*Warning Spoilers*

The newest addition to the iconic franchise that is Scream has surpassed all five previous films in their box-office debuts once released in theaters with a whopping profit of $44.5 million. The anticipation of this film has had fans on the edge of their seats with how this film keeps stopping themselves, and once again, they have. Fans look forward to the new and inventive ways the new Ghostface killer will carry out their kills and how much of a twist the killer’s storyline will be at the end. 

Scream 6 was no different. Continuing from the last film, you see the same characters reprising their roles, unfortunately without Neve Campbell coming back, as Sydney fans believe, due to pay conflicts. We see the new killer follow them to the Big Apple. Taking into account how Scream obsessed and the culture and history surrounding it the fans are the movie is based on so the directors centered the plot around the fan’s obsession with the Stab films and their history, the in-film reflection of the fans, and their love for the Scream films. Showing how real fandoms are and how dangerous fandoms could possibly get in the name of their “love” for that fandom. 

The film opens up one year later with one of the horror scream queens, Samara Weaving, Ready or Not and Babysitter star, lured to her death by one of her students posing as Ghostface trying to finish out the plan from their friends, Amber and Richie, whose plan failed in the last film. She is then taken out by another Ghostface that shows no mercy and is revealed to be acting in revenge and won’t be stopped. Not straying away from the serial killer formula but not blurring the lines into mass murderer, leaving the new Ghostface to have a specific target and motive but leaving destruction and mayhem in their wake on a much bigger scale in a bigger city. The four survivors, who later labeled themselves as the “Core Four” are living in the city and attending college are trying to move on and heal from these past events, trying to get back to normal, but people will not let them, with the public blaming Sam for the murders because of her father. Still, seeing visions of her father, Billy Loomis, Sam is battling her mind while she has to battle a killer yet again and prove she’s not like her father but will kill to protect herself and her family. 

Once the group hears of the killings, they are thrown back into survival mode and figure out who and why are trying to kill them now. Establishing the rules on how to survive and who may be a suspect because, like the last film, the rules have very much changed from a “requel” to a franchise in a much bigger way this time around, which the twin of Chad,  Mindy, points out. Mindy never fails to bring to the light how events will play out and who are the most likely suspects, like her Uncle Randy Mindy was on the money with who was Ghostface. New rules and new city have never been truer words once it came to how these new killers risked it all for their revenge and took anyone they could with them. Mindy goes on to explain the rules through Wes Craven’s famous established meta-commentary about the characters talking about their current horror landscape they have to navigate,  in which that has changed since the last time and how nothing is the same. She goes on to say how the rules of the requel are out the window and now the kills are going to be bloodier and gorier, truly no one is safe so any of the legacy characters can and one will probably die, and everybody is still a suspect including the returning characters. Even character Kirby Reed who most fans knew didn’t die in Scream 4 because the audience never saw her die on screen. Mindy points out how roommates Quinn and Ethan of Sam and Chad suspiciously wormed their way into their lives not that long ago and how easy it would be to trick everyone especially since Quinn’s dad is on the police force. That’s exactly what happened: Quinn and Ethan along with their father were the killers the whole time trying to avenge their brother Richie and blame the whole thing on Sam because people already blame her. The film ends with Mindy guessing the killers once again and surviving by her rules, and another Ghistface is defeated for now with the Core Four surviving once again, but it’s really never really the end in this series is it. 

Incorporating all of the previous films, Scream 6 comments on how the continuation of horror is changing and not many are keeping up with the time while allowing for that old-school horror to shine through, which is where a lot of the fanbase comes from to allow for their franchise to flourish to keep the old fans coming back and create new fans of the films. More horror films like Scream are becoming a franchise but once a film series becomes a franchise people expect those films to follow the unspoken rules for films of a franchise. Like the fans of the Marvel franchises know to expect an end-credit scene to clue them into the next movie, and once it was established in Scream 6 that all the films were not a series anymore but a franchise an end-credit scene was expected. Mindy mentioned how there are no rules and anything can happen in this film and fans of horror know horror has its own sets of rules it abides by but horror never plays by the rules by having the end credit scene showing Mindy saying, “Not all movies need a post-credits scene!” Breaking the fourth wall once again leaves audiences hoping for another movie in this new acquated horror franchise.