SCREAM VI

Horror staple has run out of steam.

The most subversive moment of Scream VI happens in the first five minutes. Naturally, that’s how these movies have started since assumed final girl Drew Barrymore ate it before the title card in the original. But unlike that first film which is famous for its twists, turns and misdirections, our expectations are never again subverted. Once a trailblazer in the self aware, meta commentary brand of horror, the franchise has devolved into a lazy, bloody gore fest.

And this is a franchise, no doubt about that, not after the rules are laid out by Randy Meeks stand in, his niece Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), a lucky survivor of the previous film. Each Scream movie informs us of the rules according to the film’s position in the larger narrative. We’ve gone through sequel, trilogy, reboot, remake and now franchise. It’s all gotten a little tiresome at this point. “Nobody’s safe.” “Everyone is a suspect.” Yawn.

The attractive cast includes some decent performances, particularly from Jenna Ortega as Tara Carpenter but the overfilled script doesn’t give us a chance to get particularly attached to anyone. Seeing “legacy characters” Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) and Gayle Weathers (Courtney Cox) is fun but too rare. You get the sense of a passing of a torch but none of the new characters grip our interest nearly as much as the OGs. Hang on to that torch Gayle. Come on back Sidney.

Or don’t. Maybe it’s time for this franchise to fizzle. The kills were certainly more brutal, more violent but with none of the cleverness or suspense Ghost Face and Scream are known for. More that amounted to less. And that’s a real shame. Perhaps the magic of the Wes Craven/Kevin Williamson combo that made the early films so successful can’t be remade or rebooted. Or franchised. Maybe what this film gets right is that it’s time to hang the notorious Ghost Face mask in a museum.