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Scream 7

Director – Kevin Williamson – 2026 – US – Cert. 18 – 114m

****

A survivor from the original murder spree tries to protect her 17-year-old daughter from the recently reappeared killer – out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 27th

This cleverly plays to both anyone who has followed the Scream franchise since its inception and anyone coming to it for the first time. It grabs you straight from the start with a clever little sequence, featured in the first quarter of the trailer, in which a young couple (Michelle Randolph and Jimmy Tatro) arrive for their stay at a Woodsboro house where the Stu Macher murders took place decades earlier, now done up as a short stay holiday home for crime thrill seekers. Since the trailer gives it away, it seems reasonable to point out that these two are about to become the latest victims of the so-called Ghostface killer, clad in his familiar mask that to this writer has always conjured Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream (1893).

Jimmy Tatro stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream 7.”

An additional conceit of the franchise is that the Ghostface killer’s trademark mask and cape can be worn by anyone, meaning that if you can disarm or kill them, you can then remove the mask and discover the identity of this particular Ghostface.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Scream VI

Directors – Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett – 2022 – US – Cert. 18 – 123m

**1/2

The sixth entry in the Scream franchise relocates from Woodsboro to New York City as the masked killer continues to stalk and kill his victims – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 10th

The phone rings. Someone picks up. If it’s the first time he’s called, the caller (voice: Roger L. Jackson) engages them in conversation, often about whether they like movies, in particular scary movies. This often leads to the recipient of the call being bloodily murdered shortly after. But not always. Some of the characters in the Scream movies stay alive via a judicious knowledge of the rules of horror films. The previous five films, of which the fifth film is somewhat confusingly called Scream exactly the same as the first, are set in the town of Woodsboro, California with a cast of repeating characters among the ongoing survivors.

This sixth film is set in the very different urban milieu of New York City. Which, along with a smart graphic whereby the last three quarters of the letter ‘M’ are coloured red to turn into the Roman numeral VI, may entice back viewers who had long since given up on the franchise (the ideas got tired after the first couple of films).… Read the rest