Scream VI
I assume my watching number six while having skipped two through five has colored my perception of this film. There are a lot of big time fans for movies in this franchise, and I can’t fault them. They are suspenseful and funny and have a lot of pretty actors getting killed gruesomely by a scary antagonist. Like Godzilla, though, I found it mildly entertaining but not something I would make an effort to keep up with.*
There are a lot of self-referential moments, like the sound of a ringing phone in the first second. This is intended to give the fan an immediate reaction to start their viewing experience, because the movies are probably the most phone intensive stories in Hollywood history. I thought it was a great start, since it even affected a nearly non fan like myself. I was watching to see if the phone was still a thing, and wasn’t disappointed, and also if there would be a new tech origination. After my technological reasons I was interested in seeing Jenna Ortega, one of the new Hot Young Actresses who had been in the previous Scream, but this time really gained a lot of notice.
Basically, this installment happens a year after the last one. Four of the survivors of Ghostface are in New York City where Tara (Ortega) is going to university and trying to live a normal life. Before you know it, she and her friends and family are running around the city trying not to become shish kabob.
I had always thought one of the hallmarks of the Scream series is opening the film with the ring of a phone followed by the gruesome murder of a Hot Young Starlet. The first was Drew Barrymore and I remember being absolutely floored by the filmmakers’ audacity, to kill off an actress that any normal person would automatically assume would be the Final Girl because she was famous. On doing a little googling I have discovered that it’s a guy who is killed first, typically followed shortly by the Hot Young Starlet. In this installment the lucky number one to be left lifeless and bloody is one of my favorite young actresses, Samara Weaving, which is a rather subtle departure from tradition.
Because I did most of my googling after watching, I wasn’t aware of this swing away from Scream tropes, so I assume there are others I’m not aware of. I might have to have a Halloween month Scream fest. My other googles before researching for the review was looking up what characters live through the movie, while I was watching the movie. When you stop laughing, just know that I don’t deal with suspense well.
Besides suspense, Scream is great with humor, if the two I’ve seen are an indication. By this point, a lot of the humor is very self-referential, like a phone joke in this phone-centric series as done by Gale (Courtney Cox) that had me LOL, even as a neophyte. You may have noticed I haven’t said the f word yet. Franchise. There is a very funny sequence in VI that is taken directly from the first, where The Rules of Horror Movies were laid out. Thirty years later Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) gathers the “friends, aka potential victims” to explain the Rules of Horror Movie Franchises. The biggest takeaway from the updated list is that “Main characters are expendable!”. So, humor in aid of the horror. If done right that is massively entertaining.
As always, the actors are pretty and talented. The writing is taut and weaves in a lot of self-referential and phone humor while giving the viewer a twisty story with red herrings and not so red herrings. I will admit to figuring out who the killer is pretty quickly, but danged if I didn’t QUITE get it right. Kudos. The stunt choreography is first rate and the stabbing fx and make-up are good. I will say, I had to take off a star because I could not get used to characters being sliced to ribbons one second and running down the street in the next scene. I don’t know if that is some kind of Scream joke or something else, but it bugged me to see a woman who would be in an operating room an hour after that kind of serious injury, rather than running about.
Even after thirty years the people who make Scream franchise films are doing a great job, and the next one will probably find me watching in the theater – if we still have one here by then. The two I have seen so far (I expect to start watching all of them from the beginning in about five minutes) have been really solid horror movies that had me by turns cringing and googling who lives, and laughing out loud at the well done humor. I recommend at least this film, if not all the rest. Even if you haven’t seen the others, you will find it gruesome and suspenseful and funny.
LINKS:
CFR: In Addition:
Didn’t see it, don’t wanna, somebody punch that creep in the face – and then keep punching. Thank you.
*Unlike CFR who has only watched one slasher that I know of.**
**And if Mildred thinks I am ashamed of that, she is very mistaken. 🙂
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