New York Comes Across As Generically As Woodsboro in Scream VI

For all the promotional hype surrounding the latest installment in the Scream franchise (officially poking fun at itself for having become that) and how it takes place in New York, there is surprisingly little riffing on that fact. Indeed, if one had anticipated that New York might be the “fifth character” (à la Sex and the City) among the self-described “Core Four” in Scream VI (stylized so that the Roman numeral serves as the “M” in the title), they would be sorely mistaken.

To be blunt, the only time we really get a “taste of NYC” is during the clips deliberately accented in the trailer. Apart from those (featuring the requisite “bodega” and “subway” scenes), the closest we get to a sense of place is when Samara Weaving steps in for Drew Barrymore’s (as Casey Becker) memorable opening sequence from the original. Weaving plays Laura Crane, a woman waiting for an app-culled date at some “trendy” bar on “Hudson Street” (not really though—for even that is faked in Montreal). As the two go back and forth about how, essentially, they still feel too “uncool” for New York and places like said bar, they both state that they’ve only been in town for a matter of months. In addition, Laura makes mention of being a Film Studies professor specializing in the slasher genre. Clearly, things really have gotten too niche in our post-post-post-post-post-post-modern world. Particularly in academia (already poked fun of saliently in White Noise). After getting her to believe he’s hopelessly lost and can’t find the restaurant, soon enough, Laura’s “date” is able to lure her outside and into an alley. Of course, it’s not really Laura’s date, and it’s not even really New York either—what with so many locations filmed in Montreal.

This includes one of the other “indelible” New York moments when Samantha “Sam” Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) find themselves cornered in a bodega with the latest Ghostface. Called “Abe’s Snake Bodega” (the dead giveaway of it not being “Real New York” is that it feels the need to add “Bodega” into its name at all), the scene was shot in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood. As were many others doubling as “the greatest city in the world.” Which, as usual, has shown itself to be highly recreatable in [insert other major city here]. And, contrary to popular belief, it’s not because it’s so “indelible” and “unique,” but because it has mutated into its own worst fear: the average metropolis. Something that other major cities haven’t fallen prey to quite so easily. Even San Francisco, for all the talk of the “tech bros” coming in and changing the face of the landscape with their presence, has not succumbed so effortlessly to a generic makeover as New York, particularly Manhattan and most of North Brooklyn (spreading with more and more ease to South Brooklyn and beyond).

The vast majority of these two particular “sects” of New York have been overrun with corporate takeovers touting (unspokenly) how great it is not only to sell the city back to itself at an even higher price, but also how “necessary” it is to present the city with an array of new job opportunities for its burgeoning young workforce (emphasis on the word “young,” because that’s the demographic most willing to bend over for low-wage employment). Sam is ostensibly one of those youths, as Tara is certain to call her out for having two shitty jobs and no other real reason for being in town apart from monitoring her sister with stalker-like precision.

To this point, Tara unwittingly brings up a larger issue about New York: that no one would ever go there without an “ambition.” That to go there “just to be there” is not only unheard of, but rather unhinged (perhaps part of the reason it’s so easy to paint Sam that way). Even as a “la-di-da” artist, it’s unfathomable to arrive in town without some cold, hard “goals.” For, unlike other cities that serve as “artistic havens,” New York isn’t solely about “being an artist” for the mere sake of it. More than any other “bohemia” hotspot, it is a place where you’re not only “supposed to” monetize your art, but where you have to if you want to actually survive without being ejected. And who could possibly want to be exiled from such a “fun” place? Where all worth and value is placed on the money you make (this capitalistic reality being on steroids compared to most other cities). In the alternate version of Scream VI that makes better use of its setting, Ghostface isn’t just out for some petty revenge on any of the remaining characters involved in the “legacy murders.” He’s also got personal beef against all of the pretentious, pseudo-intellectual fucks roaming the streets trying to “hustle” their so-called talents. Call him Patrick Bateman, but less arbitrary/prone to killing the poorest of the poor (a.k.a. the homeless). This making the randomness of the kills far more rife.

Alas, some would say Kevin Williamson’s original version was never about such a message—with the core of it cutting to what Randy (Jamie Kennedy) said in the 1996 movie: “It’s the millennium. Motives are incidental.” This adding to the “fear factor” of the slasher behind the mask being anyone, at anytime. And yet, “motives” have remained decidedly not incidental for being in New York. In fact, they’ve remained steadfastly the same: you go there to “become” someone. To “make it.” Rarely, if ever, is being there about “disappearing,” as the Carpenter sisters want to do. For, despite the presence of the huddled masses, NYC is among the most visible places a person could “escape to.” Even so, its “singular” visibility (largely contributed to by everyone taking a picture of themselves on every corner where you could potentially be in the background) doesn’t mean it hasn’t long been recreatable in other locations.

