It’s a film about films.

It’s safe to say that I enjoy the Scream films, down to the level where I don’t think the series has faltered much in its two requel outings post-Wes Craven. And I love Wes Craven, God rest his soul, and it stands to reason that nobody could really emulate his greatness when it comes to making films. But in a world where series are regularly picked up by sophomoric morons more interested in modernizing and putting their stamp on an IP, I think Matt Bettenelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are doing a great job continuing the essence.

As a direct sequel to Scream V, Scream VI once again follows Tara Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and her sister Tara (Jen Ortega). Accompanied by Chad and Mindy (Mason Gooding and Jasmin Brown respectively) the group now finds themselves in New York City where, you guessed it, the Ghostface killer starts murdering people again.

Where Scream V focused on the requel concept, Scream VI is the requel sequel, the sequel to the reboot sequel. As this is a Scream film we naturally get the scene where one character runs down the rules of the requel sequel. Everything is bigger, expect the unexpected, and everyone is expendable including the main characters. And they ain’t wrong. There’s a laundry list of new and returning characters and each one makes themselves suspect number one as the movie progresses. But who will it be? Only you can find out.

The old guard is slowly slipping away. Sidney Prescott isn’t here because the studio offered an insultingly low pay to Neve Campbell. David Arquette is of course no longer in the series after Scream V, which leaves Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers. Actually we do get reappearances by a few characters. It’s nice to see Skeet Ulrich continuing to come back as Billy Loomis, albeit in spoopy ghost form. The persistently adorable Hayden Panettiere reprises her role as Kirby Reed from Scream IV.

While it has carried the series for five movies, I think we’re finally at the point where the self-referential material is getting old and tired and cyclical. There’s just so many times a character can be revealed as the long-lost son or sibling or spouse or mailman or fanatic of a previous character to keep tying it all together before it stops being interesting. We’re not quite there yet, but it’s definitely on the downward trajectory. I’m kinda hoping Scream VII is the final film before the series gets into Five Nights at Freddy’s level of dumb horseshit like having Billy Loomis coming back as an AI computer virus that infects people’s brains and turns them into killers.

But I do enjoy the characters and regardless of that part of the plot I did find Scream VI to be engaging with all the twists and turns the plot takes. The gore is still top notch, and the final reveal kinda made it all worthwhile. At over two hours, I was ready for the film to be done with once the credits rolled. I will also admit I’ve been warming up to the Carpenter girls over the course of the last two movies.

They can stay.

Rating: A