Scream And Scream Again

In 1996, Scream arrived as a hip, snarky, ironic reinvention of the slasher genre. In 2023, though, we're now six films in to the Scream franchise and twenty seven years (!) removed from the pop culture landscape of 1996 so Scream isn't the smart aleck upstart anymore, it's now the horror establishment and Scream VI can't help but serve as a referendum on the state of slasher nation. 

With Michael Myers on sabbatical in the wake of Halloween Ends, Jason Voorhees still entangled in frustrating legal troubles, and with no one being able to figure out how to successfully resurrect the Elm St. franchise, Scream has now become the big legacy slasher on the block. Good thing, then, that the latest installment shows how strong the series' long term viability is. Based on the success of Scream VI, it's clear that for the foreseeable future, Ghostface will comfortably rule the slasher scene. 

Last year's comeback for the series, Scream, from the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, was a solid installment but with its understandable emphasis on the returning legacy characters, the new crew was limited in how much of an impact they were able to make. The question lingered as to what kind of future Scream could have as its fan favorite original players retired from the series. The strength of Scream VI is that it allows the survivors of the last film to really move up and come into their own as the new leads of the series and let the audience develop the same kind of emotional attachment to them that they had for the OG crew of Sidney, Gale and Dewey.

 

Melissa Barrera as Billy Loomis' illegitimate daughter Sam Carpenter, Jenna Ortega as Sam's half sister Tara Carpenter, Jasmin Savoy Brown as the niece of Randy Meeks, Mindy Meeks-Martin, and Mason Gooding as Mindy's twin, Chad Meeks-Martin, are - as Chad dubs them - the "core four" and Scream VI secures their standing as the future of the franchise. Courtney Cox appears as Gale Weathers but she feels like a guest star in the Scream world now rather than a driving force, with the returning Hayden Panettiere as Scream 4 survivor Kirby Reed (now an FBI agent) having a bigger role than Cox here. The training wheels have come off for the new kids and there's no doubt that the franchise belongs to them now. 

Aside from elevating the "core four," what Scream VI also does well is to lean into the complex mythology of the series. By this point, the series has evolved into a horror version of the Fast and Furious franchise in that its cast of characters and all their back stories have become so vast and intertwined that by now only the die hard fans can easily recall the connections. Rather than try and streamline things and make these sequels more new viewer friendly, the complexity of Scream is now very much a part of its appeal. As with the latest F&F or MCU entries, it's expected that hardcore fans know all these people, that they know all these returning character's connections to each other and that fans appreciate being rewarded for their knowledge. You can still follow Scream VI without knowing the other movies chapter and verse - there's enough exposition given to get casual fans or new viewers up to speed - but it's definitely more satisfying to watch this with prior knowledge of who's who and with an awareness of the recurring motifs of the series. 

As for Scream VI's much hyped NYC setting, despite the tagline of "New City, New Rules," the Big Apple has such an anonymous presence here (this could be taking place in any big metropolis) that it gives the long mocked and maligned Jason Takes Manhattan (given a shout out here via a clip on TV) a surprising bit of redemption. This has everything to do with the fact that none of Scream VI was actually shot in NYC. Like Jason Takes Manhattan, Scream VI substitutes Canada for NYC (Manhattan was shot in Vancouver, Scream VI in Montreal) but unlike Scream VI, Manhattan did at least some location shooting in NYC, enough to have Jason standing smack in the middle of a bustling late '80s Times Square like a boss. 

So while Jason may have taken a ridiculously long time to get to NYC, when he finally did make it, the filmmakers were able to exploit the iconography of the city in a way that Scream VI does not. It's not like you could say that Manhattan gets the last laugh here, per se. It's not like it suddenly turned into a good movie. But it at least it keeps some bragging rights when it comes to being a slasher icon in NYC movie and that ain't nothing I say!    

While 2022's Scream could have served as the last word on the series, a nostalgia fueled comeback that potentially could have also been the last hurrah, Scream VI clearly makes the case for Scream as a series that has no expiration date. The new characters are firmly established and the series' convoluted soap opera tapestry has been embraced as an asset and expanded on. Watching Scream VI, it's easy to imagine that in time another group of characters will inherit the mantle of the "core four" and carry the torch into the next era of Scream and that the series can keep the narrative going indefinitely, in much the same way that Don Mancini has made Chucky into a franchise that has spanned decades and multiple generations and has only become richer and more interesting. 

