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The kids are back, and so is the masked murderer that hunts them. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett ’s (aka Radio Silence ) newest chapter in the “Scream” franchise finds the latest generation of Woodsboro survivors setting up a new life in New York City, far away from the suburban shadow of Ghostface. Unfortunately, their peace is short-lived. This is, after all, “Scream VI.”

The movie opens with the killing of a film professor, and as the body count quickly escalates, Samantha Carpenter ( Melissa Barrera ), her sister, Tara ( Jenna Ortega ), and twins Mindy ( Jasmin Savoy Brown ) and Chad ( Mason Gooding ) prepare to escape, but they’re not fast enough for this new Ghostface. Joined by other returning characters Gale Weathers ( Courteney Cox ) and Kirby Reed ( Hayden Panettiere ) as well as a slew of newcomers including Anika ( Devyn Nekoda ), Josh (Danny Brackett), Ethan ( Jack Champion ), Quinn ( Liana Liberato ), and Detective Bailey ( Dermot Mulroney ), the newly minted “core four” will have to face off against the killer(s) once again, this time in the heart of the Big Apple.

As far as “Scream” sequels go, we’ve seen worse, but the wear and tear of the years are showing on Ghostface’s mask. The script is serviceable but surface-level, bringing up interesting ideas but never following though on them. The movie mentions trauma and how characters cope early on, but those concerns almost immediately evaporate when the nightly news announces the first murders. Aside from horror nerd sight gags like costumes from other scary movies in the background and Easter egg references to horror directors and movie podcasts, “Scream VI” doesn't have much to say about horror fandom itself—which in the case of this movie, turns extremely toxic and deadly. While Wes Craven ’s original “Scream” was the first in the series to poke fun at the genre’s tropes, these latest installments have doubled down on the meta explanation of horror movie rules without much of a point. By now, they’re almost for comedic effect, an “if you know, you know” reference for the audience to nod and laugh in recognition, not much for cutting-edge meta-commentary. Dare I say, that’s been done to death.

Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt ’s script runs out of steam, but between the first kill and the movie’s climatic showdown, there are a number of suspenseful set pieces where Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett prove there’s still some life left in the series. In one standout moment, Ghostface tracks the group to where Sam, Tara, and Quinn live. He picks off a few, but a trio manages to barricade themselves in a room and, with the help of a lovestruck neighbor and a ladder, now have a chance to climb across to safety. The tension is perfectly executed, the kind of sequence that makes a person hold their breath to see if all poor souls pull through. Another moment occurs when one of the main characters finds themselves staring at Ghostface, looking at her in a crowded train, and is helpless to defend herself. The feeling of being targeted in plain sight is effectively chilling and haunting.

However, one name sorely missing from this cast is none other than franchise regular Sidney Prescott ( Neve Campbell ). Cambell said she didn’t receive a financial offer adequate enough for her return, and in a movie that worships its own lore, missing this significant piece of the series feels like a misstep. In Campbell’s absence, Cox enjoys more of the spotlight, finally getting a call from Ghostface and fighting another round with the killer. But the biggest breakout star of the new incarnation of “Scream” movies remains Jenna Ortega, whose smudged mascara and sharp one-liners jolt every scene she’s in with electricity. This time, she’s given a few good chances to land some solid punches and kicks, a change from the last movie, where she spent most of the runtime fairly wounded.

In a shocking twist, the most disappointing appearance is New York City itself, which perhaps has the distinction of being the least convincing version of NYC this side of Vancouver. With Montreal playing dress up as New York, it's hard to look past alleyways that don’t exist or the made-up stops that cover for other well-known locations, like Blackmore College in lieu of Brooklyn College at the end of the 2 and 5 lines. While the filmmakers utilize certain aspects of the city—like a bodega confrontation with Ghostface, and apartments facing each other for a little “ Rear Window ” suspense scene—other parts felt detached from the city, with no sense of the skyline or place, disorienting this New Yorker. Even out-of-towners might notice a few missing major landmarks otherwise present in other movies.

As far as sequels go, “Scream VI” is a strange, self-referential beast, a snake eating its own tail with nothing left. What will it take to give it fresh blood and move forward? For now, we have a horror movie that tickles a nostalgic funny bone, a chiller with some good scares and cheesy lines that earn more laughter than screams, and yes, a snippet of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand.” I don’t begrudge anyone who seeks the simple pleasures of an old-fashioned slasher; I was just hoping for a little more meat to go with the movie’s buckets of blood.

Now playing only in theaters.

Monica Castillo

Monica Castillo is a critic, journalist, programmer, and curator based in New York City. She is the Senior Film Programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center and a contributor to RogerEbert.com .

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Scream VI (2023)

Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout, and brief drug use.

123 minutes

Melissa Barrera as Sam Carpenter

Jenna Ortega as Tara Carpenter

Jasmin Savoy Brown as Mindy Meeks-Martin

Mason Gooding as Chad Meeks-Martin

Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers

Hayden Panettiere as Kirby Reed

Dermot Mulroney as Detective “Wayne” Bailey

Liana Liberato as Quinn Bailey

Jack Champion as Ethan Landry

Devyn Nekoda as Anika Kayoko

Josh Segarra as Danny Brackett

Samara Weaving as Laura Crane

Tony Revolori as Jason Carvey

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
Tyler Gillett

Writer (based on characters created by)

Kevin Williamson
James Vanderbilt

Cinematographer

Brett Jutkiewicz
Jay Prychidny
Sven Faulconer
Brian Tyler

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‘scream vi’ review: ghostface strikes again in the franchise’s goriest, most meta entry yet.

The killer is back to wreak murderous havoc in this latest installment, featuring Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Courteney Cox and newbie Dermot Mulroney.

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

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Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding in 'Scream VI.'

Considering that the truly clever meta-ness of the 1996 original has now become curdled with repetition, the Scream franchise has proven surprisingly durable. By now, the formula is as familiar as the clichéd horror films it satirizes. In between the savage murders committed by Ghostface, the characters knowingly point out the tropes being employed or turned upside-down, providing expert commentary that the audiences could write themselves by now.

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Ghostface, the knife-wielding signature killer from the Scream series, rears up silhouetted against the light of a movie projector in Scream VI.

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Scream VI’s latest meta twist: justifying the whole Scream franchise

Radio Silence keeps Ghostface’s horror series lively, but uses it to talk about why we still need horror series

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Scream VI feels like a confident turning point for a long-running self-referential slasher series, though what that series is becoming remains tantalizingly unclear. For close to a quarter-century, the Scream sequels were playing defense. Director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson had a back-to-back one-two punch with the success of the first two movies, but Scream 3 was delayed and met middling reactions from the fans. Eleven years later, with Scream 4 , Craven and Williamson tried to wrap their heads around a new generation thirsting for social-media notoriety, and those younger audiences didn’t seem to care much.

Another 11 years after that, 2022’s newly rechristened Scream addressed the proliferation of legacy sequels in the horror genre and beyond. It was a hit with audiences and critics, which meant the inevitable sequel, 2023’s Scream VI , is the first genuinely fast-tracked Scream since Scream 2 was rushed to theaters. Suddenly, Scream is an A-list horror series again. Or in the corporate parlance winkingly applied in Scream VI , it’s now a franchise , a never-ending cycle of fan service subject to its own set of rules and conventions.

But when Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), niece of the early films’ dearly departed movie geek Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), holds court to deliver a hyper-nerdy treatise on the rules of franchises, the material isn’t as rich as her explanation of “requels” (or legacy sequels) from the previous movie. Her vague guidelines for franchises — particularly the idea that new franchise entries must go bigger to top the previous films — aren’t that different from the sequel rules Randy laid out back in Scream 2 .

Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) sit together on a stage with their legs dangling off the edge while mannequins in grey, hooded robes loom behind them in Scream VI

This being a Scream movie, it’s possible that this rehash of the 1997 movie is another wink at horror audiences, a nod to how Scream VI can assert itself as a major franchise entry while still eventually circling back to familiar ’90s slashings. It’s also entirely possible that directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, are already growing weary of film-culture commentary. Two different Scream VI characters voice this theory: “The movies don’t matter,” one says. Ghostface himself puts it even more bluntly: “Who gives a fuck about movies?”

