Scream VI Review: A Solid, Brutal Slasher Sequel With Caveats

Scream VI reviews: what the film is and how it plays

Scream VI opened in the United States on March 10, 2023, from Paramount Pictures. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett returned after the 2022 film, with James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick again writing, and the story moves the franchise out of Woodsboro for the first time. The film runs 122 minutes and sets its action in New York City, one year after the previous killings. Most Scream VI reviews called it a solid slasher sequel, and Rough Cut Review shared that view while noting that it did not wow as much as the 1996 original, the 2022 entry or Scream 4.

The film’s main trick is to cast its sequel as a requel, a follow-up that continues the story while still nodding to what came before, and then lean on its characters. Where the earlier films were built on the meta puzzle, this one is built on the survivors.

The Core Four in New York

Sam Carpenter, Tara Carpenter, Mindy Meeks-Martin and Chad Meeks-Martin have left Woodsboro. Tara, Mindy and Chad go to college together, and Sam follows her sister to protect her, just as she did in the previous film. They are a trauma-bonded family. Sam carries an extra weight: she fears she may become a killer like her father.

Chad, who calls the group the Core Four, was the character the review had forgotten existed in the year since the last movie. This film works to make you care about him and his romance with Tara, and the review admits that it did, mostly because of the romance and his dorky insistence on the nickname.

Sisters at the center

Melissa Barrera plays the final girl and grounds the film, in the way Neve Campbell did through her years leading the franchise. Campbell is missed. She did not return as Sidney Prescott after a pay dispute with Paramount, and she has said the offer did not equate to the value she brought to the franchise. The review gave her credit for knowing her worth, and argued the film is better for focusing on the new characters.

The strongest material belongs to Barrera and Jenna Ortega. Sam and Tara are sisters who respond to trauma in opposite ways: Sam dwells on it, Tara ignores it, and the gap between them opens a rift. They also have mature conversations about it, and by the end can communicate the strength of their bond with a single look. The review noted that horror films, and films in general, rarely explore sisters this well.

Kirby, Mindy and the supporting cast

Jasmin Savoy Brown, as Mindy, is the new Randy, the character who explains the rules. Mason Gooding and Brown both do endearing work. Courteney Cox is back as Gale Weathers, a role the review called her true legacy. Hayden Panettiere returns as Kirby Reed, who first appeared in Scream 4, and gets an audience cheer the review compared to an MCU cameo. She is a bridge between the legacy characters and the newer ones.

The suspects and victims include Dermot Mulroney, Liana Liberato, Jack Champion, Josh Segarra, Henry Czerny and Devyn Nekoda. The review praised the opening sequence, which relies on surprise casting, and found it so tense and inventive that the rest of the film could not match it.

The kills and the filmmaking

With the 2022 film, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett channeled Wes Craven in sequences of almost unbearable suspense. The review found less of that bravura here. The slow-burn misdirection is thinner, and Ghostface reveals himself in a flash and stalks his prey in confined spaces. Roger L. Jackson, whose voice work is as essential to the series as Brad Dourif’s is to Child’s Play, still chills.

What the film does deliver is violence with weight. The filmmakers promised a more aggressive Ghostface, and the kills hurt, in a way that reads as a human being turned into meat. A bodega sequence with Sam and Tara is singled out as terrifying, as is the long build-up to an attack on the subway. Ghostface takes Manhattan, and the film uses New York for everything the setting offers.

The meta angle and the reveal

The word of the day is franchise. Mindy explains the rules of franchise films, then the movie breaks nearly every one of them except the rule about beheading. The review found the framing odd, since this series has been a franchise for a long time. It was also frustrated that characters keep calling Ghostface he, even though the film itself lists every Ghostface to date and shows that the killer is usually a pair.

The reveal still surprises. According to Wikipedia’s summary, Detective Wayne Bailey is the mastermind, working with his children Quinn and Ethan to take revenge on Sam for killing their brother, Richie Kirsch. The review found the primary motive sensible but familiar, and the monologue about social commentary an afterthought, a letdown after the previous film’s incisive version. The third act, with its twists and the heroes’ fury, is where the film recovers.

Scream VI at a glance

Source: Wikipedia’s article on Scream VI. Scores shift over time.

Scream VI verdict: how the film looks now

Rough Cut Review’s conclusion in 2023 was that Scream VI is a solid sequel that continues the series’ reputation as possibly the most consistently strong horror franchise. The reviewer enjoyed the wild third act enormously, and wrote that the heroes had really just had it with the Ghostfaces. Those are the film’s best qualities, and they hold up: the crowd-pleasing payoff, the emotional sisters and the kills that hurt.

Wikipedia lists a Rotten Tomatoes score of 77 percent from 316 reviews and a Metacritic score of 61 out of 100, a generally favorable rating. It reports a worldwide gross of about $166.6 million, which makes it a solid performer by the series’ standards.

The film has since taken on a different meaning. Scream 7 opened in the US on February 27, 2026, directed by Kevin Williamson, with Neve Campbell back as Sidney Prescott. Melissa Barrera was fired from that film in late 2023, Jenna Ortega left the project, and Sam and Tara Carpenter do not appear. Wikipedia reports mostly negative reviews for the seventh film, about 30 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and a worldwide gross of around $214 million, the highest in the series. Scream VI is therefore the most recent film with Sam and Tara, and in hindsight its emphasis on their bond reads as a farewell.

If you watch only one entry from the Barrera and Ortega era, the 2022 film is the sharper script. Scream VI is the more brutal one, and the better pick for viewers who care about the Carpenter sisters. The motive remains the film’s weak point. Anyone checking the Scream VI reviews before a rewatch should expect a film that trades cleverness for impact.

For newcomers, the order is simple. The first four films were directed by Wes Craven, the 2022 film started a new chapter, Scream VI followed in 2023 and Scream 7 in 2026. You can start with the 2022 film and jump straight into this one, since Scream VI leans heavily on the relationships it set up. Watch it with a crowd if you can: the review described the audience cheering for the heroes, and the film is built to be seen that way.

Sources

• Scream VI, Wikipedia — release, credits, plot summary and reception
• Scream 7, Wikipedia — the sequel, its cast and reception