And sure, filming in more affordable environments meant to be New York is nothing new. In the 80s and 90s, Chicago easily doubled for “Gotham” (literally, in The Dark Knight’s case), even in a film like Escape From New York—with the city itself built right into the title. What’s more, look at what a series such as Friends did to recreate the town in a prophecy-like manner on a Burbank backlot. Friends, for as eye-rolled at as it is in the present, had a crystal ball-like use in foreseeing just how increasingly generic the city would become. This, in large part, thanks to stamping out all traces of the very populations that once made it unique with a little phenomenon called “eugenics of the poor.” And pretty much everyone is poor when they live in New York. The Carpenter sisters included. In effect, it has become easier and easier to bill the city as Anywhere, USA (or, in this instance, Anywhere, Canada) because it has lost all sense of the “personal touches” that once made it stand apart from garden-variety corporate infiltration.

Even NYU has something of the “corporate effect” on the city it profits from. To that end, the university name “Blackmore” (where Tara attends)—actually Montreal’s McGill University—could very well be a dig at NYU needing to up its Black person “quota.” As for other set design details intended to “serve” New York, the use of a Chock Full o’Nuts ad at a reconstructed subway station reads, “Hipsters Like It. But Drink It Anyway.” This, of course, is meant to lend greater “authenticity” to an ersatz New York, despite the reality that “hipster” is a word that has been rendered so oversaturated that it has become meaningless and irrelevant…almost like New York itself. Another notable “subtlety” that actually has nothing to do with New York is a sign that reads, “Le Domas Financial Group.” This name being too much of a coincidence not to apply to the family moniker in Ready or Not, starring none other than the woman playing the first to be killed: Samara Weaving. But, more to the point, Scream (2022) and Scream VI’s co-directors, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett also directed Ready or Not. Just as the co-screenwriters of Scream (2022) and Scream VI, Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt, also produced Ready or Not. And yes, James is a member of that illustriously moneyed New York family, the Vanderbilts (so no wonder he wanted to participate in Ready or Not). So perhaps the transition to NYC as the latest Scream location was his idea.

Whoever determined the “change-up” environment, one must ask: what was really the purpose of setting Scream VI in New York? Especially if the movie wasn’t going to maximize the erstwhile “uniqueness” of the town to its utmost. After all, a subway scene can be done in any major city (even L.A.). The same goes for filming in darkened streets and alleys. Scream VI proved that much by shooting in Montreal. Where more indelible landmarks, like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler Building, etc. (all ideal locations for a stabbing, by the way) can’t be so effortlessly remade “in a pinch” as subway stations and a bodega. To be fair, Scream VI offered a token scene of the Carpenter sisters briefly walking around in “Central Park.” After all, that’s where the movie poster embeds the image of Ghostface’s screaming visage with an overhead shot of the park’s greenery and repositioned lakes. Nonetheless, with a tagline like “New York. New Rules,” one might have been expecting slightly more dependency on the location.

As only the third Scream movie to take place outside of Woodsboro (with Scream 2 set at the fictional Windsor College in Ohio and Scream 3 set in Los Angeles—used with far more panache and specificity, particularly with the rapey producer angle that eerily mirrored the likes of Harvey Weinstein), the pressure on Scream VI to “really do something” with such a divergent (and non-fictional) location was perhaps too great.

Admittedly, however, Scream is never really about location. The fact that it began in an Anywhere, USA type of town was meant to highlight that—in addition to providing the chilling idea that “nowhere is safe” (something coronavirus has made good on repeatedly since 2020)—the biggest freaks can so often live outside of major metropolises. But, as for the concept of nowhere being safe, that’s something that’s long been alive and well in NYC—at a zenith in the 1970s, complete with a pamphlet warning tourists, “Welcome to Fear City.” Indeed, the reaper-esque image that appears on the cover of the pamphlet could easily pass for Ghostface himself (call it another botched chance to pay much of any real homage to the city in which Scream VI takes place). And, to be candid, the lily-livered snowflakes who turn out to be Ghostface in Scream VI would have no chance of not getting stabbed themselves in that era that can now be referred to as Pre-Generic New York.