The answer to this rhetorical question is pretty much just Mindy. For Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), daughter of original killer Billy Loomis and survivor of the 2022 Scream , this stuff is too real. She’s still processing the trauma of her boyfriend plotting to murder her, and feeling fiercely protective of her little sister, Tara (Jenna Ortega), as they embark on a fresh start in New York City. Tara just wants to have some college fun, while Sam fumes over internet rumors that she was the real villain of the previous film’s events, victimizing her psycho ex — a clever riff on the way parasocial relationships often form online. Mindy and her brother, Chad (Mason Gooding), have also graduated in New York, and the group’s social circle broadens to include Mindy’s girlfriend, Anika (Devyn Nekoda), Sam and Tara’s roommate, Quinn (Liana Liberato), and Chad’s roommate, Ethan (Jack Champion).

Naturally, these new characters, along with everyone else in the movie, turn into suspects when someone in a Ghostface mask starts slashing people up. From there, the film launches a series of frequent (and frequently ridiculous) hairpin turns. There’s a twisty variation on the classic Scream cold open, featuring some familiar faces, though not franchise regulars. There are fewer legacy characters than last time: Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) is the only returning cast member from the original three movies. But don’t think of this as a soft reboot, not with Scream 4 fan fave Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) back in action.

Siblings Tara and Sam Carpenter (Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera) flee in panic at night in front of some supposed New York buildings that really look like a cheap soundstage in Scream VI

In spite of the game attempts at maintaining and enriching five previous films’ worth of continuity, there’s a sense that Scream VI is casting about for what the franchise might look like in a culture where moviegoing doesn’t hold the same place of mass-audience supremacy it once did. Cross-media franchises don’t necessarily dominate cultural conversation anymore, but the filmmakers obviously still love scary movies. The film’s best sequence, a Halloween subway ride where the heroes cast suspicious eyes on dozens of menacingly costumed NYC citizens (including several in Ghostface masks, naturally), is packed with visual references to genre classics.

They also make sure to include a clip of Jason Takes Manhattan , the Friday the 13th series trip to New York that notoriously expends much of its running time on a boat, rather than the city streets. (Carrying on a piece of that tradition, Scream VI was mostly and obviously not shot in New York.) Horror fans will have fun at this film. At the same time, the filmmakers — a collaborative team collectively known as Radio Silence — have crafted more of a jump-scare action movie than an atmospheric horror-thriller, not unlike their 2019 horror-comedy Ready or Not .

To be fair, the Scream movies have never been the kind of psychological slow-burners Tara claims she loves in the 2022 Scream . But Scream VI particularly emphasizes fights and chases, with a Terminator-like Ghostface whose stabbing power seems especially vicious. (To combat this power-up, his victims have mysteriously become more adept than ever at surviving gnarly, repeated wounds.) There are advantages to this approach. Scream VI is more streamlined than the slightly scattered fifth movie, with the established and extremely likable “core four” of new characters fully taking center stage. The satirical stuff isn’t as funny or pointed as the previous film’s riffs on toxic fandom, but the film is a better showcase for Sam and Tara as actual characters. Barrera, with her sleepy-eyed angst over her murderous family history, and Ortega, with her irresistible wariness, make a fine pair of neo-gothic siblings stuck relying on each other.

Ghostface, the black-robed, white-masked killer of the Scream franchise, runs after someone against backdrop of white scrims held up by black scaffolding in Scream VI

The family bond is what the movie eventually settles on to drive home its themes, pushing the story further away from movie-world commentary. Again, maybe this is meant to reflect the diminishment of cinema at a time when so many movies are treated as content-mill distractions. “It’s all about true-crime limited series these days,” Gale laments about her inability to sell movie rights to her previous book (though this movie’s portrait of NYC law enforcement, removed from the small-town folksiness of Woodsboro, is amusingly preposterous). The movie briefly touches upon cultural legacies, forever franchises, weirdo collectors, and fandom again, but none of it really sticks.

And the fate of much-hyped returnee Kirby might provide a chilling warning to Sam and Tara: It’s neat to see Panettiere again, but her somewhat awkward role as a hotshot FBI agent shows how difficult it can be to square youthful slasher-movie heroes with lived-in real-world experience. The Scream series may not be equipped for a transition into more character-driven plotting.

Is this a problem? While viewers are mid-movie, not especially. Like the other Scream sequels in general, this one makes for a zippy Saturday night at the movies, and for now, it’s still easy to imagine some characters returning for another go-round in a year or two. (Any franchise that perpetuates Jenna Ortega’s scream-queen reign should get a pass to continue.) But fans looking for a definitive explanation of how this non-supernatural slasher will outfox the era of the forever franchise, where nothing stays dead no matter how many people get killed, will come away empty-handed. Where 2022’s Scream showed how the series could keep adapting and changing to fit new cinematic trends, this one hints at how unsustainable franchise maintenance can feel over the long term, even for a series that’s enjoying its deserved resurgence in creativity and popularity. Suddenly, the Scream movies feel like they’re back playing defense again.

Scream VI opens in theaters on March 10.

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Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega in Scream VI

Scream VI review – Ghostface takes Manhattan in standout slasher sequel

There’s plenty of fun to be had in a gorier and smarter follow-up to last year’s franchise relauncher

T here’s a moment in the uncommonly good slasher sequel Scream VI when Hayden Panettiere’s returning fan favourite character says she died for four minutes after being stabbed in 2011’s fourth instalment. That film, now viewed as a rather under-appreciated entry, killed the franchise for far longer, positioned as the start of a new trilogy but instead stopping the series for over a decade, its wounding box office proving far harder to heal.

But easy access to the series via streaming and an increased appetite for the horror genre led to a hyped resurrection and last year’s simply titled Scream became a surprise hit, re-engaging the OG 90s kids while also inspiring a legion of new bloodthirsty fans. As a legacy sequel it was only half-successful, juggling the old and the new with shaky hands, but it was good enough in a landscape where that’s more than enough, and cautious intrigue awaited wherever the franchise might go next.

As with 1997’s Scream 2, we didn’t need to wait that long with the worryingly rushed Scream VI out just over a year later, survivors re-assembling for more meta mayhem. While, as is always the case with a Scream movie, there are plenty of surprising twists in store for them and us, perhaps the biggest surprise is just how impressive the whole thing is, given both the frantic cram of production and the muddle of what came before. There are so many plates now in the air – two different generations grappling with one absurdly convoluted timeline – but returning screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick have found a way to make the spinning feel effortless, mastering a tonal balance that they struggled with last time around.

Tone has always been key with the Scream movies, an unusual melange of self-referential snark, Scooby Doo mystery-solving, gory horror and far-fetched family soap. Unlike so many slasher sequels that focus more on the primal basics of watching someone in a mask do horrible things to anonymous young people, a new Scream is tasked with not only tackling an almost 30-year-long melodrama involving multiple families and multiple grudges but also with a need to reinvent the wheel, each sequel having to say or do something we haven’t seen before. While Scream VI is far less fixated on a thesis than the fifth was, it’s still clever enough to comment on franchise fatigue and the repetitive grind of trauma without feeling as didactic or as smug as so many more superficially high-minded horror films. There are brief but effective tinges of sadness (it’s the sixth film and a lot of people have died at this point) but it’s sprightly enough to not get bogged down by it, remembering the most important thing a Scream film should be is fun.

We’re out of Woodsboro for only the third time in the franchise (the second film took us to a leafy college campus, the third to Hollywood) and, like Jason Voorhees before him/her/them, Ghostface is taking Manhattan, or more accurately Montreal posing as Manhattan. Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), aka the daughter of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich, still returning in visions, still a heinous idea), has insisted herself upon her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega), an understandably smothering presence after the two almost died months before. But before you can say the classic slasher sequel line “It’s starting again”, it starts again with bodies piling up around them, at the bodega, in an apartment building and, of course, on the subway.

What’s notable this time around is that it’s not Neve Campbell’s tortured Final Girl Sidney Prescott resignedly delivering that line because, for the first time, she’s not a part of this chapter. The star spoke out about a perceived low salary, a slight given her prominence in the franchise and how much money the last film made, and decided not to return (a strategy that will surely, hopefully, pay off with a healthy paycheck for the inevitable Scream VII). Instead, it’s down to Courteney Cox, returning as opportunistic yet haunted journalist Gale Weathers (and thankfully given more to do this time which she does predictably well), and Panettiere’s film geek turned FBI agent to represent the older guard while Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown’s brother-sister pairing Chad and Mindy, aka nephew and niece of Jamie Kennedy’s Randy Meeks, return on the younger side.

