Preamble

If there were ever an opportunity to pull out the “Surprise Sidney!”, this would be the preamble for it. I realise that once again, any form of writing on Scream (2022) has been put on the back burner. However, it’s just an issue of time. Similarly to when Scream VI came out, I ran out of time. But rest assured, I will get to it sometime. With that said, what’s your favourite shot from the sixth entry in the Scream series? Let me know in the comments below.

One Great Shot

To pick a shot near a film’s closing seems almost to be damning it with faint praise. However, the shot of Sam Carpenter looking at Billy Loomis’s Ghostface mask and subsequently dropping it is quite powerful. On the one hand, it sort of plays as a close to her arc of whether she will embrace her paternal heritage to become Ghostface.

At the same time, it points to how much Sam is grounded by her sister, Tara. It’s as though she interrupts the inner turmoil and reminds Sam that her real family is in front of her, not behind her (through her father’s legacy). It’s the best example of the franchise reckoning with its own past, as opposed to the myriad examples that pervade the rest of Scream 6.

Finally, in a meta sense, Scream 6’s one great shot feels like a closing signature on a letter by Melissa Barrera. In a now-infamous incident, the actress got fired for an Instagram story that showed solidarity with Palestine. Whilst that whole incident is a conversation for another day, it can’t help but colour my perception of the movie’s closing moments. It now reads as a firm line in the sand as the Scream franchise (via Billy’s mask) is let go of for better pastures.