While it was risky to move the franchise from Woodsboro to New York City, the Scream 6 teaser trailer shows that this was the right decision for the slasher series. While every installment of the meta-slasher movies has a relatively similar, darkly comic tone, the setting of the Scream movies isn’t as consistent as it seems at first glance. The original movie is set in the suburban town of Woodsboro, but the third movie takes the action to Hollywood, while the first sequel is set mostly on Sidney’s college campus. As such, it was not unheard of for Scream 6 to once again uproot the action of the slasher series.
However, since Scream 6 dropped Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott, the decision to move the setting of the series became a riskier proposition. With Sidney gone and Dewey dead, only Courtney Cox’s Gale Weathers remained as the last link between the original movie and Scream 6. With this in mind, Scream 6 was taking an unnecessary extra risk by also dropping the iconic setting of the original movie in favor of moving the action of the franchise to New York City. However, the Scream 6 teaser trailer proves that this risky decision may not have been a mistake after all.
Scream 6 Made The Right Move Changing The Setting To NYC
Moving Scream 6 to New York City has already enlivened the Scream franchise, since the killer can operate with more anonymity in a busy urban metropolis than Ghostface ever had in a small town. The return of Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby Reed ensures Scream 6 will still have some canon links to earlier outings in the franchise, even if Gale is the only surviving character who has been around since the first installment. Moreover, moving to New York City changes the tone of Scream 6 and will allow the sequel to avoid direct comparisons with its predecessors.
A city-based version of Ghostface can attack out in the open more than ever before, using crowds as a way to ensure anonymity instead of relying on waiting until victims are isolated and alone. This means that Scream 6 could be a tenser, bloodier affair than its predecessors, since the killer could strike in broad daylight or on a busy street as evidenced by the trailer’s subway attack. While Scream 3 was one of the Scream franchise’s weakest outings, this was not because the sequel moved to a city, but rather because the project failed to take advantage of this new setting; a mistake Scream 6 won’t likely repeat.
How An NYC Setting Can Reinvent The Scream Franchise
When Scream 2 was rushed through production less than a year after the original movie proved a hit, audiences were understandably reticent. However, while its killer reveals are undeniably hokey, Scream 2’s strongest scenes (the sound studio chase, the car crash, and the attack on Cici in the sorority house) came from the sequel leaning into the differences between its university setting and the original movie’s small-town milieu. The Scream 6 trailer proves the next Scream outing can reinvent the franchise again by letting Ghostface run riot in New York City, allowing the sequel to stage carnage that wouldn’t make sense in Woodsboro.