You knew the Friday the 13th franchise was out of ideas when Jason went to Manhattan. Why did he travel from Crystal Lake to New York City, anyway? To see the sites? Or was it...to kill? I did watch that movie, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (what a mouthful), years ago, but only remember two scenes from it. One character was a boxer and he, shockingly, decided to take on Jason on a roof top with his boxing skills. Jason punched him and his head flew off. The other scene I remember was when Jason took off his mask and showed what his face looked like to two strangers on the street. The strangers were shocked! Sadly, the camera didn't show what was under the mask. I'm guessing that the film was supposed to be a comedy. Well Scream VI has Ghost Face going to NYC and it's not a comedy. Maybe it would've been better if it was? Who knows? Considering I still remember two scenes from a movie I probably saw 30 years ago, and probably won't remember a single scene from Scream VI in 30 years, it tells you something about how great this new Scream is.
If you somehow forget, or live in a closet, or hate movies, or are pop culture illiterate, Scream from 1997 was a great film. It definitely rose above the typical horror/slasher fare, thanks to a plethora of things; the script, originally titled Scary Movie, by Kevin Williamson, was one of the best scripts ever written. And the actors they got were all fantastic to create quite the memorable flick. It was the pinnacle of stardom for every single actor in that movie. None of them did anything better before or after. But of course the sequels neutered the greatness of the first film. They did three quick, forgettable sequels and then Scream 4 showed up with a fresh cast of popular young actors. MTV made a Scream TV show that I enjoyed even though I was probably the only one on Earth that watched it. And then last year came Scream, the 5th entry, and now a year later a direct sequel.
In last year's Scream, we not only got a fresh tale of Ghost Face mayhem in Woodbury, but the old cast came back. Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette all reprised their roles to no good effect. In Scream VI, they're scraping from the bottom of the barrel. Cox returns, but Neve Campbell wanted too much money. Hayden "Save the Cheerleader" Panetierre returns, although I totally forget anything she did in Scream 4. It tells you how awful the script for this new film is when you figure that Hayden Panetierre was a high school character in Scream 4 and they had to figure out a way to get her in this new movie so they decided to make her...an F.B.I. agent. Huh?
The story has two sisters in NYC because one of them is going to a fictional college there. They, along with their friends, survived Ghost Face in the previous film, and are now all conveniently living in the Big Apple. Fresh murders occur, a new Ghost Face killer is on the loose, and the big question is: who is it? Is it the hot, mysterious strange neighbor? One of the college roommates? The dad cop? A legend from the past? Does anyone really care anymore?
The big problem with these last two Scream films, co-directed and co-written by the same team, is that they decide to tie everything back to the original film. They both have a main character, Sam, played by Melissa Barrera, who's the daughter of Billy Loomis, one of the original killers played by Skeet Ulrich in the original. I get that this is a franchise, and acknowledging the classic original makes sense, but being stuck in the past can be part of the problem. They should have kept the original framework: a suburban town, a Ghost Face killer, murders, a whodunnit, but made everything new. Trying to recreate something great never works. One of the reasons Scream 2 was so dumb was because one of the killers turned out to be Billy Loomis' mother, played by Laurie Metcalf. Yes, the actress from Roseanne was a cold blooded murderer running around in a black cloak and a ghost mask. And yes, it was as idiotic as it sounds.
There are a few entertaining and well done sequences in Scream VI. The opener, done in every film, with a character getting a phone call from a stranger asking them about horror films then butchering them, is neigh impossible to mess up. This time we get a woman at a bar getting a phone call from her unknown Tindr date that leads to a pretty exciting opening. The other scene that works for a bit is the subway sequence: it's Halloween, so the stuffed subway is filled with a few costumed revelers in Ghost Face regalia. Is one of them the killer? Well...duh.
The major problem in this film, besides the borderline atrocious script, is that none of the characters are interesting. The one semi-big star (besides Courtney Cox...who was famous a century ago) is Jenna Ortega. She was in Netflix's popular Wednesday show last year, and also hosted SNL. She doesn't get much to do here, and no one gets any good lines to deliver. Melissa Barrera, the star, mopes around throughout the entire film. There isn't even a great, funny, zany, wise talking sidekick to deliver memorable laughs. And the ending with the big reveal and the big killing room finale, is the worst thing in the entire film.
Honestly, I kind of wished I'd have watched Jason Takes Manhattan again instead. *1/2
