.

Scream 2 had a problem.

Following on from 1996’s Scream which brilliantly deconstructed horror movies while still being an effective entry into the genre itself, there was little more it could really do. It made some nice points on the nature of film sequels and there were a few narrative surprises but essentially it was just more of the same without being anywhere near as fresh and original as what had come directly before.

This same issue then plagued each instalment in the series right up until 2022’s Scream, which shared its name with the original but was actually number 5. By this point twenty six years later there was something new to say about the nature of mainstream Hollywood and that Scream was as wonderfully referential as the first Scream, giving us a smart commentary on legacy sequels (the use of the same title is a part of this) and exposing toxic fandom.

Now then, this new movie faces the same problem. Initially called Scream 2 itself, as some of the early promo sheets show, it has the challenge of not falling at the same hurdle as the majority of its predecessors. This one is coming just fourteen months after the film it follows as well so what can it possibly have to say that is new?

.

The early posters with the initial title:

.

Significantly it isn’t with the same meta aspects that this film succeeds, at least not in the same way. Having closed the book on this for at least another decade last time, they largely steers clear of it here. There is one scene in the middle (and one quick one at the very end) where the players explicitly discuss how everything we see fits in to cinematic convention but it isn’t really a strong theme that runs throughout this time. This is just as well as these moments do highlight how they absolutely don’t yet have anything additional to explore here. It would have been better to avoid this altogether to be honest.

There is something else here though and it’s in the character of Melissa Barrera’s Sam. It was established at the end of the previous film but here they really build on how Sam isn’t merely the target of the psycho, she is also a bit of a psycho herself. Sure Laurie Strode and Ellen Ripley fought back in the end of their stories but this lady is proper sadistic. Park Chan Wook played a similar trick with Stoker; giving us someone who seemed to be the innocent girl but was actually the real threat and certainly Scream VI doesn’t manage this with an ounce of the same subtlety but seeing Sam handle her own vicious tendencies is highly engaging. It also raises some interesting questions around what is acceptable in terms of violence when there is some kind of perceived justice on your side, both in real life and in cinema.

It doesn’t do it in the same way then, and I’m not even totally sure it is doing it as consciously, but here again it is opening a discussion around filmic convention, especially in relation to women. Action cinema is full of men dishing out extreme violence in the name of heroism but when you see women do this they are always more efficient and cleaner in their kills. This isn’t true of Sam, she driven by a certain level of anger but she also revels in it in a way you don’t normally see from those on the right side of the moral divide, Hit Girl notwithstanding. We saw it in baddies Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye and Amy Dunne in Gone Girl but Black Widow, Salt, Katniss and Lara Croft are unhesitant but reluctant. Not Sam, give her a knife and a reason and she’ll totally perforate you and will create extra holes in your head where they are not supposed to be.

Having this in a good female character really feels like a step forward for some kind of dark gender equality, and if you question this then that only highlights what we are conditioned to accept from men and women on screen. It is a much more indirect method of breaking down cinema but in its own way Scream VI is carrying on the post modern series tradition without it being tired and laboured.

In terms of other new directions, as most of the different posters show, this one has also moved away from the small town America setting and placed the action in New York. It could actually be any city, there are no scenes set in famous locations (this may have Ghost Face but it’s not Ghostbusters). The more urban environment does add an interesting component though, partly when it comes to their use of public transport but mostly in how the crowds react to what is happening around them with general disinterest/self interest. There is also a nice moment at the start where the ghost masked killer in this one does something that the ghost masked killer in these films never does. If I was free to discuss spoilers I could really get into this and comment on how it responds to a direct challenge made to the Scream films in the beginning Fear Street 1994, but I’m not so let’s move on.

This series has lost some things as it has progressed then, certainly the whole whodunnit aspect is largely redundant now as you are constantly second guessing everyone the whole way through so whatever the denouement turns out to be it is a scenario you have already considered, but there is new stuff in its place. If anything there are deeper cuts this time around and in a Scream movie there is certainly no problem with that