After a genuinely surprising and horribly effective cold open, something every Scream is judged by, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett find their groove instantly, freed from the shackles of both the scene-setting of the last film and a need to be as tiresomely meta. Barrera also feels freer, overcoming some of her soapier acting impulses, and fostering a strong sibling dynamic with Ortega, again a standout. While we might have left the fifth film worried that the newer generation would ever be able to capture the same long-running chemistry as their predecessors, there’s little doubt here, the “core four” as they call themselves proving both charming and heartfelt.

It’s the second film in the new rebooted universe so bigger is seen as better with a number of brash and bloody setpieces, most of which prove suspenseful enough if never actually scary (has a Scream film needed to be truly scary since the first?). It’s the goriest movie of the series so far but without veering into grimness, again that tonal balance perfectly modulated. The last act reveal is as goofy as one would expect but satisfyingly so for reasons impossible to explain without entering spoiler territory. What can be said is that there’s so much affection for what’s come before that it leads us to be that much more excited about what’s to come next. If further Screams can provide this much of a propulsive jolt then there’s more life in the franchise than we thought.

Scream VI is in US, UK and Australian cinemas on 10 March

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Scream VI Reviews

... A scary and profoundly fun continuation of the saga that takes it in a new direction without neglecting its legacy. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 8, 2023

Scream VI retains the tongue in cheek jabs at itself and the horror/slasher genre that many believe the original Scream revitalized so many years ago, while also keeping the gore and kill count high.

Full Review | Sep 7, 2023

Scream VI is empty calories that takes its dynastic roots and squanders them. Super fans will have moments of joy and recognition, but they will soon be dulled when they realise that’s all they are getting.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2023

The most brutal and thrilling Scream film yet. It's at its best when it focuses on doing something new with Ghostface.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2023

“VI” has much to offer for old-school fans and newcomers alike; it’s the most brutal and freshest sequel to date.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 16, 2023

As a series it creaks and strains, but as an individual film there are more than a few highlights to keep the fanbase satisfied

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 11, 2023

With all that in mind, Scream VI is actually way better than it should be. It has many of the same flaws as its immediate predecessor but without the baggage of needing to be this great saviour of a long-dormant horror franchise.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 29, 2023

The leads, Barrera and Ortega, are both talented young women who step into this icon franchise seamlessly.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 28, 2023

If Craven’s universe too often overcalculated the niftiness of shrewd self-awareness, this smugness at last begins to feel diluted through the necessity of appealing to a younger generation more accustomed to streaming content...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 25, 2023

Scream VI is satisfying enough. The new location and sets bring much-needed freshness to the franchise. The killings have never been this visually violent and gory, elevating the entertainment levels of a pretty fast-paced story.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 25, 2023

“Scream VI” goes above and beyond with blood and how characters are killed than previous installments. The subway scene teased in the initial trailer is one of the more nail-biting and disorienting sequences the “Scream” films have attempted.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Scream 6 is the PERFECT follow up! An all out blood fest! Filled with the some of the best kills for the franchise & still a great game of GUESS WHO! Melissa Barrera & Jenna Ortega solidified themselves as the perfect new leads. I’m in love and obsessed

Scream VI is livelier than most current popcorn horror flicks and creates enough goodwill that a new Scream (or two or three) will be embraced with open arms.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

The characters are interesting and backed by great performances from all involved, the kills are bloody and gory and the new setting was one of the best ideas this franchise has delivered in a long while.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 24, 2023

Scream 6 feels closer to Craven’s original tense but immensely fun approach to the franchise than ever before while also offering enough fresh changes.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 23, 2023

While Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan was the worst film in that entire series, this trip to NYC is decidedly more worthwhile.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 23, 2023

Scream VI was undeniably fun. I can genuinely see the Scream franchise going on forever. It’s a franchise that reacts to the zeitgeist and then feeds on whatever trendy generational buzz word will make cinephiles post screenshots on Twitter.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 21, 2023

The killer could have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Jul 21, 2023

Scream VI is a satisfactory entry that manages to breathe life into a franchise that frankly seemed set to expire after the 2022, Scream.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.75/4 | Jul 21, 2023

If you accept the movie for the ridiculous popcorn-shoveling fun that it is, it’s a tense and entertaining ride complete with relationships that were given enough attention to make us care.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 14, 2023

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‘Scream VI’ Review: Yes, Another Scary Movie

Ghostface and meta commentary are back in this sequel, yet the weight of obligations to the dictates of the franchise ultimately drags it down.

Two women, lit by the glow of police cars, stand on a city sidewalk with shocked looks on their faces.

By Jason Zinoman

It was not surprising when Quentin Tarantino, an auteur unusually willing to criticize the work of his peers in public, told an interviewer that he didn’t like the original “Scream,” calling its director, Wes Craven, “the iron chain attached to its ankle.”

An ungenerous observer might see a connection between this opinion and the fact that Craven hated Tarantino’s first movie, “Reservoir Dogs,” so much that he walked out of a screening, only to be surprised by the director himself, asking what Craven thought. Side note: Never do that to a director or a critic. Timing matters.

While “Scream” has become the most beloved franchise about horror fandom, with scary-movie obsessives as victims or killers or both, there have always been die-hards who felt its self-referential humor came at the expense of the scares; it was fun slasher-lite, spoofing its audience while really pandering to them. These horror snobs, and I count myself among them, know that Wes Craven can go for the throat, but with these movies, he chose not to.

“Scream VI” aims to win us over. (Craven died in 2015 , and was paid homage to in the last “Scream” movie , skillfully directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.) In one of its gruesome kills, a knife doesn’t just go for the throat, it shoves it down and twists. This is a grimier entry, more likely to break with convention — one where the white mask of its serial killer Ghostface is scuffed up. The character’s physicality is also steadier, more willing to be still, with the occasional Michael Myers head tilt. Moving from the well-appointed and brightly lit homes of small towns and the suburbs to the dark alleys of New York sounded like a desperate move (see “Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan” ), but placing stalker sequences in crowds inspired some fresh thinking.

There are a couple of truly frightening, patiently established suspense scenes, including one inside a subway car during Halloween that’s filled with people in costumes of horror villains, including multiple Ghostfaces. It’s a nicely staged vignette that, in keeping with the spirit of “Scream,” operates as a meta commentary on the glut of scary movies. But it’s tricky business balancing disturbing terror and jokey film criticism, and while this sequel occasionally pulls it off, the weight of obligations to the dictates of the franchise ultimately drags it down.

Building off the story line of the previous movie, Tara ( Jenna Ortega ) and her sister, Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), whose last name will have some fans of “Halloween” chuckling insufferably, have left their cursed small town of Woodsboro to attend an N.Y.U.-like school in Manhattan with a new gang of friends/potential killers. Once a masked figure starts stabbing people, everyone looks askance at each other and starts breaking down the rules to surviving a horror movie.

With a richer character to work with than the protagonists in the early films, Barrera does an effectively brooding job playing a tortured possible antihero. As the daughter of Billy Loomis (played by Skeet Ulrich), the killer in the original movie, whose ghostly presence returns here, she adds some new tension to the boilerplate disposable victims.

This is a movie where no less than three characters are brutally stabbed but preposterously don’t die, and yet, it’s also the first “Scream” without Neve Campbell’s Sidney, which goes to show that Hollywood contract negotiations are more horrifyingly fatal than any cinematic maniac.

Courteney Cox does come back as the opportunistic reporter Gale Weathers and, as is tradition, gets punched in the face with panache. There’s also a return of the character Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) from “Scream 4,” which may have some people scrambling to read plot summaries on Wikipedia. These callbacks clutter up the movie even if they provide opportunities for those who binge watched the series on Paramount+ to horrorsplain to their friends and family.

“Scream” has always been as much of a whodunit as a slasher, so more characters do provide opportunities for misdirection, but the problem here is not just an excess of people. It’s the feeling of the past and the future weighing down the present: the past in how film-nerd chatter gets dutifully shoehorned in (there’s nothing as funny as the post-kill line “I still prefer ‘The Babadook’” from the fifth “Scream”), and the future in how some characters just won’t die because, well, that would mess up “Scream 7” and “Scream 8.” You also get the sense that Sidney, who is mentioned multiple times in the script, is handled diplomatically because the filmmakers hope to lure her back for later movies.

