Scream VI

By: Jamie Steinberg

The Scream movie franchise is back with another thriller that scary-movie fans are sure to obsess over. Fans of the films love that it always incorporates horror movie tropes and humor while delivering on their need for serious scares. While Scream VI doesn’t bring everything a horror movie lover craves, it’s still a nice homage to the franchise and the characters to which we have all grown mighty attached.

We pick up with Tara (Jenna Ortega) and her sister Sam (Melissa Barrera) having left their small town of Woodboro in order to attend a college in Manhattan. They have made some new friends along the way and feel like they’ve left their traumas behind them. That is until a masked figure starts stabbing people… Instantly, the girls and their friends team up to start breaking down the “rules” of how to survive in a horror movie. Barrera does a great job at playing a tough teen who lives has survived a deep, torturous past.

Where it lacks is that it fails to incorporate beloved Scream heroine Neve Campbell’s character Sidney. The studio dropped the ball when it came to negotiating her contract and hindered the movie by failing to pay whatever it took to get our leading lady back. However, it is nice to see Courteney Cox back as the ever-opportunistic Gale Weathers. It was also exceptionally nice to see Hayden Panettiere return in the role of Kirby Reed. Sure, the callbacks may feel cluttered, but it wouldn’t be a Scream film without these tried and true individuals making an appearance.

While we’ve seen worse Scream sequels, there is clearly a wear and tear to Ghostface’s mask. Is his time officially up? We’ll just have to wait and see. Regardless, Scream VI does effectively offer those chilling and haunting moments viewers have come to cherish about these kinds of films. It is for the nostalgia and the love of all the campiness that will bring an audience to this new movie.