Scream 6, Slicing And Dicing In The Big Apple (What Jason Takes Manhattan Wishes It Was)

The Scream franchise has a special place in my heart.  It may not be the scariest franchise out there, in fact, I can almost guarantee it is not, but it does something nothing else has really come close to.  It takes a genre in slashers that people love and it plays with that notion of film lovers, it puts them in the movie.  It has fun with the tropes of the genre without outright mocking them.  This movie franchise references other horror franchises in a love letter to the slasher genre and also 6 movies deep now with Scream IV, it respects and references its own history and lore.

I have so many good things to say to this franchise, it helped me on the path to other slasher and horror franchises like Friday the 13th, Halloween, and even the Conjuring.  Think of this as my gateway to it all, in a similar way that a lot of people may view M3GAN getting people into the genre.  But this has maybe a little less cringe with its pop culture nods.  And starting way back in the 90's, this franchise has evolved while still keeping a few main characters integral to the story over the years and not doing a full cast swap every movie after killing everyone off.

But now that I history dumped and showed my love for this franchise, 6 movies is a lot.  The question we will answer today, can this franchise continue to churn out screams of joy rather than scares of another series too long in the tooth that is drained of what made it special?  Can it continue to adapt and remain relevant and not something that just peaked in the 90's?  Let's figure that all out, right here, right now, on Nick Nack Goes to the Movies!

Transcript

Nick Nack Goes to the Movies Pod S4E2

-Intro/Jingle

-Well we are back and much sooner than our last pause, the goal with Spring movies coming in bulk is to get back to the roots and keep these episodes coming back in bulk.  Less sporadic and more to the bi-weekly format that has served Nick Nack Goes To The Movies well.  And today we are cooking up some scares, and coming back a lot sooner than expected, not unlike the movie I am super excited to talk about.

-This is of course Scream 6!  While I have yet to make a full Scream episode, something that has to happen in the near future, I did talk about the 5th one that came out back in the start of 2022.  With this franchise there had been bigger pauses between 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5, some being over a decade.  But this franchise that came out back in 1996, I still have my OG ghost face mask, is back with a vengeance, in my opinion never really having a bad entry, something a lot of horror franchises cannot boast with their many entries.

-With the big success of the 5th and early commercial success of the 6th one, it feels like this franchise is back from the 90’s to the modern ages with the new take on the series from directors Matt Bet-eh-nelly - Olpin and Tyler Gillett replacing the late legend, Wes Craven.

-But as you know from my takes, commercial success and critic reviews don’t always mean the same thing.  Well, that is what I am here to help you with.  Spoiler warnings aplenty for this fresh to the theater’s movie, this is your heads up to make sure you watch before this, and proceed with caution, because you can always be right back!  Or will you?  Those are the rules after all.  

-But for now, sit back, or hop on that elliptical, and let’s talk about if Scream 6 really is worth the praise, and more importantly, the continued investment from this fanbase that you and I are a part of.  We are ghost face and all that.

-Actors

-So, when the last one of these came around, that was my first time seeing a Scream in theaters.  This franchise got me hooked with the scares, pop culture, and big-name actors all over the place.  Still can’t believe the small roles they got Liev Schreiber and Patrick Warburton, current Bachelor TV show person Zach Shallcross’s uncle, to be in these among others.  Emma Roberts from both Scream Queens and American Horror Story, the list goes on and on.

-This is a bit of a tirade, but I have to speak on the history of my relationship with these movies.  0

-The Scream franchise was the toe dip into the entire horror genre for me.  Without it, I would never have gotten into Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Purge, or any other zombie or vampire movies, including historical non-fiction masterpiece Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.  And while all of those are amazing, especially that documentary about one of our presidents hunting vampires, Scream will always have a chokehold on me with all the pop culture and genre references along with some good scares and some fatalities.  

-For all the true crime girlies, just think of this as my personal healthy obsession.  There are after all way worse things to be addicted to or have a weakness for.  My resume weakness is just sweet treats, super hard when you live in Wisconsin and have the all-encompassing pressure of having the best bakery around in Uncle Mike’s.  The addictive nature of them Kringles, that is truly the scariest thing out there.  That and the fear of being forever alone…

-That and spiders as big as house.  But anywho.  This episode is not about those things or my hypothesis about the shared but somehow different fandom between true crime and horror/slasher.