This is the curse of franchise filmmaking. Just because the movie-fan character Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) — who delivers the traditional monologue establishing the rules to survive — draws attention to this issue doesn’t make it go away.

Self-awareness will not fix plausibility or pacing issues or make your movie scarier. It could help a comedy, though, and perhaps that’s the best version of these movies, which would suggest that the filmmakers lighten up and ignore the die-hard horror nerds altogether, along with the snooty critics from The New York Times. How’s that for meta?

Scream VI Rated R for bloody jabbing, stabbing, gabbing. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes. In theaters.

Jason Zinoman is a critic at large for The Times. As the paper’s first comedy critic, he has written the On Comedy column since 2011. More about Jason Zinoman

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Scream 6 Is Bigger and Bloodier — But Does That Make It Better?

Ghostface takes Manhattan in a scary, fun, and messy new sequel.

There probably never should have been a Scream sequel. (How do you top the smartest horror movie ever made? Spoiler alert: You can’t.) But as its title makes clear, that’s not Scream 6 ’s fault.

A franchise was inevitable, and in the latest entry from returning directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Scream grapples directly with what it means to be a franchise anyway. The answer isn’t quite as clever as the movie wants us to think it is, but it also thankfully doesn’t get in the way of delivering a top-tier slasher movie that will keep you guessing all the way until its baffling final twist.

Scream 6 is a movie deeply obsessed with the history of Ghostface, but that obsession can’t make up for the movie’s failure to produce an intriguing new addition to horror-villain canon. Despite its lackluster villain, Scream 6 manages to tell an entertaining and genuinely scary story that Scream fans will be re-watching for years to come.

Scream 6 picks up soon after the events of 2022’s Scream “requel” (which we can all now admit was always really just Scream 5 ). The “core four” survivors (Jenna Ortega as Tara Carpenter, Melissa Barrera as Sam Carpenter, Jasmin Savoy Brown as Mindy Meeks-Martin, and Mason Gooding as Chad Meeks-Martin) have relocated to New York. Most of them are attending a made-up college and going to frat parties, while Melissa tries to process the trauma of killing her serial-killer boyfriend Richie while also acting as an over-protective parental figure to her half-sister.

Things seem to be going mostly OK — until Ghostface returns. In a clever twist, Scream 6 opens with a classic blond female victim getting sliced up (Samara Wiley as a horror movie professor who fails to follow her own lesson plan and walks into a dark alley alone) only to immediately have her killer remove his own mask. Turns out there’s an entire Ghostface cult (complete with a shrine full of artifacts, including every Ghostface mask), but its leader quickly cuts down these impostors and sets out on a bloody murder spree with his sights set on the Carpenter half-sisters.

Melissa Barrera as Sam Carpenter and Jenna Ortega as Tara Carpenter in Scream 6 .

The resulting 122 minutes are classic slasher fun. There’s no shortage of stabbing, gore, guts, and jump scares as Ghostface stalks the “core four” while they attempt to stalk him back. Unfortunately, while this iteration of Ghostface will keep you guessing until the very end, the movie’s big Scooby-Doo reveal ( who’s behind the mask this time? ) feels half-baked and rushed.

As a movie, Scream 6 ranks near the top of the franchise. It delivers the thrill, violence, and whodunnit mystery the franchise was built on, all cranked up to 11. But the meta-commentary here is basic at best, and its Ghostface is one of the worst. (Weird for a movie practically obsessed with exploring the various killers who’ve worn that mask.)

The decision to set Scream 6 in NY is an interesting one (and a nod to Scream 2 moving the action from Woodsboro to a college campus), but it doesn’t add much to the experience. A creepy subway scene marketed heavily in the trailers is blood-curdling fun, and the controversial bodega-shotgun sequence is better than you’d expect. Aside from that, however, most of the movie takes place on generic interior sets and a made-up college campus that might as well be located in middle-of-nowhere New England.

The “core four” in Scream 6 .

Of course, the most important hallmark of any Scream movie is its meta-commentary. Wes Craven practically invented the concept with his quasi-self-parody New Nightmare and then perfected it in 1996 with Scream , in which horror-addicted teens discussed the rules of surviving a scary movie, proceeded to break those rules, and swiftly died. Since then, each film has riffed on the genre in its own way, with mixed results. Scream 5 introduced the term “requel” to cleverly define the current horror landscape, but Scream 6 is slightly less ambitious in its concept. As Mindy (still holding her own as an excellent Randy stand-in) explains, this is a franchise now, which means the violence is bigger and anyone can die in the service of IP — even legacy characters, gasp!

What this ultimately boils down to is a half-hearted horror spin on Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. Scream 6 brings back both franchise standby Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) from the generally forgotten Scream 4 . The movie wants you to be excited when these characters interact, but watching Mindy and Kirby talking about their favorite horror movies doesn’t work anywhere near as well as Captain America and Spider-Man trading quips in the MCU. After all, at the end of the day, we’re here for Ghostface. (If Scream 6 should be compared to any franchise, it’s probably Fast and Furious due to the constantly repeated point that everyone who’s survived a Scream movie is one big family. Vin Diesel would be proud.)

Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) has never kicked this much ass.

That’s not to say the cast doesn’t do their best. Jenna Ortega continues to be the one true scream queen of the moment, Jasmin Savoy Brown will remind you why you’re so excited for Yellowjackets Season 2, and Courteney Cox has never been more badass.

But at the end of the day, the star of Scream 6 is the franchise itself. After all, no one is buying Gale Weathers action figures, but Ghostface masks keep flying off the shelves. And in a story where anyone can die at any time (and often do), maybe that’s a good thing.

Scream 6 stalks into theaters on March 10.

Scream VI review: One of the franchise's best (and most brutal) sequels

Jenna ortega and courteney cox return for a killer follow-up that'll leave you dying for more.

***WARNING: This review contains spoilers***

Up until the killer’s reveal in its third act, Scream VI is one of the franchise’s best sequels and the series’ most inventive and character-driven entry. The Scream movies, like the Fast And The Furious films, have mostly gotten better (or, at least, more entertaining) with each installment. This follow-up is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who were behind 2022’s creatively and financially successful Scream . Their latest is another timely and clever exploration of slasher movie tropes—which the witty and violent script by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick deconstructs like layers of a meta Russian nesting doll. Fueled by a seemingly endless appreciation for how enjoyable it can be to subvert horror conventions and audience expectations, Scream VI is one of the most fun (and funniest) modern horror experiences one can have at a movie theater.

More like this

Did you know

Trivia Courteney Cox was the first cast member to sign up to return as Gale Weathers. She states that she did not hesitate to return because she loves playing Gale, and jokingly said that she'd even play her for free.
Goofs Despite Ghostface taking a blow to the forehead from a frying pan, none of the suspects at the end of the movie show the resulting bruising/swelling that would have occurred.

Jason Carvey : [as he's dying] We have to finish the movie.

The Voice : [raising his knife] Who gives a fuck about movies!

Crazy credits After the credits, Mindy appears and says "Not every movie needs a post credits scene."
Connections Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Scariest Horror Movie Locations Found in New York City (2023)
Soundtracks Si O No Written by Tatiana Hazel Resendiz & Stephen Ponce Performed by Tatiana Hazel Courtesy of Tatiana Hazel

User reviews 919

juanigmarino
Mar 10, 2023
How long is Scream VI? Powered by Alexa
Who returns from previous films?
March 10, 2023 (United States)
United States
Montreal, Canada
Paramount Pictures
Spyglass Media Group
Project X Entertainment
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$35,000,000 (estimated)
$108,161,389
$44,447,270
Mar 12, 2023
$168,961,389

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 2 minutes
Dolby Atmos
Dolby Digital

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Scream 6 Keeps the Franchise Fresh and We Love That About It

Jenna ortega and melissa barrera are joined by courteney cox and hayden panettiere for the horror sequel..

Ghostface is back and this time he (she? they?) have a whole new playground.

