On March 10, 2023, Paramount Pictures released Scream VI, which was a sequel to the 2022 version of Scream released last year. The budget for the film was $35 million dollars, and then the film brought in $116 million dollars to the Box Office. Overall, Scream VI received a 77% from Rotten Tomatoes, and a 91% Audience Score. It is rated R for strong language, brief drug use, and strong bloody violence. It has a run time of two hours and three minutes, and it was directed by Matt Bentinell-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. It is important to note that this article will contain information about the film, so in order to prevent spoiling the movie I suggest not reading any further if you have not seen it.

While this movie’s addition into the Scream franchise was not my favorite film, it was not a horrible addition. While the plot was mainly easy to follow, it did have some confusing points that did make me stop and think about what I had just watched. In addition, the 2022 version of Scream did not leave me with any fabulous impression or eagerness to watch the next film, so going into this one I was unsure of what to expect.  

At the movie’s opening, we were introduced to a new character, Jason Carvey, who murders his film professor after catfishing her and luring her outside of a bar, all while wearing a Ghostface mask. He returns back to his apartment to call his roommate Greg who also assumes the Ghostface identity to kill people, and plots to kill Tara and Sam Carpenter, who are two characters from the film’s prequel. However, while on the phone, Jason discovers that he is on the phone with a different Ghostface, and finds out that he has murdered Greg, and then is killed himself by this new Ghostface. This opening was confusing for me, because I did not understand where all these new Ghostfaces came from. It felt like there was not a solid plan for an opening to this movie, and these two characters were thrown in and then killed off within the first five minutes.

The rest of the story follows sisters Tara and Sam Carpenter in New York City. Tara attends Blackmore University, while her sister moved to the city to be closer to her. The sisters quarrel in the first bit of the movie, because Sam believes that Tara should not be living by herself and needs someone to watch over her. As the movie progresses, the two sisters are often seen around Quinn, who is their roommate, as well as Mindy, Anika, and Ethan who were characters from the 2022 version of Scream. Personally, it seemed like a strange plot detail to me that all of these characters moved from Woodsboro, California to New York City. 

We are then introduced to Quinn’s father, Wayne Bailey, and he is a detective that has been on the case about the new Ghostface. After police come to the scene of Jason’s murder, Wayne calls Sam t in for questioning. This is due to the fact that her ID was found at the crime scene. While Sam makes her way to the police station with Tara, they are attacked by a person, who is wearing a Ghostface mask. It confused me as to how Tara’s ID got to the crime scene, and it is never really revealed throughout the rest of the movie. A lot of the movie was pretty predictable, and it was not a shock when this Ghostface also just kind of came out of nowhere during this scene of the movie. 

Sam and Tara then band together with Gale Weathers, a reporter who appeared in the original Scream, and Kirby Reed, who survived the 2011 Ghostface killings. Weathers takes the group and shows them an abandoned theater she found while reporting, which has been turned into a Ghostface shrine to commemorate all the past Ghostfaces. At this point in the movie, it led me to think that maybe Gale Weathers was Ghostface, because it seemed odd to me that this random shrine popped up in the middle of the movie that she had discovered while reporting. However, I was wrong, because they then decided to use this shrine as a way to “capture” the Ghostfaces, and we find out who the killer actually is in this scene. It turns out, there are three Ghostfaces, and these are Wayne and his children Quinn and Ethan. They banded together to avenge the death of their older brother Richie, who was one of the Ghostface killers in the 2022 version of Scream. Sam and Tara are able to fight against these three Ghostfaces, and win the battle and kills them. 

At the end of the movie, the sisters make promises to each other, with Sam saying she will back off of Tara, and Tara promising her sister that she will go to therapy. The whole movie just felt thrown together, however I did like how Gale Weather and Kirby Reed were brought back from the old movies and put in. It would have been nice to see Sidney Prescott join this group, who was the protagonist in the first Scream movie. 

For local showings of Scream VI and to purchase tickets, visit here. To watch a trailer of the film, visit here.