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Scream VI

5/10

Stars: Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Courteney Cox, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Hayden Panettiere. Dermot Mulroney, Liana Liberato, Jack Champion, Samara Weaving, Henry Czerny, Skeet Ulrich, Devyn Nekoda, Josh Segarra

Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

In no film on record have you seen so many people stabbed violently so many times and still survive as in this one. With films like this, it's no wonder Britain and US has so much knife crime. But, although the script is rubbish, it has to be admitted that, thanks in part to vivid editing, some of the chase and slash sequences are quite exciting.

The survivors of the previous episode (minus Neve Campbell, who apparently decamped in a salary dispute) have moved to New York, where the Ghostface killings resume, and Sam (Barrera, trying not to look her 33 years), a heroine of Scream V, soon finds herself the principal suspect.

The main killer is pretty obvious from the start, although possible accomplices are more difficult to spot. Fortunately for the hapless scriptwriters, the film is almost all action, although a sequence in a subway, meant to be super suspenseful, goes on so long that most of the tension dissipates. 'Looks like he's counting down to something,' says the FBI agent (Panettiere)) on the case, to which her local cop colleague (Mulroney, well over the top) sagely replies 'What happens when he gets to One?'

Liberato is particularly effective, though, as one of the menaced group, while the stunning Weaving (a dead ringer for fellow Aussie Margot Robbie) impresses as the first victim. Give that girl a romcom.

David Quinlan

USA 2023. UK Distributor: Paramount. Colour by Company 3 .
122 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 18.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 08 Mar 2023