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Scream VI ★★½
(MA) 122 minutes
Unlike most of the characters, the flip yet gruesome Scream slasher series has stayed alive longer than anyone could have anticipated. But are we all that interested in slashers for the big screen nowadays?
Not according to hard-boiled crime reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox): “It’s all about true crime limited series TV.” Gale should know, as the sole “legacy character” to appear in all six Scream instalments since 1996 – which is not to drop any hints about whether she makes it to the end of this one.
Courteney Cox returns as hard-boiled crime reporter Gale Weathers in Scream VI.Credit:Philippe Bossé/Paramount Pictures
What, you may ask, has become of Neve Campbell as the hitherto indestructible Sidney Prescott, who has spent much of her adult life fighting off one gravel-voiced masked killer after another? Have no fear, Sidney is safely vacationing off-screen, far from New York City where this chapter in the saga takes place.
After carrying the previous five films, Campbell was reportedly unhappy with the salary she was offered this time round. More power to her, though I could wish for a more compelling stand-in protagonist than Samantha “Sam” Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), introduced in last year’s semi-reboot and once again declining to show a glimmer of the dark side that the script insists she possesses.
Her kid sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) is a livelier presence, easily imagined as the drawcard of Screams yet to come. Which, again, is not to reveal anything about who survives on this occasion – or who might be lurking behind the iconic Ghostface mask and slicing their way through Tara’s college friends.
Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) and older sister Sam (Melissa Barrera) have much to fear in the latest instalment in the Scream slasher series.Credit:Philippe Bossé/Paramount Pictures
That mask remains a neat gimmick, allowing the series to maintain a semblance of continuity however many characters come and go, bloodily or otherwise. Ghostface isn’t a person, but an idea, a floating identity anyone can take on and act out classic slasher tropes.
This feels more in keeping with the reflexive logic of the whole enterprise, now that a new generation of filmmakers – directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, plus writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick – have taken over where creators Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson left off.