-What I do want to get to is who is in this movie so we can get to talking about the movie, and to another degree, who isn’t.  

-So the new “Core 4” are all back from the 2021 soft reboot with “In the Heights Star” Melissa Barerra, and internet fandom meta star Jennifer Ortega.  And as surprising as it may have been after their characters survived the last movie, both Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding are back to provide some separation from the family story and also just add some levity and live genre analysis to subtly break the 4th wall, a Scream franchise stapple.

-Obviously we will not be seeing any David Arquette after the last one but Courtney Cox is back as one of the “Legacy characters”, but more exciting long-standing rumored to be alive and briefly teased in the last one, Hayden Panettiere, is back.  From A Bug’s Life to Remember the Titans, to Kingdom Hearts to Heroes, to this franchise.  She is back from Scream 4 and a fun welcome change.  We have seen a lot of characters die here, and quite a few survive brutal attacks, the original 3 made a habit of this, but this was a first for the franchise.  

-Of course, the big omission is in the face of the franchise with Neve Campbell.  The rumors around had been pay disputes and while we did not see her in this one, they at least address it a bit here.  The hope is we can see her as well as the director teased return just recently of Patrick Dempsey.  We have not seen him since Scream 3 and his character Detective Kincaid has been married to her at least since the 5th one.  He was supposed to be in the 4th one but had been busy with Gray’s Anatomy, and much sadder, a 1 movie transformers role. But with these directors taking time to respect those from the past, bringing Heather Matarazzo from the third movie back in the 5th, the hope is to see both of these actors back for the eventual 7th one.  

-That and we are still waiting to see if Matthew Lillard has survived the first one getting a TV dropped on his head.  Yes, I like a lot of you thought that this was the new ghost face from the 6th movie.  Sadly not to be, but they wanted to make him the villain of the third one, kind of the premise of the very good Fox Kevin Bacon, James Purefoy, and Shawn Ashmore show, the Killing.  This all changed after the Columbine high school shooting.  But his character was planned to be alive, and this movie even teases us with some info about it as well.

-Outside of some wish fulfillment, who is actually in this.  Well a ton of people, but let me focus on a few, I feel like the newer actors I was most excited for were just not in this for long.  I figured with new Spiderman franchise actor, Tony Revolori, and burgeoning Scream Queen in her own right from Ready or Not, Samara Weaving, they were either gonna be in this a lot and be killers, or be in this not a lot and get killed of early.  There was a bit of a mix of these which we will get into, but, yeah, neither one of them had all that much screen time.

-Henry Czerny has been in a few fun spooky things, including the aforementioned Ready or Not, but my first big foray with him was the under the radar fun that was Revenge on ABC.  His character there was flawed, villainous, and just the right amount of cocky.  I was excited to see who he would be, and he too was in and out of this movie quickly enough.  This same thing happened when I got super into the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and was introduced to another actor with similar vibes in Richard Coyle.  I was excited to see where this villainous patriarch would be able to play in the Harry Potter prequel series, Fantastic Beasts, but his role was small and not the villain there at all, instead being Aberforth.  Expectations are like assumptions, they make asses out of you and me and all of us.

-Scream VI

-This movie will of course draw comparisons to at least, if not other movies like it, but for sure Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.  Not often have horror or even more specifically, slasher movies, taken themselves out of their little towns or regions.  Elm Street, Camp Crystal Lake, and Haddonfield along with Woodsboro are all iconic for their own franchises.  

-But in 1989 for their 8th entry, Friday the 13th wanted to mix things up.  Honestly, looking back and looking at the title, this seems fun.  Heck, go watch the first trailer for this, it is a minute long of mostly Jason Vorhees looking at NYC after dark where a piano version of New York New York by Frank Sinatra plays.  Follow that up with quick shots of people terrified of Jason, and this sounded like a home run, and looks it too.

-However, if you have seen this movie, heard my podcast on that entire franchise, or can just assume by this tone or this big but coming.  The final product there, was not what was promised in that title or in that trailer.  Instead of a city-wide slasher fest, Jason spend most of the time hunting around of a prom boat leaving from Crystal Lake and only at the end did this story spend a brief pitstop in the Big Apple.  Which was sadly mostly forgettable, even having a subway scene where nothing happens.  