On the downside, the makers of future Screams will have to deal with a problem that plagued the classic incarnation of the series. Once Randy was killed off in Scream 2, the audience's affection for the surviving members of the original cast was so strong that the Scream stewards were reluctant to put these characters in any real danger and thus they kept improbably surviving. Now it's going to be difficult to eliminate any of the "core four" without risking a backlash. At the same time, if people feel like all four of these characters will survive no matter what, it reduces the suspense. 

But hey, that's a problem for another day and another sequel. For now, the Scream franchise is on secure footing. If the decision makers at Paramount are smart, they'll just let the current creative team of directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett and writers Vanderbilt and Busick keep making these movies as long as they're interested in doing so. The current caretakers of Scream have nailed what really drove the classic incarnation of the series. The meta commentary was never the true backbone of Scream. That was always just window dressing, more glib than it was insightful. What kept audiences invested in Scream as a series was the fact that they always had a cast full of likable characters and it always delivered top shelf slasher action with tense, bloody set pieces. While most of the old school slashers are currently facing uncertain futures, Scream stands alone as a series that has figured out how to navigate a long term course for itself. Its continued success is going to be not just what keeps Scream thriving but what lets the slasher genre as a whole stay viable as a big screen commodity. That's a sincere accomplishment for a series known for its irony. 

New York. New Rules.

For slasher fans of a certain age, the marketing for the upcoming Scream VI carries an undeniable aura of nostalgia. Once again a slasher sequel is bringing its brand of mayhem to the streets of New York City just as back in 1989, fans were all geared up for the arrival of Jason Voorhees in NYC in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. Instead of stalking the woods of Crystal Lake and slashing his way into the tents of unsuspecting campers, Jason was going to be hunting his victims in the concrete canyons of New York.  

The promotion for Jason Takes Manhattan began with its clever teaser trailer, set to the tune of "New York, New York," as the camera panned down from the NY skyline to a lone figure taking in the sight of New York at night only to have this figure turn around and be revealed as Jason, his trusty machete in hand, as the trailer cut to close up shots of various New Yorkers reacting in terror. 

Whether it be the disturbed Frank Zito in Maniac or the vengeful Officer Matt Cordell in the Maniac Cop films or any number of other sickos, New York has never suffered from any lack of home grown slasher action, but I think there's just something exciting for slasher fans about an out of towner coming in and leaving their mark on the Big Apple. 

And no one's more out of town than Jason. 

With its tongue in cheek trailer and a teaser poster that utilized the iconic "I Love NY" slogan (much to the unhappiness of NY state officials who insisted it be pulled), it appeared Friday VIII was made by people who knew exactly what they were doing. 

Then the actual movie came out and audiences found out the hard way that no one involved in Jason Takes Manhattan had, in fact, known what they were doing. Or at least what they were doing didn't line up with what Paramount's marketing team claimed they were doing and what had they convinced audiences to buy tickets for. Now, full confession, I do enjoy Jason Takes Manhattan but it took awhile for me to warm up to it. Years, really. And as much as I've softened towards it, I will always remember the palatable sense of deflation that swept across the audience at the midnight show I attended on opening night in '89 when well past half way through the movie it became very clear we still weren't getting to NY any time soon and that this movie was, well, a bit of a rip off.

That said, at least we did get some of Jason in NY and that one glorious 360 shot of Jason in the Times Square of the late '80s is one of the true non-splatter highlights of the series. There's some good fun to be had with Manhattan but no matter how much slack fans might chose to cut this entry (and over time I've chosen to cut it a lot), the fact remains that it simply didn't live up to its promise. 

Now, however, we've got Ghostface going to NY and it looks like slasher fans are going to have satisfaction at long last. The teaser trailer and poster for Scream VI perfectly sell its premise just as well as Manhattan did but this time we can be confident that this one won't spend most of its running time on a boat. No, we're finally going to get a full on NYC-set slasher sequel here. 

At this point it's too early to say how much of NYC's famous iconography Ghostface will visit. We don't know whether we'll get scenes set at Madison Square Garden or Radio City Music Hall or the Empire State Building or none of the above but I have to believe that no matter what Ghostface gets up to in Scream VI, the likes of M3GAN or Art the Clown won't need to come in years later to make up for a missed opportunity.