In B次元官网网址淪cream VI,B次元官网网址� the psychotic, knife-wielding serial killer known as Ghostface is set loose on the streets of New York City. Yawn.

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 heB次元官网网址檚 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, B次元官网网址淪cream VIB次元官网网址� is less a sequel and more a stutter-step, a half-movie with some very satisfying stabbings but no real progress or even movement. ItB次元官网网址檚 like treading water in gore. And to fully enjoy this B次元官网网址渟equel to the requel,B次元官网网址� you need to have watched most of the others.

The four main survivors from the fifth B次元官网网址淪creamB次元官网网址� are all here a year later B次元官网网址� 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. B次元官网网址淪urvivors got to stick together,B次元官网网址� 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 B次元官网网址� or B次元官网网址渁 legacy,B次元官网网址� as sheB次元官网网址檚 called B次元官网网址� to appear in the franchise. That may not be such a boastable thing.

Sam Carpenter is firmly in the crosshairs of Ghostface B次元官网网址� or more than one Ghostface if the pattern persists B次元官网网址� and trying to escape her heritage (and notoriety) as the child of an earlier serial killer. Bodies start falling quick. B次元官网网址淭his isnB次元官网网址檛 your fault, Sam,B次元官网网址� says her sister. B次元官网网址淏ut it is,B次元官网网址� replies Sam. And there are some disturbing signs that a latent killer lurks in her heart, too.

The filmmakers have picked quite a canvas B次元官网网址� and wasted it. Unlike the B次元官网网址淛ohn WickB次元官网网址� franchise, the folks at B次元官网网址淪cream VIB次元官网网址� seem overawed by the city theyB次元官网网址檝e landed in. We expected Ghostface to slice Elmos in Times Square. We wanted finance bros in puffy vests and Brooklyn hipsters with weird facial hair to bleed. We wanted smugly rich Upper East Siders with tiny dogs to get splattered. Instead, the city seems to humble Ghostface, making him just another easy-to-ignore tourist overpaying for knock-off purses on the street.

There are fight scenes in a bodega and in a luxury apartment on the Upper West Side, but perhaps the best New York sequence is on a crowded subway train, where Ghostface is stalking in plain sight. The film is set around Halloween and so the train is packed with creepy dudes, tweaked-out college kids and masked marauders B次元官网网址� in other words, a regular Tuesday. Anyone who has ridden the New York City subway in the past three years wouldnB次元官网网址檛 even flinch at Ghostface. They might even cough up a dollar for him to go away.

The sequel sticks with the formula of folding in on itself, mocking in a meta way the horror conventions it itself helped build. B次元官网网址淲eB次元官网网址檙e in a franchise!B次元官网网址� one of the Core Four explains and, indeed, B次元官网网址淪cream VIB次元官网网址� opens with a film professor yammering on about cliched movie tropes and ends with fight-for-your-lives slash-a-thon at a disused movie theater. And so at the conclusion, we must limp on to the next sequel, with no end in sight, and hearing the city loudly mocking anyone foolish enough to try to come and scare it.

B次元官网网址淪cream VI,B次元官网网址� a Paramount Pictures release that hits theaters on Friday, is rated R for B次元官网网址渟trong bloody violence, language throughout, brief drug use.B次元官网网址� Running time: 123 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four. ___

B次元官网网址擬ark Kennedy, The Associated Press