The ending of a Scream movie is always the best part. It’s what you’ve been waiting for : the reveal of who’s behind that now iconic mask and why they’re targeting the teenagers of Woodsboro. Scream VI , however, bucks that trend. It has an excellent ending to be sure (don’t worry, we won’t even come close to spoiling it) but what really stands out is that the rest of the movie is almost as good, if not better. There are at least four set pieces in the film that rival the ending in terms of scares and surprises, resulting in a much more balanced movie than we’re used to seeing from the franchise.

Everything We Know

Everything we know about scream vi, the survivors return, but they've got new allies, a new home, and a new emphasis on action and spectacular stunts. we've got all the details on the latest installment..

TAGGED AS: Horror , movies

When you’ve already done five increasingly meta and self-referential horror movies, where do you have left to go? Well, New York City, apparently. Just as Jason Voorhees did 34 years ago , the Scream franchise takes Manhattan in the upcoming Scream VI , a direct sequel to 2022’s Scream (which was technically Scream V , but opted not to have the Roman numeral designation to play into the whole “requel” theme that was so integral to the story).

By now, we all know that the point of any Scream movie is that it’s part whodunit and part commentary on the cliches and tropes of the horror genre, so its movies are always going to go in for a little misdirection and some knowing winks at the fact that it knows that you know where this is all going, but getting there is 90% of the fun. The first trailer sets the stage. We’re not in Woodsboro anymore.

So without knowing what twists and turns await us, here’s what we know so far about Scream VI .

The Survivors of Scream (2022) Are Back for More

Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Mason Gooding in Scream VI (2023)

(Photo by Philippe Bosse/©Paramount Pictures)

The new movie follows sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter ( Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega ) who, obviously, made it out of the last movie in once piece (despite Tara seemingly being earmarked for a Drew Barrymore-esque quick exit right in the beginning). Sam’s bloodline connection to original Scream (1996) killer Billy Loomis ( Skeet Ulrich ) will once again be a major story point this time around as well – is she just a victim, or will her father’s dark side manifest itself? (Note she says, “There’s a darkness inside of me” in the trailer). Twins Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin ( Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding ) also follow the Carpenter sister to the big city, and tabloid TV journalist-turned-best-selling-author Gale Weathers ( Courteney Cox ) returns to her NYC home turf to once again get caught up in the mayhem.

The Team Behind the Scenes Returns As Well

William Sherak, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Kevin Williamson, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella on the set of Scream (2022)

(Photo by Brownie Harris/©Paramount Pictures)

The entire crew behind Scream (2022) are back, too. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett ( Ready or Not ) are once again at the helm, alongside producers William Sherak , James Vanderbilt , and Paul Neinstein . Vanderbilt also co-wrote the script with Guy Busick , like they did for the last installment. The whole creative team returning combined with the fact that these sequels are coming out in much quicker succession than previous Scream films (which usually had a few years’ gap time in between) gives Scream VI the feeling of being a more direct and urgent continuation of the story.

Unfortunately, Neve Campbell Has Tapped Out

Despite returning for Scream V , original star Neve Campbell won’t be making the trek to the Big Apple. Sidney Prescott is still very much alive, but Campbell has cited contractual drama as the reason she won’t be joining the hunt for the latest Ghostface. The actress released a statement explaining the situation to fans, saying, “Sadly I won’t be making the next Scream film. As a woman, I have had to work extremely hard in my career to establish my value, especially when it comes to Scream . I felt the offer that was presented to me did not equate to the value I have brought to the franchise. It’s been a very difficult decision to move on. To all my Scream fans, I love you. You’ve always been so incredibly supportive to me. I’m forever grateful to you and to what this franchise has given me over the past 25 years.”

…But Hayden Panettiere Is Back In

What’s something horror movies have always taught us? If you don’t see a character’s final breath, you can’t ever assume they’re actually dead. Despite appearing to be killed in Scream 4, we never got conclusive proof that Hayden Panettiere’ s Kirby Reed was a goner. An Easter Egg in Scream V teased her fate – While Richie Kirsch ( Jack Quaid ) is watching a YouTube video dissecting the Stab films (the film-within-a-film series based on the events of Scream ), one of the related videos on the side reads “Interview with Woodsboro Survivor Kirby Reed.” Reed will make her official return to the series in Scream VI , joining in the city-wide hunt for the new killer(s).

There’s Plenty of New Blood

Josh Segarra, Samara Weaving, Tony Revolori, and Dermot Mulroney

(Photo by Jon Kopaloff, Valerie Macon, Cindy Ord, David M. Benett/Getty Images)

Scream VI’ s cast is rounded out by a mix of fresh-faced newcomers and veteran talent new to the Scream franchise. The cast includes Josh Segarra ( She-Hulk: Attorney at Law ), Tony Revolori ( Spider-Man: No Way Home ), Devyn Nekoda ( Sneakerella ), Liana Liberato ( Novitiate ), and Jack Champion ( Avatar: The Way of Water ). More familiar faces include Dermot Mulroney , who appears to be playing an NYPD detective, Henry Czerny , and directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s old Ready or Not leading lady, Samara Weaving .

The Story Relocates to New York City

Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega in Scream VI (2023)

As noted above, Scream VI moves the action to the Big Apple, as the Carpenter sisters and the Meeks-Martin twins have attempted to leave their traumatic experiences in Woodsboro behind and start afresh. Tara and the twins are now college students, while Sam is juggling jobs, and though they are now closer than they’ve ever been, all of them continue to struggle with moving on from their past in their own ways. That’s when Ghostface shows up and throws a wrench into that healing process.

Setting the film in New York was a deliberate decision on the part of the filmmakers. As Executive Producer Chad Villella explains, ““The one analogy we always use that if Scream V was the greatest hits, this one is the punk rock B side of the Scream franchise. We brought some action to it and really ramped up the intensity, which makes the movie more fun, makes the city more prevalent, and makes you feel like you’re in a different place and watching a different Scream , but still getting a genuine Scream movie at its core.”

It’s An Action Flick Hidden in a Horror Movie

The Ghostface Killer in Scream VI (2023)

(Photo by ©Paramount Pictures)

While Scream VI will, of course, have all the requisite chills and whodunit elements that we’ve come to associate with the franchise, one way the film will differ from its predecessors is that its big set pieces will be a lot more action-focused. The fight scenes have been elaborately choreographed with an emphasis on spectacular stunts, and as producer William Sherak put it, “We hid an action movie in a horror movie.”

The Meta Jokes Will Be Amped Up

Judging from the first teaser trailer, at least part of Scream VI will take place over Halloween, which will add to the chaos since you’ll have all of Manhattan running around (and strap-hanging on the subway) looking like potential Ghostfaces. In the clips we’ve seen so far, not only is the Scream mask apparently very popular (we see several different Ghostfaces on the subway), but look around and you’ll see subway riders dressed as Hellraiser’ s Pinhead, The Babadook , and, of course, Friday the 13th’ s Jason Voorhees.

This May Be a Much Different Ghostface

It’s a point hammered home several times in the trailer. Kirby Reed – who has now apparently become a professional Ghostface hunter – says “this isn’t like any other Ghostface.” Later, Ghostface himself says, “There’s never been one like me, Gale” while terrorizing Weathers. In between, we get brief glimpses of what Gale calls “a shrine” but what almost looks like Tony Stark’s lab if he was super into black robes instead of Iron Man armor. So what does it all mean? They’re not likely to go the “sicko fanboy/fangirl” route again (maybe), and this killer appears to be well-financed (do you know what the rent would be like for a giant, personal Ghostface museum?). It’s safe to say the characters really don’t know what they’re up against this time.

But His Voice Will Be the Same

Like Anthony Daniels’ C-3PO across all the various Star Wars movies and TV shows, there is something comforting about a familiar voice that brings consistency despite new casts, new stories, and new locations. Roger L. Jackson, who has been the “Do you like scary movies?” voice on the phone since the original 1996 Scream and in every installment since (he even voiced the character in the 2019 television series Scream: Resurrection ), will be back making prank calls yet again.

Scream VI opens in theaters on March 10, 2023.

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Those of us who found the very idea of Scream sequels distasteful lost that battle a long time ago. Wes Craven’s original 1996 film , based on a memorably self-aware script by Kevin Williamson in which characters kept noting that they were in a horror movie even as they were being slaughtered, hit Generation X in our sweet spot: It both scoffed and indulged, sending up the slasher movie while also delivering an enormously entertaining example of one. Scream ’s po-mo self-awareness actually made its characters more relatable and the scares more visceral. This was an idea that the director had been experimenting with in a number of works leading up to that one (most notably, in 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare , a Freddy Krueger movie in which much of the cast and crew, including Craven himself, played variations on themselves).

