The sixth part of the most popular slasher series certainly did not produce great cinematic art – but each of them still enjoys a certain reputation among genre fans for various reasons. And now it brings them too Scream-Series of six films. With the postmodern subgenre variant Scream – scream! In 1996, screenwriter Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven sparked a renaissance in juvenile suspense cinema by cleverly playing with the meta-level.
After two sequels in 1997 and 2000 and numerous imitators, the principle of self-referentiality eventually seemed tired and worn out. Other, less tongue-in-cheek forms of horror dominated screens for a time before Wes Craven Scream 4 (2011) the living environment of Digital Natives as well as the developments of the genre into the quote-rich activities of Ghostface – and finally the directing duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett together with the two writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick about another decade later Scream (2022) a so-called Requel created: a mix of remake and sequel that brings together new characters with familiar staff.
The result was a tolerably entertaining slasher contribution, which only partially succeeded in arousing real interest in the fresh characters. Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) – the daughter of the killer from Part 1 – and her younger half-sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) as well as the siblings Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding), who in turn with a different central character from the original trilogy are in now Scream VI back as survivors or as the self-proclaimed “Core Four”. About a year has passed since the bloody incidents in suburban Woodsboro; six months ago the quartet moved to New York City where Tara, Mindy and Chad are attending college. In addition to the indestructible reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), known from Part 4, later appears as a police officer.
A change of scenery in the big city is of course nothing new – that was already the case in Friday the 13th Part VIII – Deathtrap Manhattan (1989), whereupon us Scream VI of course indicates. Nevertheless, the changed setting does the franchise quite well. Hip bars and back alleys, liquor stores and the subway are some of the places where suspense can be generated in a comparatively fresh way within the framework of the series. On top of that, the characters, who in the predecessor seemed more like less attractive copies of earlier protagonists, can develop more here and find themselves. Sam, Tara, Mindy and Chad carry visible and hidden scars around with them – and in all those moments in which this is felt more as a background than serving as a too striking (kitchen) psychologization, it is quite convincing, also thanks the solid playing of the core ensemble.
His ambition to be completely different and new Scream VI to do justice to some additional details. The opening sequence, which begins with a vintage telephone ringing and a character played by Samara Weaving with the identifying surname Crane (see Psycho) chatting with a stranger via cell phone about slasher movies as VOutsider art is at the same time old-fashioned and original-surprising. And also in the further course of the script and the staging cannot be accused of a lack of speed. As Whodunit the film is again disappointingly transparent – and unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be aware of it. Also with regard to its own extremely reactionary attitude in the final act, the work apparently lacks the self-awareness that it displays in so many dialogues and pictorial ideas.
“Who gives a fuck about movies?” It says relatively at the beginning. And maybe stuck Scream VI kind of in an identity crisis: on the one hand he wants to rise above toxic fan culture and poke fun at tropes of horror and franchise cinema, but on the other hand he falls back into the old school, just to not have a chance for a one-liner or a pretty one omit the gore effect.
