77% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 196 reviews)
Runtime: 123 minutes
Directed by: Radio Silence
Starring: The quartet that led the 5th Scream, along with Courteney Cox and Dermot Mulroney
From: Paramount
Yes, the movie did reference Letterboxd in a pejorative way; I won’t spoil the comment & there was no offense taken… at least not by me. Whether or not people are joking around here, some are saying that they WERE offended!
As mentioned in the past, the Scream series as a whole is one I like more than love; there’s a list I made here where you can read all those reviews if you wish. At least this hasn’t had an entry that I thought was bad, which is a rare feat for a horror franchise w/ this many entries. As the 5th movie was watched theatrically, might as well do the same for this newest entry that at least has a different setting in NYC… even though much of it was actually filmed in Montreal.
To be vague the rest of the way, the main quartet from Scream V all relocated to New York City, mainly to attend university. Woodsboro is established as being in California so perhaps it’s surprising the school is not in Los Angeles-although perhaps they wanted to go with the 8th Friday the 13th reference-but nevertheless it was nice to see them attempt to deal with tragedy together, even if some have trouble dealing with the trauma. Of course there is a new villain (or is it villains?) who is portraying Ghostface and at least some of the same beats are present. There are differences-and a memorable opening-although how much of this is different would IMO be stating too much.
To mention the negatives first, the bad guy & the motivations I did not love; in fact, not going in a different direction is unfortunate. There were some grating moments and various plot issues present. And, this was another example in the franchise where credulity at times was strained. Thankfully there are also positives: those that love gruesome kills should be happy—there are some nice setpieces and most importantly, the half-sister leads who helped anchor the fifth film were both even better here in terms of character & performances from the actors.
Perhaps it’s just me that has in recent years felt more “eh” about recent releases thus many are “only” good to me instead of great like many others do… maybe I just prefer how they used to make movies in the past rather than now. I have a feeling this will be another example of that and many (especially franchise fans) will love this more than I do. One major problem that I only realized today after contemplation and criticisms from others: this is yet another big release modern film where the script and its logic crumples apart the more and more you scrutinize the plot. To steal a line from a Letterboxd mutual, this could have used… another STAB at the script.
Also, to clarify, my opinion has nothing to do with how the studios treated Neve Campbell and her subsequent refusal to appear in this unless she was appropriately compensated. Is it insulting how she was treated… oh, undeniably.
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