mosquitodragon’s review published on Letterboxd:
Wow. I can vividly remember how poorly received this film was critically back in 2011. Fast forward twelve years and the fact that, in contrast, Scream 6 received largely positive reviews just blows my mind. This movie is so much better than the last two sequels.
Although this isn't the sort of thing I would normally let my daughter watch, she had one of those pre-teen angst-filled evenings and she came skulking downstairs just wanting to curl up on the couch with me. I'd already got past the obligatory brutal Scream opening so I figured it was safe enough to let her fall asleep next to me while the film moved through its reasonably blood-free first act. But N was so into this movie - totally captured by the characters and tickled by the references to other horror movies (most of which she hasn't seen but knows they exist) and then basically unfazed by the horror and violence.
Actually, now I think of it, this is probably fairly tame in terms of horror and gore even compared to the earlier films and certainly the last couple. Even so, it's so much more satisfying as a basic murder mystery slasher narrative than what we've been seeing recently (and a vast improvement on Scream 3). I didn't realise Kevin Williamson came back to write this one, but when his name popped up in the credits it made total sense, because this is just an entertaining, fun sequel. I have seen it before and had basically zero memory of it (not a good sign but then again I never remember anything - that's the whole reason I started logging movies on here anyway) but I dug this quite a bit.
