It’s another amazing day to be a horror fan. After anxiously waiting more than a month, the Scream VI trailer has finally released, and it didn’t disappoint. The trailer gave us a sense of a more bloody, ruthless, and different kind of Ghostface murder spree in New York City. Now, while talking with NME, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (both from Radio Silence) have further teased this fresh take on a Scream movie.
"Part of our assignment on Scream 5 was to play the greatest hits, to really show that we were part of a long lineage of characters," Gillett said and continued on, “With Scream VI we wanted to subvert that warm blanket, and make something that’s grittier and rawer.” Gillett then elaborated on the heightened nature of the sequel’s carnage saying:
“It’s relentless and really visceral. There’s a lot more of Matt and I in this movie. I think that we had to make Scream 5 in order to feel like we had permission to do this one. It has all of the ingredients, all of the things that we love about the franchise but it has an attitude that’s a little bit different. We think people are going to be really excited about it.”
Scream VI’s trailer also gave the impression that the film will have the highest body count of the entire franchise. When asked about if it would indeed be the highest, Bettinelli-Olpin said:
“I don’t think we can answer that without a spoiler, but to jump off what Tyler just said, this one is definitely more brazen and more aggressive than the last one. So, you know, wink-wink, there’s a body count in this one…”
No matter how many people actually die in Scream VI, for once Ghostface is right. This film and killer feel different. Just from the very first sequence in the trailer of Ghostface killing a convenient store owner with his own shotgun, this film is going to be a different kind of fierce animal. Also hearing that this installment will have more of Radio Silence’s touch only adds to the excitement.
Like the directors alluded to, Scream 2022 was a “back to basics” for the franchise. It needed to do certain things to make Scream fans happy while making new fans feel like they were up-to-date with the franchise with the one film. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett did that and then some. They proved that they could make a Scream movie that felt like a Wes Craven experience with all the expected fun scares and meta commentary. Now the cuffs are off. With just this one trailer alone, the direction and cinematography of Scream VI look to be the best of the entire franchise. You can feel the director’s staple atmosphere that was found throughout their horror masterpiece Ready or Not and sprinkled into Scream 2022.
There are a lot of theories exploding on the internet right now over this new trailer. Are legacy characters like Gale and Kirby going to survive? Is Sam or Tara possibly one of the killers? Is the killer working with someone we thought to be long dead in the Scream universe like Stu? Given that this sequel seemingly surrounds a Ghostface cult, a plot line that was thrown around in an early version of Scream 3, anything is possible. However, one thing is for sure, this will be the wildest, riskiest, and most blood-soaked film in the entire Scream franchise.
Scream VI sees the return of Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Courteney Cox, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Hayden Panettiere alongside franchise newcomers Samara Weaving, Liana Liberato, Josh Segarra, Jack Champion, Tony Revolori, and Dermot Mulroney. Ghostface stabs the Big Apple and returns to theaters on March 10, 2023. The new trailer for Scream VI can be seen down below.