In most theaters, when it is time to return your 3D glasses there is a cardboard receptacle when you leave the theater. For a movie as stupid as the latest Scream movie – Scream 6, there should be a place to drop off your brain before you step into the theater. In all 6 movies in this series that started in 1996, the formula is the same. People run for their lives and are horribly and very violently stabbed by some murderer wearing this same strange ghost mask. Then after numerous people are killed throughout the movie, the ending provides the “let’s explain what is really happening to the audience” scene at the end. The one at the end of this film, could be the worst ever in the entire series.

This time around the explanation-end-scene requires intensive knowledge of what happened in all the previous 5 Scream movies – and/or some heavy drug usage. The explanation of this ending for Scream 6 made no sense to me, and any movie that requires heavy end-of-movie-flash-cards – can never be a good story. When this happens at the end of any film, all it means is that the screenplay was not effective enough to explain what was going on for the first 2 hours.

The other stupid time-honored tradition is the showing of people who are stabbed over and over again, who then miraculously, turn out somehow – undead. How can this be? There is one man who is stabbed directly in the mouth, with the knife twisted and then later, is seen running to kill someone else. Another young man is stabbed by two attackers at the same time probably over 50 times and then, is seen exiting a crime scene on a stretcher, somehow still alive. Do we really have to be this idiotic? Do we really have to show scenes where people are killed over and over again? I thought it is only possible to die once, not 9 times. The overt stabbing and over-killing in this installment are probably worse than all of the previous movies in this franchise. Why do this, considering how ridiculous this entire idea is since it all started in 1996. The other thing to consider is why movies that are all about horrendous killing and murder are so popular? This is the 6th installment in a horror series that is completely inane, from day one. If you have seen one Scream movie, you have really seen them all.

Courtney Cox returns in this latest in the series, without Neve Campbell, who it was reported was not offered enough money to reprise her role. Hayden Panettiere, returns to this series, with her last appearance in Scream 4. Newcomers Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera play sisters and seem to be the new actors who will take this series – onto even more stupid sequels.

Considering the ambitions of actresses like Campbell and Cox when they started acting, it is rather depressing to realize that their movie careers will be mostly remembered for a series of essentially dumb Scream movies. That is real life in Hollywood. You have to go with the flow to keep acting and hope that high quality will come around, someday. Very often for too many good actors this never happens and you have to continue to act, to make money and stay relevant. This industry has always been money over quality and due to the gamble it requires to produce any movie, this will most likely never change.

I was rather surprised at the relatively high 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for Scream 6, with my rating at around 50% and a solid pass.