Those who were alive and conscious in the late 1990s might recall that the first Scream made slasher movies cool again. This came after a long period in which the subgenre had fallen into disrepair, thanks partly to the endless churn of uninspired, monotonous sequels to seemingly any random piece of celluloid in which some random masked maniac killed some random teenagers. And so, Scream became a victim of its own success, generating its own spate of repetitive follow-ups. Despite Craven’s involvement and their popularity, the subsequent entries always felt to me like they diminished the original project. Yes, they continued their self-referentiality, even going so far as to introduce a fictional horror series called Stab that turned Scream ’s own masked killer, Ghostface, into an in-movie pop-cultural icon. But now the self-referentiality just served to justify the production of more sequels.

And so, Scream has become its own little subgenre. Just as every “scary movie” has rules (or so Scream tells us), now every Scream picture has rules too, such as the scene where one of the characters breaks down just what kind of film they’re in and tries to predict what might happen next. In the last Scream (c alled, for some reason, Scream ), Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown), the movie-savvy chatterbox who knows all the tropes, noted that they were in a “legacyquel” — a sequel that also served as a reboot. This time around, she announces that they’re in “a franchise.” That’s right — it took six movies and 26 years for the characters onscreen to recognize that they’re in a franchise . See what I’m getting at? The joke is so tired at this point it’s stopped making any sense.

Okay, okay, fine, but how is the actual movie? All things considered, Scream 6 could have been a lot worse. In some ways, the frayed half-heartedness of the concept has become something of an advantage. Mindy’s requisite genre breakdown now just feels like an obligatory beat; nobody seems particularly invested in it, least of all the filmmakers. Even the inevitable bad acting works, if only to raise our suspicions about certain characters. When someone awkwardly intones, “I got here as fast as I could,” is that an unintentionally poor line reading, or is it the directors trying to raise our doubts about whether this individual did, in fact, get there as fast as they could?

Scream 6 does distinguish itself in the horror set pieces. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (who also made the previous entry) clearly grasp that these movies are, at their best, mean . Moving the setting to New York City, where sisters Tara and Sam Carpenter (Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera, returning from the previous film) have now settled, turns out to be a somewhat inspired choice. The filmmakers use New York (or rather, the movie’s version of New York, which happens to be Montreal and doesn’t actually look anything like New York) fairly well. There’s an admirably tense sequence set on the subway. It’s Halloween, so of course the trains are packed with people in costumes, many of them dressed as Ghostface, which might be believable to anyone who has never set foot in New York City. There’s a particularly nasty, not to mention ludicrous, bit of business conducted between two apartments across an alleyway from each other. Courteney Cox, returning as ambitious TV journalist Gale Weathers, gets chased around her fancy apartment in a suspenseful sequence filled with elaborate pratfalls. (If nothing else, these movies have maintained the slapstick qualities of Craven’s original.) The opening murder, in which Samara Weaving plays an associate film professor waiting for a blind date (yes, yes, I know), offers a crafty twist on the introduce-a-familiar-face-and-kill-them-right-away motif that runs throughout the series.

So, despite my antipathy toward the Scream -quels, I found myself gripped by enough of Scream 6 that I imagine fans of the series will embrace it. Have I just lowered my standards? (I mean, I did just refer to them as Scream -quels.) In a world where just about any movie that turns a profit, and even some that do not, now requires a follow-up, it does seem churlish to complain about one particular horror franchise that has been producing mostly successful entries for more than two decades. And if one of the great purposes of art is to describe and help us make emotional sense of the real world, maybe that’s enough. Maybe the final joke of the Scream movies is not that the characters are living in a repetitive, cliché-ridden, and cruel world — it’s that we are. The Scream series has won.

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Scream 6 - Review

Say it with me: core four.

This is a spoiler-free review of Scream VI, which releases in theaters March 15, 2023.

“Rebootquels will continue until morale improves” would be a great opener to this review, but I regret to inform the naysayers that morale is quite high and RadioSilence’s continuation of the Scream franchise is still going strong. In fact, it’s even better than Scream (2022) — which I gave a 9/10 for breathing life back into the franchise — though, there is one slight pitfall that keeps the sixth entry from achieving the elusive 10. But, while it is the Sidney Prescott of it all, it’s not what you think.

Part of what made Scream (2022) so successful was that it took the old, the new, and built the perfect foundation for a story that could continue without its original final girl (a task many horror franchises have tried and mostly failed ). Scream 6 capitalizes on that, focusing on the return of Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and fan-favorite Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) as the legacies, and letting the “new” cast do its thing. The problem isn’t the absence of Neve Campbell’s Sidney, though. It’s that said absence is explained in a throwaway line that’s about as well delivered as it was written. Writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick nail it when it comes to everything else in this new chapter, but that particular explanation was handled about as well as Neve’s contract negotiations .

Sid’s absence does play into the overall theme of the film, though. Scream has always been about subverting horror tropes and playing in a space that both mocks and reveres its genre in equal measure. That continues in Scream 6, but this time it’s not about tackling horror as a whole. This time it’s full meta, and the butt of the joke is Scream itself. You’ll see plenty of shoutouts to your horror favorites both old and new sprinkled throughout the movie (you already saw plenty of them in the trailer alone), and none of the self-exploration feels over-the-top or like it’s making a mockery of Wes Craven’s legacy. Instead, it’s simply having a laugh at the tropes that the franchise itself has helped create in its own right after nearly 30 years and six entries. Some of the rules apply, but others? Others no longer matter at all. And are you going to have a blast learning which rule fits where.

The Core Four™ take more of a beating than the original three ever did, and there's never any real way of knowing who will manage to limp their way to the closing credits.

Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) delivers her now customary monologue to give you a few hints on those rules. It’s a little redundant, mirroring Scream (2022) more than any other moment in the new film, but effective all the same. We’re not going to get into the nitty gritty of that monologue, but one thing the young Meeks-Martin highlights is that the gore must be amplified in a rebootquels’ sequel, and boy is it ever! The hits (stabs) just keep on coming, and no one is safe. The Core Four™ take more of a beating than the original three ever did, and there’s never any real way of knowing who will manage to limp their way to the closing credits.

The heart and soul of Scream 6 is that aforementioned Core Four (made up of the Meeks-Martin twins and the Carpenter sisters). This chapter very intentionally ditches the standard Scream trope of splitting up its protagonists between movies to have them come together at the end of the first act and instead focuses on a story that keeps the survivors connected the whole time. This doesn’t just lead to you caring more about the main characters, but the people they love as well. Mindy’s only known her girlfriend Anika (Devyn Nekoda) for six months, but you’re concerned about her safety because you’re worried about a member of the Core Four’s wellbeing. The same can be said for Danny (Josh Segarra), Quinn (Liana Liberto) and Ethan (Jack Champion), but you’ll have to check out the movie to learn more about their connections to our leads!

Scream 6 delivers with its secondary characters more than any franchise entry before it, as a matter of fact. And while some of the praise belongs to the closeness the writers give us to the Core Four, a not insignificant amount of the credit needs to go to the aforementioned actors. We’ve always loved Sid, Dewey (David Arquette) and Gale, but gone are the Mickeys (Timothy Olyphant) and Dereks (Jerry O’Connell) of Scream 2. It’d be a joy to see any of these players show their faces again in Scream 7, even if some are, well… quite dead.

While the character-driven story of Scream 6 is the primary reason for its success, it’s far from the only one. Some of the set pieces in this chapter will take your breath away, whether it’s the immaculate representation of an unbearably claustrophobic subway car or the jarring illustration of a person’s obsession in the Stab trophy room. Hell, even the confined space of Sam and Tara’s (Jenna Ortega) cramped apartment will get you in the New York state of mind (even if the film was shot in Montreal). Brett Jutkiewicz’s cinematography doesn’t disappoint, either. There are several scenes in the third act that marry the beautiful and the macabre in very exciting ways. This is especially true of the trophy room. Just the gift that keeps on giving, that!

