“[That’s the thing about legacy sequels]. You have to subvert the audience's expectations.”

Finally something fresh, innovative, and somewhat risky from the Scream franchise. Seeing my cold reaction to S5, my expectations for this were pretty low, but I ended up absolutely loving it. Such a killer opening sequence – easily one of the best of the franchise. The stakes are much higher this time around too. More thrills and kills are to be had. The action's ramped up. The characters are much more fleshed out and the chemistry between them's a lot stronger. “Scream VI” truly managed to take a group of characters I cared very little for and even disliked to an extent, and made me fall in love with every single one of them by the end of this. Which in result, made me care more about their survival.

Of all the Core 4, I must say Melissa Barerra’s turn as Sam Carpenter is the most shocking for me. She literally went from the least interesting character (maybe in the whole franchise) to the most in the matter of one film. I was a big fan of her performance in this, and find myself a lot more on board with her character now. Loved the music, all the callbacks to S2, the NYC backdrop, locations, and set pieces. The humor and all the horror references work incredibly well too – Jasmin Savoy Brown is still the MVP in this regard. Watched this in Dolby, and thought it looked and sounded very crisp. The camera work's a lot stronger and there's some really cool, well choreographed chase sequences going on.

A really great film all around, in my opinion. If it weren’t for another mediocre reveal, this would easily be up there with the first two films in the franchise. There were definitely moments where I wasn't sure where things were headed, but not only did I find this aspect somewhat predictable, it's also a little too nonsensical for my taste. Last thought: going in I was unsure how I felt about seeing Ghostface with a shotgun. Safe to say, I don’t know why I was tripping – it may honestly be one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen.

"Fuck this franchise."

2023, ranked.