Scream VI doesn’t tell us right

Scream VI it is the natural continuation of the previous filmthat Scream who had united the first and the new generation of protagonists on the screen (feel old yet? Exact). We find the two little sisters, Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) And Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) this time dealing with generational differences and different willingness to react to what happened to him the previous year. Sam continues to live in fear of her, she is bullied and regarded by all as a murderess who got away with it. Tara instead wants to forget everything, go on with her life, along with Chad, Mindy and the others. In the meantime, however, another (or others?) Ghostface makes a comeback, points to them and their inner circle. Of course, as in every film in the saga, we know that not only someone will come to a very bad endbut that right within the nucleus of supporting characters lurks the killer or killers.

This eternal repetition, this sort of religious and narrative ritual it reminds us where horror cinema has always found its essence: in the instant in which it wanted to celebrate the same reasons why we love our fears, but in new guises. Our fears tell us who we areboth as individuals and as a society, even if it was only as a representative group, and therefore we keep them close to each other, we pamper them as well as their representations or their grotesque deformation. Which has always been what Scream has been able to do since the beginning. the main problem though with Scream VI, is that it fails in its very interesting premises, developed in the first half, certainly the most entertaining, histrionic and also pleasant, especially for fans of the genre. Above all, they will be able to grasp the a thousand affectionate quotationsreferences and tributes: from Dario Argento to Bava, from Carpenter to Craven himself.

A film devoid of creativity and coherence

A blatant element of this Scream VI it is its being metanarrative in such a blatant way, that one wonders up to where it is a film and where instead a sort of manual or summary of slasher last generation. A legitimate question because, after all, it is the concept of transgenerational cinema and its universality of use that holds sway for the first 60 minutes.
The problem with Scream VI is the fact that in the end he is satisfied with proposing already seen and revised clichéswithout, however, being either faithful to it in the long run, or capable of distancing oneself from it with conviction. Everything sinks into the most obvious mechanicalness, in a narrative construction that in certain moments does not know or does not want to be something courageous, not even derivative in an intelligent way, always giving the impression of being more than a quotation, almost a parody, unfortunately involuntary. Some will tell that down Scream it has always been, a mix, but if this depends on the cast then the matter is different.

The characters as offered to us just didn’t worknot only and not so much because they do not individually have a particular characterization in the script, but also because Sam, the protagonist, has in Melissa Barrera, an interpreter absolutely lacking as regards charisma, expressiveness and credibility. The former Wednesday Addams, Jeanne Ortega, somehow manages to dab with her spontaneity, but it is not enough, just as they are not enough Courtney Cox, Hayden Panettiere or the former “young gun” Dermot Mulroney. If even interpreters of this experience are artificial in their interpretation, it is the first sign that there is something wrong at the base of the process, especially in writing. The strangest thing? Scream VI he paints his characters now as geniuses now as complete idiots, all the same as far as it goes the nemesis, who wanders around with a rather messy way for the entire 120 minutes of this uninspired movie.