Sartaj Singh
With the firing of a shotgun (from Ghostface) in a New York-based 7/11, the full trailer for the upcoming Scream VI grandly announces its stakes. No longer are conventual slasher weapons (namely a knife) bloody instruments of destruction. But instead, more advanced weapons used against random bystanders are the new dread of the day.
Indeed, part of the trailer does address this seeming change in MO with a returning Kirby Reed (from Scream 4) saying, “This isn’t like any other Ghostface.” This ethos is also carried in one of the trailer’s extended moments where Gale Weathers gets a phone call from the 90s slasher figure.
After mocking the killer and amusingly, the franchise itself for the number of killers it’s had wearing the Ghostface guise, the murderer shocks the seasoned reporter by throwing a body through part of her display cabinet. He responds to Gale’s mockery by saying, “Maybe. But there’s never been one like me, Gale!”
The use of a locked-down shot depicting Gale on the phone while we see Ghostface (blurred in the background) quickly dispatching and using the random man for a ghoulish scare calls back to Wes Craven’s impressive filmmaking in the first four movies. At the same time, it also takes a cliché of the slasher genre, namely the central killer taking murdered bodies and using them up to scare other victims and almost does it in real-time.
However, the best scene of the trailer comes at the very end. Like the previous trailer, it shows the survivors of the previous movie spotting Ghostface on a crowded subway carriage. Although, this piece of footage shows us the central killer amid several other slasher icons in Halloween costumes (including Pinhead, Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhees, and The Babadook).
Like a moment earlier in the trailer that shows graffiti art on a wall of Ghostface asking, “What’s your favorite scary movie”, the final moment illustrates it still has the same post-modern punch as prior installments. But, this time, it feels as though the aspirations of the killer are larger, namely trying to immortalize themselves, much like many slasher villains in years gone by.
For more on Scream VI, check out: All Paths Lead To Sam: New Scream VI Teaser!
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