-The only real memorable scene from this NYC trip is him punting a boom box, almost fighting some bikers, but instead he just shows his face and they run away.  The boxing scene was fun too, but really had nothing to do with using the city as a lived-in unique world.

-This was what I hoped and wanted from Scream 6.  And years later, 34 to be exact, look at this trailer and you could tell that there was going to be some genuine use of a big city, and make it less of set dressing.

-Now at the moment, the Friday the 13th movies are pretty formulaic, have been since the last entry in 2009 and we will see if this Crystal Lake prequel on Peacock could change that.  Now, you could say the same thing about Scream and the franchise with 6 entries now.  But somehow, things feel different.  I think that is in part their willingness to not forget their main characters and their history, even after 2 movie entries that are starting to build a new group of final girls and even one final guy, newer for the genre, but not the franchise.  

-And even when things feel similar of people dissecting horror movies and not realizing they are in them, this genre has found a sweet spot of playing with the tropes of the genre, they also come up with creative way to subvert them without insulting their audience, who yes, do enjoy the general concept of the horror genre.  I have always loved the balance of dark humor, gore, and good story telling that build on the collective trauma of our survivors without killing the entire cast of underdeveloped teens characters like with what used to be the default in the early horror movies and franchises.

-So, this franchise has a history, after the surprise of the first one, of killing off big name actors early on.  Drew Barrymore, Jada Pinkett Smith, Live Schreiber, Lucy Hale, Anna Paquin, and more.  The 5th one played with this a bit by having a character be attacked, survive, and be a bit part of the movie.  So this movie I had some hopes when we first saw Samara Weaving’s Laura Crane and heard Tony Revolori’s Jason Carvey.  Now while neither mattered in the grand scheme of things, it was kind of crazy to see not only these movies impact on film student serial killers in-training who were fans of the in-universe movie series Stab.  Normally it is a one off or someone in a friend group related to the eventual final people.  But this guy casually kills someone in NYC, and before he gets got by the actual main villain, or one of them, but it is crazy to see him even have a regular guy brief interaction with one of the leads from the last movie, Jena Ortega’s Tara Carpenter.  It is cool to see the beginning be more attached to the rest of the movie instead of a cold open, and to show the relationship between murder happy film student fans and this in-universe franchise.

-Ghost Face, the real one in this movie actually saving the Carpenter sisters, Tara and Sam, the later played by Melissa Barrera, but more so just to save them for his or her, or spoiler alert, their, nefarious plans.

-The new kids along for the ride are fine in their own right, but never do a ton for us, but you gotta love more time with both Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding as Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin.  Chad is more so his own fun challenge to the Jock role, but Mindy is a lovely related to and plot-based replacement for Randy from Scream 1 and 2.

-There is something interesting about the entire internet taking the world by storm making people think that Sam is the real killer, kind of playing of an idea we never really saw flushed out with the 4th one and Emma Roberts.  But it continues to build on this idea that Sam is actually a bit of a problem and the true villain of these modern-day killings.

-Now that would be a fun twist, but it is really hard to see that happening here.  Either making Courtney Cox’s Gale Weathers the killer or either of the Carpenter sisters the killer just feels like it is not going to happen, or at least not for a while.

-But pretty soon more Ghostface killings brings in a new police person, Gale Weathers (Not Sidney this time as much as they wanted to), and a fun bring back after a short tease for Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby Reed from the 4th movie.

-Like every good horror movie, or every good one for me at least, there is grief and trauma exploration and coming to terms with it.  We have 4 people who went through it, 2 who are processing things in different ways, one is trying to forget it all, and one is trying to deal with it, even with the whole lack of a therapist willing to help.  Gosh I wish we saw more from Henry Czerny than the dead and you miss it therapist.  But gosh are all these kills so good.  They are creative and messed up, something that this and the one prior have been a part of.  

-But it is a unique angle to double down on really trying to frame Sam and use history with all these older masks to make thing relate to this history of things, her history with her dad, who is back in flashbacks again as Billy Loomis played still by Skeet Ulrich.

-But the big thing I love about these movies, and the big thing I want to talk about in regard to all of the Jason Takes Manhattan, is that even early on this movie has an out in the open Ghostface attack taking place in a bodega where Ghostface not only stabs a guy, but also shotgun executes someone else.  And these scenes make things so scary and out of pocket with it all going down in a super populated city.  This is the second most wild and out of these here.

