A venerable slasher film franchise returned earlier this year to continue chronicling the serial killing exploits of Ghostface.
The box office hit now debuts on 4K disc format to offer a night of bloody thrills for home theater owners in Scream VI (Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment, rated R, 2.39:1 aspect ratio, 122 minutes, $35.99).
Survivors of the Ghostface copycat Woodsboro killings from a year ago — led by Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) along with twins Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) — move to New York City to continue their college studies and hoping to leave the legacy of the slaughter behind.
Sam is still dealing with the social media fallout of being the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis (the original Ghostface killer of 25 years past) and being wrongfully blamed for instigating the murders.
Unfortunately, life gets worse for Sam when a new Ghostface stalks the Big Apple to try and frame the sisters for a fresh batch of slayings while hunting the pair and their close friends.
Familiar plot lines will ingratiate long-time fans of the franchise with the killer incorporating Ghostface masks from the previous nine killers, Samantha seeing visions of her dad and a final showdown playing out on Halloween night in a theater filled like a museum with Scream memorabilia.
The film also features the return of a few welcomed survivors of the 2011 attacks including reporter Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and FBI agent Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere).
The latest offering to Wes Craven’s legacy delivers a very satisfying murder mystery bathed in some horrific bloody kills.
4K in action: Once viewers get past ogling some beautiful panoramic shots of the New York City skyline through the ultra-high definition enhancements, they can continue to admire a crisp and color-balanced visual presentation affording plenty of opportunity to examine the various iterations of Ghostface masks and his often gruesome frenetic work.
Best extras: Paramount extends the appreciation of the film with a sufficient variety of digital goodies led by the all-too-important optional commentary track featuring directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, producer Chad Villella and writers Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt.
The obviously close friends admit it took them three takes to just introduce themselves, and also their Scream movies are a collection of dumb inside jokes taken too far. Yes, it’s a loose, nonstop, not-so-serious discussion filled with laughs and memories.
The boys target many topics and specific details, such as shooting in places in Montreal to double as New York City; touching on the script twists; the pacing; the conflict between the sisters; the differences in music tone between the fifth and sixth movie; cast contributions to character development; and setting up the apartments layout to help with the extreme fights.
They also point out Easter Eggs including a Russian Matryoshka doll sitting on a desk devoted to the various Ghostfaces and take great joy in explaining the introduction of the first Ghostface murder board revealing all of the killers at the police precinct.
A collection of seven featurettes (roughly an hour in total) cover a production overview (with plenty of gushing between cast and crew); revisiting the characters, especially the “core four”; Ghostface’s visit to a convenience store; a look at some of the self-referential moments used to continue the Scream universe; and breaking down the stunt choreography and visual effects for the train attack and ladder death.
Best of the bunch explores the final kill theater and points out some specifics on the abundance of Scream memorabilia laid out like in a museum.
All segments are supplemented with plenty of scenes from previous Scream movies.
Additionally, those using the digital code and watching the film on iTunes will find an almost 10-minute-long gag reel.
• Joseph Szadkowski can be reached at jszadkowski@washingtontimes.com.
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