Talking about a sixth part of a horror franchise is not so strange in a world in which sagas like ‘Halloween’ continue to reinvent their way of creating situations to resurrect their murderer, however, in the case of ‘Scream’ (1996 ) is not so rare because its villains tend to be changeable and contagious, that is the case of ‘Scream VI’, the new and early delivery after the fifth part, which was titled without number last year.
We must applaud the ability of the Radio Silence collective, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, to achieve a sequel in such a short time, and one that manages to be superior to the previous one in some aspects, though that may not be as much of a saying as it sounds. The previous film failed to offer anything new about the fourth and made it clear that Wes Craven’s bad milk is not inherited in any way, taking the forms of a standard youth horror film that continues here, accentuating some findings of that one.
The first thing that attracts attention, and in what seems more cowardly than the previous one, is in its creativity reduction and gore effectiveness on kills. A key ingredient in the subgenre that softens here compared to the previous one, with less successful set pieces and a less accurate and imaginative game of cat and mouse, much as Jenna Ortega cites that the film does a good double bill with ‘Rojo Dark’ and the characters wear t-shirts or quote Dario Argento and the giallo. In this aspect, the rush is noticeable, and there are even scenes that promised more tension, such as the one on the subway.
Two steps ahead of the viewer
There is none of the excessive glamor and operatic delirium of the Italian horror films of the 70s, something that Wes Craven himself managed to project in his ‘Scream 2’, precisely by condensing his philosophy of “more is more” in one last grandiloquent and theatrical act that here is an attempt to imitate in a comparable visual space, like some other motifs of that one that are reformulated in different ways. And that scratching in the formal, that affiliation to the studio cinema that shows off a television series for Young adult audiencesbears the surnames of its directors.
There is no hint of these Radio Silence in creating an inventive staging, offering visual ideas that narrate beyond the use of montage, certifying that in none of their popular films have they been interested in leaving a comfort zone that does not go to be enough to face his “requel” of ‘1997 Rescue in New York’. Beyond this, and that the budget of 35 million dollars does not appear anywhere, the current style helps them to shape a good whodunit, one with verve, action and a playful defiance of expectations.
Despite many conveniences —that “ladder” in a NY apartment— James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick’s script is witty and agile, less laden with meta references, less smart, and more intent on subverting what we can expect in a criminal mystery among friends. In this respect, he is more like the low-key police giallos that were in Argento’s shadow than a slasher, a category for which he needs a lot of fat and bad temper to fit in. In return we have an unconditional love for their charactersIn fact, so much so that he comes to betray his own postulates, that he is in charge of exposing Randy’s niece just as he did in the second part.
A very entertaining sequel, despite everything
The advantage over the previous one is that the small additions to the saga, such as the change of location, are positive. Any novelty, any element that helps to leave the comfort of the nest is welcome, after a reboot that played to recreate moments from the original as an internal joke, but reflected worse than a superior model at all levels. Thus even the absence of Neve Campbell and David Arquette seems like a nice nudge out from the confines of the familiar territory that the saga does not dare to leave behind.
That’s why in ‘Scream VI’ there are plenty of characters rescued from other sequels and there is a lack of new motivations for the murderersa need to abandon the constant rattling of the same phrases and resources, used in similar ways but not entirely, and embrace new forms of expression of the genre, a truly bombastic aesthetic bet, like that of ‘The woman in the window’ ( 2021) or any non-fan approach to Ghostface, inside the movies or outside of them, because that’s where the problem lies.
‘Scream VI’ is tremendously entertaining, despite the fact that it has moments that take longer than necessary due to its lack of body count, but it is still a very generational product, designed to please fans who grew up with the movies and newcomers, but fans nonetheless. And like any product that plays on reflexes inside closed places, it ends up becoming repetitive and cries out to open, ventilate and stop to think what a 90s franchise has to offer three decades later, otherwise, the announced seventh installment will convey exhaustion from the first scene.