Just the Ticket #125: ScreaM VI
Article by Sean Wilkinson,
Ticketmaster and
Ghostface Shiller
The original theme has returned, Ticketholders, and the results were immediately evident!
People and algorithms like the Dynamic View better than the Simple View.
Also, it's Cinco de Mayo and Friday and the Sith of May, so it's only fitting that I review a movie with Hispanic leads and villains in black cloaks who deal in absolutes and use cutting weapons for personal revenge.
I joke, and because I have some real Star Wars opinions knocking around in my brain, here they are:
Speaking of jokes, I think it's cool that two Joker actors (Mark Hamil and Cameron Monaghan) have had leading roles in Star Wars properties, and they're two of my three favorite Jokers (the late Heath Ledger being the other, with Joaquin Phoenix and Jack Nicholson being Fourth and Fifth, respectively).
On the other hand, I think that making a fun, silly show like Young Jedi Adventures is existentially fucked up (unless it takes place after Rise Of Skywalker) because Anakin murders all of the Younglings in Revenge Of the Sith.
So, yeah; there's my Star Wars content for the year. Sorry for the spoilers on movies you've probably already seen, but like usual, I'm going to have a few more of those coming up in this post, so Spoiler Warning! And remember to like, comment, subscribe, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook for the latest news and updates on my content, and to appease the 'droids you are looking for.
Let's talk Scream 6 (or Scream VI, or ScreaM VI, or ScreaVI, or ScreaM, because roman numerals aren't the easiest thing to Force into a movie title).
Returning from Scream (2022) are Melissa Barrera as Sam Carpenter-Loomis, Jenna Ortega as Tara Carpenter, Mason Gooding and Jasmine Savoy-Brown as the Meeks twins, and Courtney Cox as Gale "Should Have Been A Meteorologist" Weathers. Returning from Scre4m and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it social media post in Scream (2022) is Hayden Panettiere (the invincible cheerleader on Heroes, and hooray to me for getting the spelling of her name right without cheating) as Kirby Reid, who I guess is the new "survived getting stabbed in the gut" character now that Dewey (David Arquette) is dead.
Unfortunately, after the character tribute that Dewey got in the last movie, and Gale's promise to honor his heroism, the writers made her regress into a greedy media-whore between films. Perhaps as a meta-commentary on their own regression in the face of financial gain and corporate intervention? I guess it is hard to figure out what to do with a "beloved" character once their arc is complete and you're asked to keep a story going. It's not like in anime, where you can keep a character's arc flat after a certain point, but give them more power and change their hair constantly to keep things fresh. This is reality, people! And in "reality," you either give your characters someone to spend the rest of their lives with in another state that's way, way offscreen, or you have them die a grisly but honorable death on camera.
Speaking of happy endings, also not returning for the sixquel is Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, who is ducking fun with these monkey-fighting killers interrupting her Monday-to-Friday life with Detective McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey of Grey's Anatomy and Scr3am).
And because doing sequels in New York is the new meta (Evil Dead Rise, anyone?) and no one reads Zenescope comics (Beyond Wonderland, anyone?), Tara, Sam, and the Meeks siblings have decided to escape their small-town history and slandered reputations by "hiding" in the most dangerous, populous city in the world...on Halloween. They survive this.
They also survive being film students with friends, love interests, and roommates in a Scream movie.
Someone who doesn't survive being a film student in a Scream movie is Tony Revolori's (a.k.a. the worst Flash Thompson ever) Jason Carvey (because Mike Meyers and Fred Claus were taken?). He starts off the film as part of the most original opening kill sequence in the series, which I will not spoil because it is mind-blowingly good. Its implications (also hinted at in the trailer) of there being a Ghostface cult are...thankfully?...unfortunately?...not explored thereafter, though there are more than two killers this time around. I'm conflicted on this point for the same reason as my feelings on Chucky's recent multiplication power: it would have raised the stakes as promised, but in turn had the potential for bloated and inconsistent lore, and there's a significant drop in suspense and mystery between "anyone could be the killer" and "everyone is the killer." And yet, not pursuing the Ghostface cult idea (coupled with the simple, small-scale revenge motivation that made the original trilogy so good, but had the opposite effect on me here) felt like a case of too-high, nebulous fan expectations; like, I didn't know beat-for-beat what I wanted ScreaM VI to be, but the payoff and reveal made me go like, "that's it?"
A lot of this disappointment comes down to "The Bench Scene," and how hard we as the audience are supposed to adhere to the reverse psychology (or is it double-reverse psychobabble-ology?) of it all before we decide if the writers are contradicting their own rules, or if they're playing such a high-level, transdimensional game of checkers that our tiny wads of mammalian thinking-fat can't perceive how stringently they are actually following their own rules.
That's my long-winded way of saying that if you're expecting the killers to be jocks, expect them to be scrappy little nerds. If you're expecting them to all be the same size, expect them to vary drastically in height and build. If you're expecting them to not be any of the new characters because the killers are always new characters, look at the new characters, and hard. If it's not a friend, roommate, or love interest because it's always one of those, it's probably one of those. If they're someone who died onscreen, treat it as if they died offscreen (and if it didn't happen on camera, it didn't happen at all). Expect the unexpected, unexpect the expected, and keep the other combinations in mind, too, because the three killers' identities are super-obvious if you ignore almost the entire "Bench Scene" or have watched Zack Cherry's video on how to spot a Ghostface, and their motivation is so done-before that my forehead has a big, Red Right Handprint on it from me not thinking of it sooner.
The red herrings are pretty masterfully presented (Josh Segarra--Prometheus in Arrow, Season Five, and Pug in She-Hulk--as Danny "Cuteboy" Brackett, Sam's neighbor and love interest, is a particularly noteworthy example, as are the Meeks twins and the suspiciously alive Kirby), the action and suspense sequences in the middle (as well as ScreaM VI having more of a David Fincher serial killer mystery vibe than the series is known for--evidence is a big cue to one of the killers' identities, as well) are throat-tightening to watch, and the movie does its damnedest at novelty (that opening sequence is one hell of a highlight in that regard). Even the criticism I had of the convenience store scene from when I reviewed the trailer got addressed (not that I had anything to do with it; I'm just glad the filmmakers cared enough to think of it, too).
It's too bad the killers themselves didn't figure into either the novelty or care categories.
B-
I'll fill in some Google links when I get off from work tomorrow, but the review itself has been published on time and will get promoted on Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook as usual. I hope you enjoyed it and the movie itself, and that I didn't spoil too much (if you already watched ScreaM VI, you don't have to worry about that, obviously).
Ticketmaster's Note (evening of May 5, 2023): If you've read this far, you know I've already made the changes mentioned above, but I'm leaving the original ending of this post intact, with the exception of this note.
One reference I feel like I should explain is the "double-reverse psychobabble-ology" thing. I vaguely remember it being a one-episode gag in an old Disney Afternoon cartoon like Darkwing Duck or Bonkers, but Google was no help in tracking down the source. If anyone figures out where I remember it from, please let me know in the comments.
Ticketmaster,
Ghostface Shiller,
Out.
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