Contrary to what a casual glance at the franchise might seem to indicate, the “Scream” films have not uniformly taken place in the town of Woodsboro, California: “Scream 2” was set in Windsor College in Ohio, and “Scream 3” is all about good old Hollywood in Los Angeles. Despite that, “Scream VI” moving the proceedings to New York City still feels novel, especially given the city’s unique history with the horror genre, including one famous slasher franchise in particular.
Even though Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), her half-sister Tara (Jenna Ortega), and their friends Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) have moved across the country, the specter of Ghostface and Woodsboro continues to follow them literally and figuratively. Jason (Tony Revolori) and his (unseen) partner Greg, classmates of Tara at Blackmore University in the city, have a plan to kill Tara and Sam in order to make their own “Stab” movie (i.e. the fictional film-within-a-film franchise based on the Woodsboro murders), but are thwarted by a mysterious new Ghostface who clearly has other ideas.
Meanwhile, Sam is in therapy with the latest in a series of analysts, Dr. Stone (Henry Czerny), who either can’t or won’t help her with the trauma that haunts her, especially when she opens up to him about visions of her long-dead biological father, original “Scream” killer Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich). Once the NYPD, led by Detective Bailey (Dermot Mulroney), discovers the bodies of Jason and Greg and Ghostface stalks Sam and Tara in a corner bodega soon after (an encounter from which they narrowly escape), it becomes clear that the ghosts of Woodsboro are officially haunting the Big Apple.
