‘Scream VI’ goes to the big city and strikes out

In "Scream VI," the psychotic, knife-wielding serial killer known as Ghostface is set loose on the streets of New York City.

The former terror of the fictional California town of Woodsboro has made the cross-country trip to the City That Never Sleeps, bringing his creepy mask, black cloak and impressive supply of daggers. But he's lost in the big city, a slasher made small in his new playground.

No disrespect to Mr. Stabby-Stabby, but New York is where you get screamed at by a deranged hot dog vendor, have fistfights over midtown parking, pay $8 for a pack of gum and find approximately six public bathrooms for 8 million people.

Ghostface, dude, up your scare game in the Big Apple. This is the city where Pizza Rat lives. This is a city where middle schoolers have nunchucks.

Despite the change of scenery, "Scream VI" is less a sequel and more a stutter-step, a half-movie with some very satisfying stabbings but no real progress or even movement. It's like treading water in gore. And to fully enjoy this "sequel to the requel," you need to have watched most of the others.

The four main survivors from the fifth "Scream" are all here a year later - the Carpenter sisters, Sam and Tara (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) and the smug brother-and-sister duo played by Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown.

They dub themselves the Core Four. "Survivors got to stick together," says the brother.

The same directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett return, as well as the writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, who this time layer in some critiques of social media and fame. Courteney Cox is back, too, the last original cast member - or "a legacy," as she's called - to appear in the franchise. That may not be such a...