The Verdict

Emotions and brutality are at an all-time high in Scream 6, setting it up to be the best sequel in the franchise yet. Though it does ultimately fumble the reason for Sidney Prescott’s absence, RadioSilence has officially proven that there’s a future for the franchise with or without its original final girl by giving us strong connections to the new Core Four.

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Scream vi review: ghostface isn't playing in brutal, bloody & funny sequel.

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"Who gives a fuck about movies?" asks Ghostface early in Scream VI , the sixth entry in the beloved, referential slasher franchise that was rebooted with 2022's unfortunately named but mostly well-done Scream . Like the legacy sequels (or "requels" as the film calls them) that Scream VI skewers, the fifth entry in the series helmed by horror icon Wes Craven was steeped in nostalgia, going so far as to return to the site of the original film's bloodbath for its own climactic conclusion. Scream VI evokes a different kind of nostalgia, taking what made the franchise's original college-set sequel great and amplifying it to a 10. Scream VI is bloodier, scarier, and funnier, nodding to its past while carving a brutal path forward for Ghostface and the new franchise torch-holders who find themselves at the receiving end of the blade.

Picking up six months after Richie Kirsch and Amber Freeman's Woodsboro murder spree, the Core Four — Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) and twins Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) — have gone bicoastal, moving to New York City to attend Blackmore College. Ghostface isn't too far behind, though, and bodies start piling up as the Core Four, their new friends, and some familiar faces prepare for another bloody showdown.

Related: Who Will Die In Scream 6? Ranking Every Character's Chances

Scream VI does several things right by following in Scream 2 's footsteps . The decision to move the action to New York City is an inspired one — feeling helpless is all the more terrifying when hordes of people around you just don't care to help. With a higher population density, NYC also allows for a much higher body count. Ghostface may be more menacing than ever, but it also looks like they're having a ton of fun. The heroes might not be as they are chased through subway cars and down dark alleyways, but the raging killer with a sharp tongue and an even sharper knife is gleefully slashing their way through Manhattan and Scream VI is all the better for it.

Naturally, Mindy, taking her throne as the new Randy Meeks , gets another excellent monologue, taking aim at franchise filmmaking, name-dropping the deaths of everyone from Dewey Riley to Luke Skywalker to prove that no one is safe (again). The only one who's safe is Sidney Prescott, whose absence is briefly mentioned before the slashing continues. Luckily, there are a few legacy characters left. Like the second film, Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) gets a standout chase scene and her first chilling call from Ghostface. It's the return of Hayden Panettiere's Kirby Reed that will elicit the most cheers despite an unfortunate wig and medium-sized role. What's clear once and for all, though, is that this new era of Scream is all about the Core Four and their future (or lack of it).

As Jamie Lee Curtis once said, " It's about trauma, " and Scream VI hasn't forgotten that. The film deftly tackles the effects that Scream 2022's massacre had on its survivors, but it doesn't lean on this too heavily to become a thesis on the subject. Sam's unfortunate parentage is still key to her character, but it works to the film's benefit here, providing an interesting wrinkle in the latest Ghostface investigation. Billy Loomis is also not used as a crutch. Instead, Sam gets to focus on her family, both familial and found, as she watches over Tara, Chad, and Mindy in the Big Apple. The new Scream films have found a formidable cast to carry the franchise forward, with both Savoy-Brown and Gooding proving to be MVPs once again.

Barrera's performance this time around is also a step up from the wooden inflection sometimes seen in 2022's Scream, as the In The Heights breakout gets a much meatier arc that promises interesting things to come. Of course, it's Ortega who's the star here. After a stellar 2022 that saw her become the newly-anointed Hollywood Scream Queen, Scream VI sees Ortega in top form. Tara was stuck in the hospital for the majority of the fifth movie, à la Laurie Strode in Halloween Kills , but Ortega finally gets to have some fun and get her hands dirty this time around. While there's still work to be done when it comes to Tara feeling like a fully-developed character, Ortega elevates the material where she can, and it helps that the supporting cast around her is just as game for Ghostface's antics as she is.

Brutal, bloody, and hilarious when it should be, Scream VI is another step in the right direction for the franchise. 2022's Scream certainly assuaged fears that the franchise could live on even without the guiding hand of Craven, but the crew at Radio Silence (including directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinilli-Olpin) know what they're doing, and they prove that from the very beginning of this new entry.

Scream VI may very well have the best opening kill since Drew Barrymore was sliced and diced in the California countryside and that in itself is enough to inspire confidence in what's to come. Despite all the ways in which Scream VI pulls inspiration from the second film, as Ghostface says, " There's never been one like me, " and that's just as true for this legacy sequel as it is for the killer that's out for blood.

Next: Scream 6 Is Already Fulfilling A Bloody Promise

Scream VI releases in theaters on March 10. The film is 122 minutes long and rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout, and brief drug use.

Key Release Dates

Our rating:.

3.5 star movies

Scream VI Review

09 Mar 2023

It’s tough to carry on after losing your heart. Scream VI is the first without original survivor Sidney Prescott ( Neve Campbell ), who was the core of the series for 26 years. In many ways this film feels her loss, but new franchise guardians Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett conjure up enough inventive kills and clever ideas to convince that Scream could, like many horror sagas, have a life beyond its foundational cast. It doesn’t entirely convince that it should , but it makes a case for how it could.

Following the deadly events of 2022 in Woodsboro, California ( Scream 's original fictional hometown), Sam ( Melissa Barrera ) and Tara ( Jenna Ortega ) have moved to Manhattan, where Tara is attending college, along with fellow survivors Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding). Sam has tagged along to keep an eye on her sister, who she worries is not dealing with the trauma they suffered. (Sam’s not terribly good therapist might call this 'projection'.) Sam is also living with the horror that not everyone believes she’s a victim. A pernicious rumour is going around that she framed her ex, Richie ( Jack Quaid ), for murders she in fact committed herself. Because the internet loves a conspiracy theory, the rumour has taken hold. When someone starts slicing and dicing through NYC, Sam is immediately on the suspect list.

A train full of Ghostfaces and a furious face-off for Gale Weathers are highlights.

Two movies in, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett have certainly found a style that is distinct from the Wes Craven films. Their kills are nastier — not just bloodier, but more violent. The murders in Craven’s films were part of a master plan, little missions to be completed to make the final monologue add up. The kills here feel committed for the pleasure of killing. They’re less giggly than Craven’s; more straightforwardly horrifying. The directors have been served up some very creative sequences by returning writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick; a train full of Ghostfaces on Halloween and a furious face-off for Gale Weathers (sole returning original Courteney Cox ) are highlights.

When it’s not slashing, it’s less sure what to do with itself. Barrera and Ortega are hugely likeable as the new central characters, but the film overcooks its attempt to make them matter. Tara’s determination not to live in fear is smart and interesting; Sam’s worry that she’s too like her dad, less so. Sidney’s story was always simple: she wanted to move on but was terrorised by people who couldn’t. Over-complicating things is Scream VI ’s weakness. The journey to unmasking Ghostface involves some unconvincing grabs from all over the franchise and strained attempts to explain that there are rules to the second film in a reboot (there aren’t). If the series wants to continue it should perhaps free itself from the belief that it has to upend the genre every time. It’s still far more inventive and entertaining than most horror franchises of a similar vintage. Scream VI is at its best when it's not trying to rewrite the rules — but just throws them out and has fun.

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The Strangers: Chapter 1 – A Frightening Mid-Credit Scene EXPLAINED

I n 2008, The Strangers surprised many outside the horror community. The very straightforward home invasion movie featured a couple of stars and quickly turned a big profit. However, the middling success of the 2018 sequel left many cold. Despite this, The Strangers: Chapter 1 debuts in theaters nationwide this weekend.

Years after the original movie, director Renny Harlin takes over the stalking movies, announcing a trilogy of new films. By more than doubling the existing movies in the franchise, Harlin becomes one of the de facto voices in defining the property. With the trilogy already filmed, some may ask if there’s going to be a teaser for The Strangers: Chapter 2 . The answer is an unequivocal yes.

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What happens in the strangers: chapter 1 post-credit.