-We knew Kirby was back, but to be an FBI agent.  I was a little shocked that was the how.  The why makes sense, especially when they ask her, to put the bad guys to bed.  We have heard that rationale in this genre, and cop/government movies for ages.  It just was a bit of a surprise.  Which is probably why it works well enough to make us all suspicious about it and that being the true reason she is here.  Especially with this series of killings focused on some legacy.  And let’s not forget, she too is a spooky movie fanatic, which does lead to her being a big suspect.

-While we do not see Sidney, hearing Gale write a book again and get on the bad side of the girls feels like a bit of a step down for her character, but the scene of her dodging the first punch thrown and getting hit by the second of the two Carpenter sisters was a fun not to her first two movies with Sidney.

-The Ghostface shrine was amazing and harrowing to see, probably the coolest thing from the whole trailer.  Especially with the real life thought of imagine if this was happening and people taking their collective true crime fandom to perhaps an unhealthy level?  Food for thought, but this movie has to make you think that.

-But before going there.  While we never get a lot of time with Arrow and She-Hulk actor Josh Segarra, his introduction to a potential problem, always suspect the romantic leads, we for sure love to see his big scene where he gets a ladder from his apartment to the one being attacked by Ghostface.  As killings are happening and trying to get people out, that last one where one of the new members of the group gets rattled off the ladder fallng to her death, the drama and though, maybe, just maybe, she will make it out.  That stuff was so good to watch.  These movies are not always action based.  But the setups here were very good in this movie.  It rarely gave you a true chance to breathe.

-I will say, I really liked this movie.  There is it, that is the point I want to make, that is the end of the episode…

-But seriously, the one thing that a lot of these movies normally do well is the meta explanation/breakdown scene.  One of these movies said it, I think it is 5.  But this franchise is a pop culture genre exploration whodunnit to its core.  And the explanation scene is normally a staple of these.  The first Scream and Randy breaking it down at the party, the video breakdown from beyond the grave in the third one, and even the 5th one with the requel reveal, Dewey taking notes, and the accusation of it potentially being our final girl and our main killer as one and the same.  In this one, that scene never really had the same magic as other ones, no fault of Mindy’s.  Because she still has some fun moments within this meta outside of that scene.  Her need to predict the right killer after getting wrong last time and constantly referring to one of the new random kids as the obvious Ghostface.  I mean, she is right, but when she still doesn’t get it fully right, that is something that feels like it is her own character but feels so Randy from the original 3 movies.

-With the last movie killing off fan-favorite character Dewey, and with no Sidney, you kind of thought this movie would kill of Gale, you saw them trailers, you saw her in the lair of Ghostface history but also being attacked in an apartment.  I for sure assumed they were killing off Gale.  That could lead to built-up stakes for the franchise and it would kind of tie into the overall franchise in this new era.  The scene was great, and seeing Gale grow from the despised journalist to the paternal guiding role for the Carpenter sisters, shout out using Dewey’s theme music, the most upbeat music in this franchise, the growth was there to be seen from her taking that role and how she was processing Dewey.  We could have used more of that angle, but I was shocked they kept her alive after all of that.  

-And there was something to be said about that van scene being a fakeout to a death from the previous Scream 2 and turning that into a way to throw suspicion off a few characters.  One being this new cop character.

-Can’t say I knew a lot about Dermot Mulroney as Detective Bailey, but I liked his balance of fun and impassioned cop/parent.  They kind of played us a bit of assuming we could replace one cop character with another, kind of like the 2018 Halloween reboot with Hah-luke Bill-geh-nere as Dr. Sartain taking on the role of the new doctor Loomis.  Or at least making us believe that.

-The question of course ended up being with so many characters dead, who could be left to be one of the Ghostfaces?  Besides the obvious one.  And I have to say, the weakest thing in this movie had to be some of the Ghostfaces, but we will get there.

-Before that big reveal, comes one of the best scenes that really utilized the city.  The beginning, the bodega, all of that was great, but this subway scene was so good with how Jason Takes Manhattan could only dream of having been.  Having it be Halloween and everyone dressed in pop culture killer costumes, yes including Ghostface’s, being in-universe pop culture from that Stab series, there was so much tension and drama being on that train, and not even having everyone get on it at the same time.  Even then, having one of the Meeks relatives being seemingly fatally killed and the other in the Scream museum, it is a bit surprising that none of them died.  I am not happy or annoyed about it all, just surprised.  

