In "Scream VI," the psychotic, knife-wielding serial killer known as Ghostface is set loose on the streets of New York City. Yawn.
The former terror of the fictional California town of Woodsboro has made the cross-country trip to the City That Never Sleeps, bringing his creepy mask, black cloak and impressive supply of daggers. But he's lost in the big city, a slasher made small in his new playground.
No disrespect to Mr. Stabby-Stabby, but New York is where you get screamed at by a deranged hot dog vendor, have fistfights over midtown parking, pay $8 for a pack of gum and find approximately six public bathrooms for 8 million people. Ghostface, dude, up your scare game in the Big Apple. This is the city where Pizza Rat lives. This is a city where middle schoolers have nunchucks.
Despite the change of scenery, "Scream VI" is less a sequel and more a stutter-step, a half-movie with some very satisfying stabbings but no real progress or even movement. It's like treading water in gore. And to fully enjoy this "sequel to the requel," you need to have watched most of the others.
The four main survivors from the fifth "Scream" are all here a year later -- the Carpenter sisters, Sam and Tara (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) and the smug brother-and-sister duo played by Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown. They dub themselves the Core Four. "Survivors got to stick together," says the brother.
The sequel sticks with the formula of folding in on itself, mocking in a meta way the horror conventions it itself helped build. "We're in a franchise!" one of the Core Four explains and, indeed, "Scream VI" opens with a film professor yammering on about cliched movie tropes and ends with fight-for-your-lives slash-a-thon at a disused movie theater. And so at the conclusion, we must limp on to the next sequel, with no end in sight, and hearing the city loudly mocking anyone foolish enough to try to come and scare it.
"Scream VI," a Paramount Pictures release that hit theaters Friday, is rated R for "strong bloody violence, language throughout, brief drug use." Running time: 123 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Melissa Barrera, left, and Jenna Ortega in a scene from "Scream VI." (Philippe Bossé/Paramount Pictures via AP)
This image released by Paramount Pictures shows, from left, Mason Gooding, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Devyn Nekoda and Melissa Barrera in a scene from "Scream VI." (Philippe Bossé/Paramount Pictures via AP)
This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Jenna Ortega in a scene from "Scream VI." (Philippe Bossé/Paramount Pictures via AP)
This image released by Paramount Pictures shows a scene from "Scream VI." (Philippe Bossé/Paramount Pictures via AP)
This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Josh Segarra in a scene from "Scream VI." (Philippe Bossé/Paramount Pictures via AP)