After the traumatic events of The Strangers: Chapter 1 , Maya (Madelaine Petsch) lies in a hospital bed. We hear the sound of a thunderstorm, and occasional lightning strikes brighten the room. The camera passes over a Get Well Soon Card (“Stay Strong, We Love You!”) from Maya’s friends who had traveled to Greece. As the rain falls, Maya wakes up. As she sits up in the hospital bed, The Man in the Mask lies next to her, unmoving. Maya does not appear to know of his presence.

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What does this mean for the strangers: chapter 2 .

The scene clarifies a few things for future Harlin films. First, it confirms that Petsch will return to the role of Maya. This is far from surprising, as many of the pre-release discussions confirmed that the new trilogy will take place over a few days. It’s wise to give us a character to connect with, rather than start from scratch once again.

Another aspect that’s hard to ignore, especially for horror fans, stems from the hospital location. Several franchises have taken this approach in the past. The most notable remains Halloween , which returned to hospitals to allow Mr. Meyers to go on killing sprees several times over. This also lends some direction for how we think the sequel or this scene may play out.

If Harlin plans to follow the path of 1981’s Halloween II , the Man in the Mask, Dollface, and Pin-Up Girl could stalk Maya through the hospital. This would allow Harlin to increase the kill count drastically and introduce new characters quickly. Additionally, the setting would feel new to the franchise, which could yield fruitful setpieces.

However, this scene may resemble Rob Zombie’s 2009 Halloween II. In Zombie’s version, Laurie Strode runs from Michael for about thirty minutes before it’s revealed that Laurie’s been having nightmares for months. It seems unlikely that months will pass after the events of The Strangers: Chapter 1, but a nightmare is certainly not out of the question. Funny enough, Harlin’s movie already features one of that movie’s alums—Richard Brake. The character actor has very little to do in the first part of the new series. Could Harlin have him take on a larger role in the next film?

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The next Renny Harlin Strangers movie will focus on Maya in some fashion. Where the story goes may be up in the air. Yet now that Harlin has reset the franchise for a new generation of moviegoers, it could be exciting to see where he takes the killers. With plenty of avenues to explore, what Harlin does over the next two movies will ultimately decide the fate of the franchise. Still, this mid-credit sequence gives us an idea and, hopefully, a setting.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 releases in theaters on May 17, 2024.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 Post Credit Scene

1 hr 28 min

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COMMENTS

Scream VI movie review & film summary (2023)
Unfortunately, their peace is short-lived. This is, after all, "Scream VI.". The movie opens with the killing of a film professor, and as the body count quickly escalates, Samantha Carpenter ( Melissa Barrera ), her sister, Tara ( Jenna Ortega ), and twins Mindy ( Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad ( Mason Gooding) prepare to escape, but they ...
Scream VI
Following the latest Ghostface killings, the four survivors leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter. Director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett Producer Kevin Williamson, Chad Villella ...
Scream 6 Review
Posted: Mar 8, 2023 12:51 am. This is a spoiler-free review of Scream VI, which releases in theaters March 15, 2023. "Rebootquels will continue until morale improves" would be a great opener ...
'Scream VI' Review: Jenna Ortega in the Goriest, Most Meta Entry Yet
Rated R, 2 hours 3 minutes. This edition, sporting a Roman numeral in its title for the first time, reunites the four surviving lead characters from its immediate predecessor. And just to spare us ...
Scream VI review: The meta horror franchise fights for its life
Scream 6 continues Radio Silence's run on Wes Craven's famously meta horror franchise, with Ghostface back for a new round of stabbing. The Scream 6 cast includes the return of Hayden ...
Scream VI review
But easy access to the series via streaming and an increased appetite for the horror genre led to a hyped resurrection and last year's simply titled Scream became a surprise hit, re-engaging the ...
Scream VI
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 25, 2023. Scream VI is satisfying enough. The new location and sets bring much-needed freshness to the franchise. The killings have never been this visually ...
'Scream VI' Review: Yes, Another Scary Movie
Ghostface and meta commentary are back in this sequel, yet the weight of obligations to the dictates of the franchise ultimately drags it down. Share full article. Melissa Barrera, left, and Jenna ...
'Scream 6' Review: The Best Scream Movie Since the '90s
As a movie, Scream 6 ranks near the top of the franchise. It delivers the thrill, violence, and whodunnit mystery the franchise was built on, all cranked up to 11. But the meta-commentary here is ...
Scream VI First Reviews: A Brutal, Top-Notch Addition to the Series
Ghostface takes Manhattan in Scream VI, which arrives just one year after the hit legacy "requel" simply titled Scream, and based on the first crop of reviews, this sixth installment looks like another success for the horror franchise.The movie's initial positive Tomatometer score almost matches the 1996 original, improving upon the previous entry with gorier kills from returning ...
Scream VI
6% Negative 3 Reviews. All Reviews; ... Negative Reviews; 100. The Playlist Mar 8, 2023 Scream VI builds to a powerful third act of grisly mayhem that is one of the best in the series. ... After an opening kill sequence that bucks convention and suggests a much better movie, Scream 6 grows tedious as it attempts to catch us up with the ...
Scream VI review: One of the franchise's best sequels
Up until the killer's reveal in its third act, Scream VI is one of the franchise's best sequels and the series' most inventive and character-driven entry. The Scream movies, like the Fast ...
Scream 6 review: a bloodier, better sequel
Scream VI. Score Details. "With Scream 6, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett deliver a slasher thrill ride that's better than the duo's 2022 soft reboot in every possible way ...
Scream VI (2023)
Scream VI: Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett. With Courteney Cox, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown. In the next installment, the survivors of the Ghostface killings leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter in New York City.
Scream 6 Review: Movie-Obsessed Horror Franchise Gets NYC Spin
Scream 6 is a more complete, (slightly) more subtle, and definitely more surprising movie than its predecessors. When the ending reveal of a Scream movie isn't the best part of a Scream movie ...
Everything We Know About Scream VI
The Survivors of Scream (2022) Are Back for More (Photo by Philippe Bosse/©Paramount Pictures) The new movie follows sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) who, obviously, made it out of the last movie in once piece (despite Tara seemingly being earmarked for a Drew Barrymore-esque quick exit right in the beginning).Sam's bloodline connection to original Scream ...
'Scream 6' Review: Ghostface Goes to Manhattan
Movie Review: In 'Scream 6,' the 'Scream' series moves to New York City. Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera return, as does Courteney Cox. The horror sequel provides some good scares and a ...
Scream 6 Review
Part of what made Scream (2022) so successful was that it took the old, the new, and built the perfect foundation for a story that could continue without its original final girl (a task many horror franchises have tried and mostly failed).Scream 6 capitalizes on that, focusing on the return of Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and fan-favorite Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) as the legacies, and ...
Scream VI Movie Review
Parents need to know that Scream VI is the sixth movie in the meta horror-slasher franchise, following the characters who were introduced in 2022's "re-quel," Scream.It's pretty brutal, but thanks to strong character interactions and a good mystery story, it succeeds. Expect tons of stabbings and slayings, bloody wounds, blood spurts, dead bodies, etc.
Scream VI Review: Ghostface Isn't Playing In Brutal, Bloody & Funny Sequel
Scream VI evokes a different kind of nostalgia, taking what made the franchise's original college-set sequel great and amplifying it to a 10. Scream VI is bloodier, scarier, and funnier, nodding to its past while carving a brutal path forward for Ghostface and the new franchise torch-holders who find themselves at the receiving end of the blade.
Scream VI Review
Original Title: Scream VI. It's tough to carry on after losing your heart. Scream VI is the first without original survivor Sidney Prescott ( Neve Campbell ), who was the core of the series for ...
Scream 6 Review
Scream VI reviewed by Amelia Emberwing.Emotions and brutality are at an all-time high in Scream 6, setting it up to be the best sequel in the franchise yet. ...
The Strangers: Chapter 1
The Strangers: Chapter 1. , Maya (Madelaine Petsch) lies in a hospital bed. We hear the sound of a thunderstorm, and occasional lightning strikes brighten the room. The camera passes over a Get ...
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Tune in next week for our review on Scream and Scream 6. LOVE YALL AND SEE YOU LATER ‎Show the PLAYBACK podcast | Film News + Movie Reviews, Ep "CREED 3" Movie Review: Michael B. Jordan Impresses in Directorial Debut, "Road House" (1989) Movie Review + more Movie News | PLAYBACK PODCAST EPISODE 3 - Mar 7, 2023 ...