'Scream 6' phone call is a familiar voice in a new city

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You can take the “Scream” franchise out of Woodsboro, but you can’t stop the killings.

Thus, transplanting the “core four” — a name so stupid even its members make fun of it — from the 2022 film “Scream V” to New York in “Scream VI” does not turn out to be the escape from their past that they had hoped it would be.

Far from it. From the customary opening kill to the final slaughter, it’s just all slasher, all the time with these people. You can’t outrun your destiny. At least not when your destiny is a knife-wielding, mask-wearing psychopath who kills without remorse and, for most of these movies, without detection.

Not that fans of the franchise would have it any other way. As for anyone else? Well, good luck.

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What would happen if you wandered into “Scream VI” cold, never having seen the previous installments in the franchise? Easy: You’d be hopelessly lost, with endless questions.

The most pressing question for viewers in this installment is: what’s it going to take to keep Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega) alive? Along with their friends Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy)?

As it turns out, a working knowledge of how slasher films work (especially the film-within-a-film “Stab” franchise), an understanding of the history of the previous murders (both killers and victims) and a certain level of imperviousness to stab wounds.

You know, the usual.

The secret to the longevity of the “Scream” franchise is its ability to reinvent itself, to move forward while glancing over its shoulder at its past.

That’s partly by necessity. From the start “Scream” was constructed as not just a slasher film but a commentary on slasher films, a knowing in-joke in which the killers and some of the victims are aware of what’s going on. The victims just can’t seem to stop it.

Until the “final girl” does, of course. But the franchise is flexible enough that the final girl has changed, and now the original — Sidney Prescott — isn’t in “Scream VI” at all. (Neve Campbell declined to return because she didn’t think the studio’s offer was enough.) Her whereabouts are handled with one tossed-off line.

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But there is a blast from the past: Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) returns. And of course so does Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox, also a producer of the film), intrepid reporter (others would use different descriptions).

Tara is in college in the city, living with Sam and their new roommate Quinn (Liana Liberato). Mindy and Chad are also students at the fictitious Blackmore University. Mindy has found a partner, Anika (Devyn Nedoka) and Chad has a roommate, Ethan (Jack Champion), who has one of the best lines in the film. Terrified that he might be a victim just by proximity, he blurts, “Am I going to die a virgin?”

It’s around Halloween when the killings begin again. The filmmakers use this to good effect. Of course there are going to be a lot of Ghostface masks on the subway. But which one, if any, is the killer?

The story zips right along, as well, but screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick strain a bit to make all the puzzle pieces fit. Revelations aren’t exactly out of nowhere, but close.

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The best part of the movie is the relationship between Sam and Tara, which is to say between Barrera and Ortega. Sam hovers — understandable, as Tara has been carved up before.

Ortega became a major star between the last film and this one, thanks to “Wednesday.” She wears it well, staying true to Tara while somehow being, I don’t know, bigger. It’s an interesting dynamic, and it doesn’t sink the film. It makes it more interesting.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are also back from the 2022 film. They keep things moving at a brisk pace, which is to say lots of people get stabbed and even shot (the latter evidently a problem with “Scream” purists, who like their Ghostface killers knife-wielding only).

The story could use that kind of boost. “Scream VI” is a decent film with a transitional feel, a signal that you can take the show on the road and it still works. But it doesn’t leave you screaming for more.

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