Following the commercial and critical success of last year’s sequel reboot Scream, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillette, and screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, almost immediately started to work on the next film in the franchise. Yet, that development soon was overshadowed by reports that one of the franchise’s foundational stars would not be returning.
But rest easy, Roger Jackson fans, the Voice of the Ghostface Killer in every “Scream” film since the original is back in the series’ latest — and, yes, goriest — sequel, Scream VI (★★★☆☆), to once again bitchily quiz his victims on scary-movie trivia.
Somehow, after years of Ghostface murders and dozens of victims throughout California, the nefarious makers of voice modulator tech still haven’t been banned from including that voice as an option. That’s a shame, since anybody can get their hands on one of those voice boxes to jumpstart their next killing spree.
And anybody does. The usual Scream rules still apply, as the killer behind the voice and Ghostface mask might be anyone in the cast, including the so-called “Core Four” who survived the last Ghostface massacre.
Those four — sisters Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega), and twins Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding) — have relocated from Woodsboro, California to New York City, hoping to put an entire continent between them and their horrific shared past. Of course, the past catches up to them in the form of a new Ghostface Killer who pointedly references all the previous psychos who have donned the mask.
So are we dealing with a copycat? A psycho scary-movie stan? A former perpetrator back for more blood? The mystery loops and turns with ample suspense, appealing camaraderie from the Core Four, and buckets of blood.
Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillette double-down on the graphic, gory deaths-by-stabbing. Favoring the vigorous technique that’s all the rage with crazed movie killers these days, Ghostface pounces on his victims, and then it’s STAB-stab-stabstabstabstabstabstab. Talk about overkill.
Whereas Hitchcock’s Psycho shower scene famously never showed the killer’s knife breaking flesh, here the camera lingers on impalements and slashings, to sometimes bitter effect. And, while the Scream movies have gotten progressively more gruesome — perhaps to keep up with audience appetite, or our exposure to all kinds of violence — they are not, in direct proportion, getting any funnier.
Franchise creators Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven mastered a blend of slasher horror and self-referential dark humor that only occasionally bubbles to the surface in Scream VI. A deadpan line of dialogue noting that a suspect was obsessed with Argento might get a chuckle out of serious horror fans, but references aren’t jokes. The comedy needs more punch.
The stalk-and-chase sequences, on the other hand, are pretty nifty — tense, twisting, and crisply edited, as in a standout scene following the Core Four onto the subway during Halloween weekend. The train cars and platforms are loaded with costumed revelers, giddy, noisy, and free, though some are guised balefully as familiar movie monsters. Everywhere, it seems, our fleeing Four are tossed in a sea of staring Freddy Kruegers, Pinheads, and Ghostfaces.
Fearing masked strangers in public places takes on new meaning in the COVID era. By the same token, Scream takes on new meaning set in a city of countless strangers.
The Four feel paradoxically more alone in a place like this — so alone, that they welcome the assistance of self-serving journalist Gale Weathers, portrayed as ever by Courteney Cox, who still looks like she’s having a ball playing the character, and definitely knows a thing or two about being there for her friends.
Scream VI is playing in theaters nationwide. Visit www.fandango.com.
In what many see as a rebuke of the Trump administration’s agenda, Democratic candidates channeled anti-Trump frustration into a wave of wins -- including key victories for pro-LGBTQ candidates in Tuesday’s bellwether races.
In Virginia, former Democratic Congresswoman and LGBTQ ally Abigail Spanberger cruised to a decisive win over Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, defeating her by nearly 15 points.
Earle-Sears, who narrowly won election on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s coattails four years ago, tried to replicate Youngkin's formula by emphasizing cultural issues, but failed to find issues that galvanized voters. She devoted much of her campaign to attacking Spanberger over pro-LGBTQ school policies that allow students to use restrooms matching their gender identity, and over the absence of a statewide ban on transgender athletes competing on female-designated sports teams.
“I hope to one day make a movie musical,” says Tina Romero. “I would love to do a fantasy piece. I am trying to put all the pots on the burner and see which one I can get to boil. Because it's a miracle to make a movie, and it's a miracle to get all the pieces in place. But I am salivating to make another one.”
For now, the LGBTQ world — and beyond — is salivating to see Romero’s debut effort, Queens of the Dead, a vibrant, unapologetically queer take on the zombie genre her late father turned into a horror institution.
Made in 1968, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead remains a truly terrifying game-changer in horror. It’s the film all others bow down to, replete with classic lines (“They’re coming to get you, Barbara”) and gruesome depictions of zombies feeding on human viscera. Both Night and its 1978 follow-up, Dawn of the Dead, formed the first two parts of a trilogy that spawned dozens of imitators, remakes, and even a second trilogy from George himself.
Given how often today's news outlets distort the truth or report outright lies, it's almost comical that E.L. Doctorow's 1975 novel Ragtime was once dismissed by The New Yorker's editor William Shawn. Because Doctorow's tale, set in the early twentieth century, wove real historical figures into fictional lives, Shawn refused to publish a full-length review, calling the book "immoral."
Now, the musical adaptation returns with forceful, spectacular splendor at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre. And this second revival of the beloved story arrives on Broadway at just the right time.
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