SPOILERS!
Content Warning: Stalking, eye mutilation, body horror, choking, excessive gore, jumpscares, active PTSD, gun/knife violence
Wow. I am blown away. Talk about a phenomenal film! This is most definitely up there with the best Scream films. It currently holds second spot on my personal ranking, which is a big deal as I have been bullied (not malicious) online for my love of Scream 4 and it being second for so long!
This time around, Ghostface is after Sam (Melissa Barrera) and co. in New York while the younger of the group are in college, directly following the setting of Scream 2. There are a lot of new characters, and the return of fan favourite Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) which I was so excited for! I honestly couldn’t wait to see her in a Scream film again!
VI’s opening is one of my favourite of the entire franchise; it had me thinking the film was over before it had even begun! I loved the way it played out and we had a double murder at the hands of two different, completely unrelated people. I prayed for Tony Revolori to not be the opening kill, but that kind of took a 180 and he was, instead, the opening killer. Well, one of two, anyway. He was also killed in the opening, but by the real films ghostface. Jason (Revolori) is behind the opening kill of Laura Crane (Samara Weaving), and unmasks himself after killing her, which is a first for the franchise; an unmasking so soon into the film, but it just turn out he’s a weird film student obsessed with Richie Kirsch (Jack Quaid), one of the fifth films killers and the Stab films who killed his professor over a C-. If that was the case, a lot more film professors would be getting killed. It’s revealed that he has a right hand man, Greg, who is currently decomposing in the fridge as Jason receives a phone call from who he doesn’t know is Ghostface, which leads to his death in the opening sequence. I really don’t think I’ll be getting over this one anytime soon. It’s fabulous.
Cue the title card, the film begins, and we see Sam in a session with her therapist (Henry Czerny), living in New York and sharing an apartment with Tara (Jenna Ortega) and Quinn Bailey (Liana Liberato), who is one among the handful of new characters to the friend group also including Anika Kayoko (Devyn Nekoda), Mindy’s (Jasmin Savoy Brown) girlfriend, and Ethan Landry (Jack Champion), Chad’s (Mason Gooding) roommate. Also among these new characters are neighbour and love interest of Sam, Danny Brackett (Josh Segarra) and Detective Wayne Bailey (Dermot Mulroney), Quinn’s dad.
Of course I loved this film, I knew before watching I would, but I had no idea it would directly link back to the films that came before it, resulting in each ghostface being mentioned by name as their masks are left at sites that Ghostface has killed people. Starting at the murder of Jason and Greg in the opening sequence, there is a mask left behind that was Richie’s; the bodega attack: Jill Roberts and Charlie Walker; the Christopher Stone murder: Roman Bridger; the Gale/Brooks attack/murder; Mickey Altieri and so on.
Much like the original rules scene in the original, and the requel rules in Scream (2022), VI gives us another iconic one for the rules of a sequel to a requel, and I’m astounded by how well versed Mindy is in horror to have called out who this films Ghostface was. She really is her uncles niece.
I don’t want this post to just be a play by play of the film, so I’m going to wraap it up with the reveal. I’vee come to realise that no matterer who is revealed as Ghostface, I’m always underwhelmed when they take the mask off and until they reveal their motive. This motive, much like the first and the fifth, resembles the second, with family looking to get revenge on Sam for killing their family. The family this time around is the Kirsch family, and we have three people avenging Richie’s death, his father, brother and sister; Detective Bailey, Ethan Landry, who isn’t actually a Landry, but a Bailey, and Quinn Bailey, who we saw die earlier in the film. I really like how they managed to bring back a ‘dead’ character for the reveal, and since I believed she was dead, I have no idea who I thought the third Ghostface could be.
All in all, I am eagerly awaiting Scream VII being greenlit, much like a lot of other people out there, and if so, I’m really excited to see where else these films could be taken. I think I’d love to see a New Nightmare (1994) situation someday in the future which will really take it back to Wes Craven’s style!
All the love,
Jade x
Tea Stains and Book Spines 