Scream 6: too fast, too serious (Spoiler-Free Review)

Scream 6 arrives quickly after 5, which had been a great success, so why refrain from relaunching a lucrative franchise?

Samantha and Tara Carpenter (Melissa Barrera And Jenna Ortega) find themselves in New York to escape their old lives. Alas, Sam’s murderous reputation haunts her… and so does Ghostface! The killer seems to be offering a little treasure hunt to get back to her.

It must be said, Scream 6 is pretty good. In fact, it looks nice on itself, with a sure pace and well-directed scenes from Scream 5 duo Tyler Gillett/Matt Bettinelli-Olpin. It’s an honest film that is aware of its heritage… but precisely, this heritage begins to weigh. A script based on the fact that we are in a franchise and that there are rules only works if these rules are respected! And the film has nothing to do with it. Ihe Scream formula is respected on the form, not on the substance. Nothing goes when it comes to escaping, chasing, saving. The characters seem to forget all sense of logic and all sense of responsibility after 1 hour of film (out of 2). And so Scream 6 becomes too oily a mechanic and the characters no longer obey anything.

With the traditional ballet of new characters comes that of staff reviews to find the potential suspect or suspects. The game is less and less effective since we quickly spot the actors likely to be good psychopaths. The body-count accelerates and the list of suspects is reducedt. So there’s only one thing left: either the killer comes out of nowhere (past, hidden link with Sam), or it’s a fake death. So basically, the reveal won’t be as enjoyable or interesting as that.

New York does not bring much in Scream 6 except for this subway scene, which is too long for the few effects it produces. The suspense seems difficult to take shape. On top of that, the characters feel a bit silly when they just don’t think about taking another mode of transportation or going there together. The convenience store scene is brutal. As seen in the trailer, she won’t go any further. We therefore feel that the city = open space aspect is not exploited. We stay in confined spaces with apartments or the famous lair with the costumes and other objects related to the murders.

The return of Kriby (Hayden Pannetiere) is a wink that won’t go very far if it doesn’t add some thickness to the whodunit. She is there in a role that does not suit her at all. So there’s still a panoply of characters that never manage to make this whodunit game exciting. Samara Weaving is perfect in what she has to do, we just regret an underdeveloped role. Besides, speaking of development, the opening scene could have been a game-changer for the franchise. Only the double twist comes to put the scene and the atmosphere of it in a straightjacket a little boat.

Scream 6 is therefore a film in line with the 5 which presents itself. As a sequel to 5, it’s pretty good, and even very good. As a film in the franchise, we feel a loss of an artisanal spirit, a change of era too, certainly (and even assuredly). Credibility and the stakes are no longer the same. We feel a slow transformation of Scream into a much too calibrated product, without the candor of a Scream 2. The character of Sam and his clear demarcation with Sidney Prescott are still the good point. There is an idea which is there, which is sketched out, which arrives when it is needed. It is therefore limited, timed risk-taking that can tip the scales towards a missed opportunity to offer something new. Taking pleasure in saying that the characters are in a franchise begins to feel like an excuse to be in clichés. Scream 6, if it finally drops Sydney, seems predestined to take an artistic tangent that would have been great in an original slasher. In Scream, we swim in troubled waters.