara’s doing her damnedest to move on from the horror she and her sister endured, while Sam’s trying to work through it; the former thinks the latter is dwelling on her trauma, while the latter thinks the former is just sweeping things under the rug.

If a psychological happy medium between our two protags can be found, it has to be put on hold while they freak the eff out because Ghostface is back and trying to slash all the blood out of them. The murdery shenanigans inevitably rope in famous TV reporter Gale Weathers (Cox), the object of the sisters’ ire because she exploited them by writing a book about what happened in Scream (2022): “I heard you couldn’t sell the movie rights,” Tara snipes, while Gale retorts, “It’s all about true-crime limited series these days.” Officially investigating things are police cop Wayne Bailey (Mulroney) and lookit-that-she’s-back-and-she’s-an-FBI-agent-now Kirby Reed (Panettiere). At this point, there’s enough characters in this movie to inspire many theories about who’s wearing the Ghostface mask this time, theories that Mindy will spiel in long, tiresome nudge-wink monologues. Thing is, Mindy also has deduced that anyone here, even some of the main characters, could end up getting killed off. But does THE FRANCHISE have the guts to do it? I dunno, and I’m not sure I care, but I will say, it’s nice to see Nick Cave getting another surely hefty licensing fee for “Red Right Hand.”

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Oh boy does this movie want to remind you of other movies. So many other movies. But the big movie this movie wants to remind you of is Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, which has us assuming Scream X: Ghostface in Space may be coming soon.

Performance Worth Watching: I spotlighted Barrera in my review of Scream (2022) – “she exhibits enough charisma to elevate the Scream franchise to something just below elevated horror,” I wrote – so in the spirit of this increasingly repetitive series, I will say that Barrera exhibits enough charisma to elevate the Scream franchise to something just below elevated horror.  

Memorable Dialogue: Ghostface: “Who gives a f— about movies?”

Sex and Skin: None. 

Our Take: Scream (2022) was a pretty marginal retread of the fresh-for-its-time (and very much of its time) original film. But the “requel” had its fans, who will take to Scream VI more than any fairweathers out there. Count myself as someone who could take or leave the Screams in their rapidly expanding puddle of masturbatory horror-geek references – and therefore as someone who wonders if anyone can really feel invested in these stories. I mean, anyone can be Ghostface; Ghostface can appear anywhere he needs to be, in spite of logistics; anyone can be murdered by Ghostface, unless the plot decides anyone can survive being stabbed by Ghostface multiple times. In fact, knives work very well in these movies, except when they don’t, and bricks and cast-iron pans are surprisingly ineffectual instruments of violence here. You’d be surprised how frequently someone with a massive head wound stands up to confront someone with a perforated bowel, and neither really groans or says “Ow.” I think the uncredited character here is Adrenaline.

Where was I? Right – emotional investment. Scream VI is a collection of vertiginous nods to all the other Screams and all the other slasher movies that they spoof-slash-admire. It’s another exercise in ouroborosian indulgence, with the usual third-act whiplash twists and Scooby-Doo mask-removals revealing that the movie is about nothing but itself. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. Superficial as these movies can be, this one improves upon its predecessor in superficial ways, with an uptick in extra-gnarly kills, and a few noteworthy sequences, one set in a subway crowded with Halloweeners, none of whom are dressed like slutty George Washingtons or in gorilla suits, all of whom appear to have just exited a horror cosplay convention. That’s a joke, and a halfway decent one. And yet, everything in this franchise is a joke, even the most important stuff like life, death and movies. Is there anything else? Not in this franchise, there isn’t.  

Our Call: My ambivalence to the Scream movies remains steadfast. Go ahead and STREAM IT, Screamies, but everyone else can sit this one out.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.