‘Scream VI’ is slick fun, but rules go out the window

I have a friend who sometimes says something is a good film, but it’s not a good film for what it’s supposed to be. We argue about “Iron Man 3.” He says: “Good Shane Black film; not a good Iron Man film.” I say great film, because I don’t think the “Iron Man” saga has ironclad rules.

Getting lazy about The Rules

I see his point, though, when I apply it to “Scream VI,” which recently hit home streaming. This is a slick pop-art slasher in the series’ tradition, although it moves from Woodsboro to New York City (which actually is visually and logistically refreshing).

As it delivers thrills “Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan” might have if it had any money to work with, “Scream VI” doesn’t exactly forget it’s a “Scream” film, but it gets very lazy about “The Rules.” A similar problem affected “Scream 3,” and now “Scream VI” challenges it for being the weakest entry. (“Scream: The TV Series” Season 3 was also weak; perhaps this saga has a Multiples of Three Curse.)

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The “Scream 5” team – directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick – quickly turn around and give us an entertaining film one year later. I’ll point to the positives later in this post.

First, the negatives. Mindy (“Yellowjackets’ ” Jasmin Savoy Brown), the niece of Randy (the horror-movie rule maker from the O.G. film), gives viewers and her friends the rules of requel-sequels. “Anyone is expendable,” including legacy characters (Courteney Cox’s Gale is back, along with one other fun surprise), because the I.P. is worth more than any given star. And “trust no one.”

Mindy lets down her uncle

When Kevin Williamson devised Randy’s rules, he truly was analyzing Eighties slashers; he was a one-man TV Tropes before that website existed. Vanderbilt and Busick don’t pen an outright dumb screenplay overall, but in the area of The Rules, they are unengaged, arguably even lazy. Mindy’s two main rules are not unique to requel-sequels or trends of the past decade; they date back to the beginning of slashers and even murder-mysteries in general!

If Mindy was truly analyzing trends, she would note that in modern films, characters tend to survive egregious wounds in order to provide unearned happy endings. (Note “Jurassic World: Dominion,” where everyone survives except the baddest baddie.)

She’d perhaps note the alternate-timeline trend, where stories pick up from one of the previous entries while “ignoring” the events of others. (Note the new “Halloween” trilogy.) Perhaps “Scream: The TV Series” could’ve been tied in, although that might be a step too far since those events don’t exist in the movies’ continuity.

Mindy might note that narratives are shaped by fan feedback more than ever; although that was a primary theme of “Scream 5” and this film does continue to explore it – without comment from Mindy – via the fact that Internet conspiracy theorists believe Sam (Melissa Barrera) is the actual “Scream 5” killer.

(SPOILERS BEGIN HERE.)

What goes wrong (Spoilers)

And Mindy would perhaps observe that more planning goes into sagas now, allowing for crisper connections from film to film. (Note the MCU.) For a cynical spin, Mindy would perhaps note the padding-out trend, like when adaptations of the last book of a series become two movies. She’d observe that the events of “Scream 5” might not truly be over, but rather are ongoing.

I’m going heavily into spoiler territory to discuss the latter point. If Mindy – or Sam or Sam’s sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) or world-class investigative journalist Gale or FBI Agent Kirby (Haden Panettiere, returning from “Scream 4”) – had done the slightest bit of digging, they would’ve easily had their answers. The killers turn out to be the father (Dermot Mulroney’s Detective Bailey), sister (Liana Liberato’s Quinn) and brother (Jack Champion’s Ethan) of “Scream 5” co-Ghostface Richie.

The trope of relationships being unknown to the sleuths (the viewer/reader and the fictional characters) until the big reveal is common in mystery literature; Agatha Christie used it all the time. But it’s rarely as hoary and implausible as in “Scream VI.”

Sam was the girlfriend of – and was forced to kill – Richie in “Scream 5.” She never met – or even knew anything about – his family? She never asked him, or – failing that — researched his relations after she found out he was Ghostface? In this era of distrust of new people and easy Google searches, she never researched him a little? On Richie’s end, why would he keep his family secret? He didn’t know his scheme would fail and his family would later embark on a revenge scheme.

Furthermore, Richie’s family trio is somehow able to change their identities in 2023 and join Sam’s inner circle – even with Sam and her friends vetting them! Quinn becomes Sam’s and Tara’s roommate and Ethan becomes the roommate of Tara’s love interest/Mindy’s brother Chad (Mason Gooding).

(END OF SPOILERS.)

What goes right

It’s because of everything in the spoiler section that I can’t rate “Scream VI” too highly. But I really want to, because it does a lot of things well – and ironically, smartly, considering how dumb the issues in the spoiler section are.

Samara Weaving (“Ready or Not”) is a delight as the First Girl, not merely a familiar-face cameo but actually an adorably awkward slasher-film studies teacher on a blind date. I sense we’ve missed out on a better movie when she is (of course) dispatched, but then “Scream VI” gives us another delight: Ghostface takes his mask off!

This leads to another tense sequence, capped by excellent gore, while we simultaneously learn plot points continuing from Richie’s idea of making a slasher snuff film. Inevitably we have to switch over to Sam and Tara, but that’s OK; they have a troubled but sweet relationship wherein Sam is obsessed with her kid sister’s safety.

Ortega (“Camp Cretaceous,” “X,” “Wednesday”) is already a star – and she provides diversity in a rare category: short adults. (Even camera trickery can’t disguise that she is 5-1.) Barrera is an underrated Scream Queen; she portrays the constant irritated worry that Neve Campbell specialized in, but with more facial expressions.

A tasty Big Apple

The filmmakers take advantage of the big-city setting (Montreal stands in for NYC, which is why it appears cleaner than you’d expect) to deliver one of the series’ most intense action sequences: a tightrope (via horizontal ladder) walk over a deadly drop with Ghostface looming.

Gale’s showdown with the villain is fabulous. We see the posh Upper West Side lifestyle bought with her dogged tabloid reporting, and she throws copies of her latest bestseller at Ghostface. It might’ve been fun to see her stop a knife strike with one of those thick hardcovers, though.

And “Scream VI” comments – without words, for a change – on the state of the film industry by using a shut-down movie theater as a primary setting. The writers might’ve missed an opportunity to more directly comment on the shift from theater-going to streaming.

But that would require serious thought into how to tell a slasher story that comments on the current state of filmic storytelling – what Williamson did in the first two films. Vanderbilt and Busick – via Mindy – aren’t interested in doing more than paying lip service to The Rules. Unless, to be very generous, they’re now saying “The Rules don’t matter anymore.” Or that the person spouting The Rules actually is full of hot air. Which might be somewhat of a statement about living in 2023, but that’s a rabbit hole too far for this review.

Suffice it to say that “Scream VI” is a good movie. It’s just not a good “Scream” movie.

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