Scream 6 (2023) is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett, featuring a screenplay by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick. It stars Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Courteney Cox, Dermot Mulroney, Hayden Panettiere, Jack Champion, Josh Segarra, Liana Liberato, Devyn Nekoda, Henry Czerny, Samara Weaving, Tony Revolori, Thomas Cadrot, and Roger L. Jackson. One year after the events of Scream (2022), Sam (Barrera) is living in New York City so she can keep an eye on/protect her younger sister, Tara (Ortega), who’s attending college alongside fellow survivors Chad (Gooding) & Mindy Meeks (Brown). When a new Ghostface Killer turns up dead after murdering an NYU film professor, the friend group thinks they’ve avoided another possible murder spree. However, they quickly realize it was only the beginning of Ghostface’s game. Hunted through the busy streets of the city that never sleeps, the gang soon learns that Ghostface is more brutal and cunning than ever before. With the help of fellow survivors Gale Weathers (Cox) and a now FBI agent Kirby Reed (Panettiere)–who did, in fact, survive her supposed death in Scream 4–they set out to unmask the culprit(s) before it’s too late.  

Despite the writing for their characters being a total mixed bag, the new main cast introduced in Scream (2022) feel much more confident in their roles. Mason Gooding steals his various scenes as someone who has the background and physicality of a typical jock character, but also exudes the kind of social awkwardness more typically associated with characters like Jason Biggs’ Jim from American Pie (1999). He’s given a lot of the script’s comedic relief, but it’s hit & miss because it’s designed to make us laugh at his failed attempts to be funny/charming. Sometimes it works, and other times it’s just plain awkward. 

Chad’s newfound romance with Tara is also a tad strange here. It’s not unrealistic that the two would develop feelings for one another, but it does feel random when considering that I can’t recall them speaking one word to each other in the previous film. It was a big missed opportunity not to establish their dynamic leading up to this, something that makes their romance feel like a forced attempt to emulate Dewey & Gale. This serves to retroactively diminish what was so special about the Dewey-Gale dynamic, as well as hold back both Chad and Tara from feeling like original, unique characters. 

Speaking of Tara, she unfortunately takes the biggest brunt of the script’s uneven character writing. Although I’ve been tough on Jenna Ortega’s acting in the past, the writers are clearly to blame for Tara coming across as a blank piece of paper. If she’s not having an occasional gushy moment with Chad (which really says nothing about her personality), she’s telling her sister off for being overprotective, as if they didn’t just experience a horrible murder spree only 1 year ago. I mean, c’mon; Tara was attacked, almost died, and saw multiple of her friends killed, yet doesn’t understand why her sister would want to live nearby, God forbid. It’s silly, manufactured tension that I don’t buy for one second, and it makes her character seem insufferably cruel and immature. Did I mention that she doesn’t even get a clear arc? In the end, instead of using another series of murders as a reason to believe that her sister’s worries might hold some validity, she convinces her sister that it’s a good example of why she needs to handle things alone. The writers realize that not working together is one of the main reasons people die in horror films, right? They realize Tara would have certainly died multiple times without Sam’s help, right? When you’re a 5-foot-tall, 100 lb teen girl being hunted by brutal killers, maybe just accept any help you can get, you idiot. The film hammers home this idiotic point by having Tara face off against one of the male killers, clearly twice her size, who she immediately drops in the most comically easy way a person can imagine. Nothing about this character is natural or logical, and I’m dumbfounded that the fandom doesn’t give her more flak.

Despite all of these issues, the film works extremely well as a deadly, action-packed chase through the streets of NYC. This fresh setting shakes up the formula in a handful of meaningful ways, but it also provides a simple but natural explanation for why this is the first Scream film without Sidney Prescott, which, surprisingly, isn’t one of the things holding it back from being one of the better sequels. It helps that Hayden Panettiere is back as Kirby Reed, a fan-favorite former Ghostface target/presumed victim. Unfortunately, Panettiere’s performance is particularly weak. She’s low-energy from beginning to end, but it also doesn’t help that the writers make the perplexing decision to treat her as a likely suspect in the killings, which any fan knows would be a terrible sin. No one with half a brain would believe her as the killer for one second, so it’s easy to cross her off the list immediately. Too bad the writers don’t seem to realize this and/or care. 

As the only returning member of the original trio of characters, Gale’s inclusion is poorly executed and thus feels unnecessary. She has almost zero place in the story, and her biggest scene ultimately ends in her fakeout death. If she had died, I could’ve accepted this, but it ultimately acts as a 20-minute waste of time. If you’re not going to have any payoff to the elongated, tension-fueled KILL sequences, why spend so much time on them? She once again displays an annoying amount of plot armor, but this is unfortunately nothing compared to what we’re subjected to with Chad in the third act.

In the climax, Chad is attacked by two Ghostfaces, who proceed to stab him about 16 different times. It’s more definitive than any other death in the franchise, yet they pull another Dewey cop-out (despite already doing it in the previous film), revealing he’s alive as he’s wheeled out on a stretcher. This does both a disservice to Dewey’s legacy and Chad’s likability, but it’s also the first jump-the-shark moment in the franchise. What hurts even more is that the supposed death scene plays out as a heart-wrenching loss, letting the character go out in a blaze of glory that reestablishes the stakes that make these films such a thrill. Instead, it undermines all of that in the sake of pleasing the most casual, hair-brained portion of the audience. When you eliminate the characters who either survive or turn out to be Ghostface, you realize that only one character in the main group actually dies. Everyone else is either a part of the opening sequence or simply a nameless bystander who gets caught in crossfire. What’s worse is that the marketing constantly portrayed this as the most brutal Ghostface yet, but it’s the exact opposite. 

Although there are 3 Ghostfaces this time around, they’re some of the worst in the franchise. For me, this has more to do with the acting than anything else, especially Dermot Mulroney. The script can’t decide if it wants him to be a psychotic killer in the vein of Stu Macher or one more motive-based like Billy Loomis. He tries to portray both and comes across as somewhat confused. This kind of contradicts his behavior throughout the film, which is cool, calm, and collected–a facade someone this unhinged couldn’t believably keep up. So not only is this guy crazy, but he’s also able to plan and cover up a complex NYC murder spree, all while avoiding suspicion within the police force, which he’s simultaneously in charge of?

Overall, this is an extremely confident and action-packed entry in the franchise, right up to its climax. Unfortunately, it makes a series of lazy, out-of-touch mistakes that, combined, retroactively ruin what was otherwise an exciting entry in the franchise. These little details strip the film of everything I typically love about the franchise: palpable stakes, smart characters, and a kickass Ghostface reveal. Most people are a lot more forgiving of the film than I am, but I’d argue they don’t care about this franchise half as much as I do. This is, unfortunately, the first installment that’s become a victim of the studio blockbuster machine–more interested in pleasing the dumbest sect of the audience than in delivering something inspired. It’s as safe as a Scream film gets, and that kind of makes me want to throw up. Still, it’s passable entertainment if you shut your brain off. C+