-I think I would have been annoyed about the killer being Kirby, to bring her back just for that would have been wild.  But we got really close, they led us good there making her be suspicious at times.  Even though I knew that cop having a dead son had to be Ritchie.  I hoped for a bit somehow this would all tie into Stu Macher, sadly not to be.  

-And even with him being dead in the last movie, there was something fun about the return of Jack Quaid, The Boys and first Hunger Games legend, here in the role of Ritchie Kirsch.  A fun little flashback to how much he loved the Stab movies and using older footage of him wanting to and making these movies, just like any film kid.  I remember my high school made movies of the Macarena Master and Dr. Tong Hand.  Those are for another time to discuss, or never probably.

-So, this movie did have a fake out of killing someone off, or for some fakery doing it so that one of the killers could run amuck amuck amuck and kill of some people without needing an alibi.  You gotta, and I will always think of And Then There Were None with this idea.  Now, the family of avenging killers is good motivation and a fun wrinkle to the formula, but outside of Detective Bailey, these killers were just not as interesting as I would have hoped for.  The fighting and kills were all great, and the ties to Richie, who was really good in the last one, I guess I just expected more from their personalities.  -----And I really do wish Josh Segarra’s character, Danny Brackett, had more to do in the end, either be a villain to mirror Scream 2 or have him be more suspicious in the endgame trap like Kirby.  

-So, the movie does have that grief and trauma overcoming exploration between the two sisters, Kirby surprisingly, and somehow less Gale than I would have wanted and or expected.  I have some wants for the sequel, Neve Campbell, Matthew Lillard, and the hopeful Patrick Dempsey.  I really liked this movie, the real question is where the future of the franchise will be, I assume a trilogy, but that was the plan with Scream 4 that never happened.  And with all of that, I have a lot more I could say, but did a lot already of talking about this movie, but time for that Letterboxed segment of this episode.

-Letterboxd ratings:

-When I watched this at first, I was hooked, I was really happy with the action, suspense, scares, and the gore.  I was really happy with the New York City setting and how it was all utilized.  Immediate reaction for Scream 6 was 4.5 out of 5 Letterboxd stars.  And how fun was it that this movie all about the meta of the genre and movie people overall, a lot of times those people end up as killers here in this franchise after all.

-But I ended up bumping it down to a 4 out of 5.  Still very good.  I like the villain reveal mixup of it being a family of killers, and relating to Ritchie’s villain death in the last one, it draws some similarities to the original second one, that and taking place at a college, but it still is its own thing.  3 killers are a new scary thing with so many villains this time around.  While we kind of knew he would be related to some previous guy in the franchise, no way his son wasn’t a previous killer or victim, but while the number was cool, the killers were just not as memorable as I would have liked as people.  

-Because obviously one of the best things had to be the actual Ghostface persona.  The older worn mask, the brutal Ghostface nature of it all this time around.  That was all great with the darker turn for this and the last movie mixing things up with the franchise.  But, I was, assumptions make us both suckers, was really assuming or hoping Matthew Lillard would be back.  There is a chance for the future, but not here.

-And I still am surprised that so many people made it out alive.  No way they were killing Kirby unless she was the villain, but I really expected Gale or one of the new core 4 to end up actually dead here.

-Good movie with a lot of scares and gore and pop culture, and even more importantly, good franchise callbacks.  I really liked this movie.  But it was just a hair behind with some things for me to give it a 4.5 out of 5 Letterboxd stars.  Nothing can be a 5 out of 5 as far as I am concerned.  Not even the magical Coco which in case y’all want an update, can still make me shed a tear or at least water up my eyes, even after all this time.

-wrap/call to action

-Well that is a wrap on my Scream 6 podcast episode.  Another great entry in a great franchise.  The biggest thing now of all of this is when will Scream 7 come out?  I will have to make an episode for the full franchise before that comes out.  Hopefully with Matthew Lillard and Neve Campbell back in the franchise.  But what did you think of this latest foray into the Woodsboro and Ghostface sage?  Let me know if you agree with my rave reviews or what you would want to see in a probable eventual sequel at @nicknackmovies or @nicknack_ic on twitter, Instagram, tik tok, and of course, as the film geek I am, Letterboxd.  Well that is all from me so cheers and as always, until next time cinephiles.