Scream VI never quite tops this brilliant cold open. But it’s still, improbably, a return to form—the first Scream in ages that’s more scary than it is glib, approximating the shivery fun of the first (and second) rather than just relentlessly echoing it. How often is part six of any horror series good? The teenage Encyclopedia Browns of Woodsboro might point to the sixth Friday the 13th, which had its own tongue-in-cheek sensibility, before recognizing that evading Ghostface in the Big Apple recalls the time, glimpsed on a TV here, that Jason took Manhattan. Thankfully, they don’t need an hour-long boat ride to get to the city in this NYC-set sequel.

We pick up one year after the events of 2022’s redundantly, confusingly titled Scream, that self-conscious attempt to drag the franchise into a modern era of legacy sequels and “elevated” horror. Newly minted heroine Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) is now taking medication to quell visions of her serial-killer father and grappling with internet rumors that she framed the killers of the previous movie. She’s moved to New York to keep a close eye on her little sister, Tara (Jenna Ortega), who’s just trying to enjoy college life. Rounding out the “core four” of Woodsboro survivors are twins Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), the latter still a chip off the old block of her dead film-geek uncle, Randy Meeks.

Any of them could be the killer(s). But they’ve got company in that department—a fresh ensemble of suspicious friends, roommates, and lovers. How about the virginal freshman? Or the laidback hunk across the way? Don’t rule out Kirby (Hayden Panettiere), now an FBI agent assisting the detective (Dermot Mulroney) on the case, a dozen-plus years after she survived the events of Scream 4. As a Manhattan murder mystery, the film is fairly predictable—a point it concedes with a smirk. Remember, Scream is always way ahead of any critique you might lob at it.

Also on hand, naturally, is Courtney Cox’s scoop-chasing TV journalist Gale Weathers, the lone original cast member since David Arquette’s Dewey bit the big one and Neve Campbell opted for an offscreen “happy ending” when producers wouldn’t match her salary demands. It’s rather cynical, the way this series keeps walking back Gale’s emotional growth, having her revert to tabloid vulturism for narrative expediency. At least Cox gets a juicy cellular tête-à-tête with the villain—a surprising first for the series.

Taking their second (ahem) stab at Scream, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett get in better touch with their inner Wes Cravens, in part by making the most of their bustling new locale. In place of the sprawling rural seclusion of Woodsboro, the two find fresh danger in crowds and tight spaces, building grisly and suspenseful set-pieces around the dimensions of city life. One scene plays with the cramped aisles of a bodega, as Ghostface makes like the killer of scuzzy New York slasher Maniac and brings a shotgun to the party. Even better is a sequence that crosscuts between two jam-packed subway cars, the Halloween costumes and flickering lights creating a deadly game of Where’s Waldo?

Beyond getting into the New York groove, Ghostface has a fresh gimmick: For each kill, they don a different weathered mask worn by one of their murderous predecessors, working backwards through the timeline. Having previously taken aim at horror movies, sequels, trilogies, remakes, and so-called “requels,” Scream is now skewering the conventions of… franchises in general? The rules it identifies are a bit of a stretch, but maybe that’s a blessing in disguise: The screenwriters, James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, devoted too much of the last Scream to self-satisfied commentary. 

Here, there’s a better balance between po-mo satire and sincere drama. Scream VI is genuinely interested in the coping mechanisms of its characters, and how their attempts to move forward clash with a contemporary fan culture reluctant to ever let go of the past. The film even locates something rather poignant in Mindy’s estimation that everyone is expendable in a Hollywood age where IP is the only draw. One late scene of the survivors wandering a veritable Stab museum, their traumatic experiences reduced to an obsessive fan’s memorabilia collection, is more resonant than anything this series has offered since Sidney grappled with her trauma in the first, and still best, of the sequels.

Scream VI doesn’t quite reach the same pop-terror heights, however much it communes with the spirit of that earlier encore. (There are a few elements that explicitly recall Scream 2, which the characters of course call out.) The conventions here are just a little too moldered, like the recycled facewear Ghostface repurposes. All the same, by the familiar operatic climax of monologues and unmaskings, the creative team has achieved the ideal of satirizing without succumbing: They’ve made a Scream movie that bemoans the cheap, mercenary extension of franchises without becoming too cheap or mercenary itself. So what if the only true surprise arrives in the opening minutes? That’s more than we can usually expect of a sequel with a six on the end of its title, roman numeral or no.

Scream VI opens in theaters everywhere Friday, March 10.