Melissa MacKenzie was shocked during the opening night of Scream VI. She says she’s looking forward to the next movie in the franchise. Photo by Scott Holman

Your parents are gone for the weekend and have left you to watch the house. Alone on the last night, less than an hour before your parents return you decide to put on a scary movie and nothing goes better with a movie than popcorn. You pull the steaming bag out of the microwave and carry it to the couch. Before you press play your phone rings, odd for how late it is. You answer and a deep scratchy voice begins asking you questions before you hear a noise at the front door. Still on the phone, you find nothing at the front door so you turn to go back to your movie, but behind you is a dark cloaked figure in a ghost mask holding a knife. Sound familiar?

Scream is a franchise that continues 27 years since the first film was released in 1996. Currently there are six films in the franchise, each with their own unique twist on the horror genre and each getting more graphic with the killings. The first Scream film set a new standard for slasher films. The films had to be self-aware and the killer needs a motive. Unlike films such as Halloween or Black Christmas where the killer is clearly just a psychopath, this time they are motivated by psychological trauma. The Scream franchise also exists in a world where the characters know of horror films and the rules to follow in order to survive.

New Scream fan Melissa MacKenzie says she fell in love with the franchise within the last five months and was very excited for the latest film.

“I thought the movie was really good until it got predictable at the end.  However, I think it was a great addition to the franchise and was worth booking a whole day off work for,” says MacKenzie.

Scream VI is the latest entry to the franchise, released on March 13, just one year after the fifth film. It follows the same group of characters from its predecessor: Sam and Tara Carpenter, Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin and Gale Weathers. It also introduces new characters to the group just to pad the kill count. The last two entries in the franchise have shifted focus from heroine Sidney Prescott, who was the leading character of the first four films, to Sam and Tara Carpenter, who have their own secrets. The rules along with the location have changed with this new entry to keep the franchise feeling fresh.

According to Box Office Mojo’s on March 23, 2023, Scream VI in the last two weeks has earned $89 million domestically and $139 million globally. The film has an IMDb rating of 7.3 out of 10 and a 77 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, however the Rotten Tomatoes audience score sits at 97 per cent.

Christian Epp, a Computer Information Technology student at Lethbridge College also watched the film and says he’s never seen any of the other entries in the franchise.

“I haven’t been big into the Scream movies in the past. After seeing the new one, I will definitely be going back to see the old ones,” says Epp.

The twist opening lets you know from the start that this isn’t a typical entry in the franchise, it adds an unexpected factor to it. In the previous entries the intro typically has Ghostface killing a character then the movie title appears, but this is the first time the camera has lingered on the masked figure. This time we are kept guessing as luckily the killer is revealed as someone else at the end. Kirby Reed from the fourth film returns as an FBI agent to assist the Carpenter sisters in uncovering the killer’s identity, adding one more to the slew of existing suspects.

In my personal opinion, the movie elevated every aspect of the Scream franchise. The kills were much more brutal than the previous film, the New York setting was a fantastic change for the film and the suspense had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. What took away from the movie was there are some scenes I feel did not deserve the amount of time they had, while others deserved more time to keep the audience in suspense. In addition to this, the script although executed very well by a very talented cast, feels something of an early 2000’s low budget slasher rather than the $35 million budget film this was. Overall, the film exceeded expectations and left me looking forward to what the next film brings to the table in terms of location and stakes.

Scream VI released to theatres mid-March and we can expect a seventh entry in the near future.