Thrown Back 

SCREAM VI. The world's infatuation with Scream (1996) kicked off just as I was entering a protracted contrarian period in my own cinema education. I hadn't yet come to appreciate the craft and silliness of horror and teen movies were too easily enjoyable to possibly be of merit; I was insufferable.

Because I live in the world, just as I did then, the franchise quickly became all but inescapable, one of the most ubiquitous, referenced, oft-parodied forces in contemporary culture. And so, yes, I've seen them — with the notable exception of Scream (2022), which would seem to have become the most essential of them all.

With his original script, Kevin Williamson pulled off the neat trick of recasting horror-nerdom (heretofore among the gamiest and most sacrosanct of realms) as something funny and ironic. Within a cinematic era defined by sarcasm and ostensible self-awareness, he created a template for the re-mainstreaming of horror and a third act for director Wes Craven (The Hills Have Eyes, 1977; A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984). With admitted deftness, Williamson and Craven combined the outright nastiness of '70s horror (which Craven had a heavy hand in creating) with the silliness of some of the more exploratory genre exercises of the '80s. Then they channeled it through the sweaty conversations of VHS obsessives, doubled the jump scares and knife kills, and made something new (as well as a vast fortune).

While Scream seemed a little too cute (and probably too scary) for me at the time, the die-off of risk and invention at the upper tiers of American movie industry allows me to look at many of the movies of my youth with a new (old) eye, or at least through the heavily distorted lens of nostalgia. Which effect is compounded, in this case, by the presence of directors of a certain age — Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready Or Not, 2019) — who seem similarly afflicted.

I last checked in with the franchise for Scre4m (2011 — wait, when?), Craven's final movie. I remember it as being competently made, if extraneous, despite the presence of much of the original cast.

In the interim (I gather), the specter of Ghostface continues to loom: The daughter of original killer Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), Samantha Carpenter (Melissa Barerra), her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) and their friends having become the focus of the latest copycat's sadistic impulses. Having survived that bloodbath, they've regrouped in New York City, where Tara et al. attend college and Sam contends with a social media onslaught accusing her of masterminding the recent killings. And then, more killings.

Much of the success of Scream VI (and presumably its predecessor) lies in the directors' (and writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick) fealty to the source material which, if one is not among the true faithful, is as much a weakness as a strength. What starts as clever homage and expansion on the theme (a film student dons the mask and kills the film studies professor who gave him a bad grade on a Giallo paper) eventually and inevitably feels a little long in the tooth (several sequences take place in the killers' movie-theater shrine to the antecedent murderers and the books and movies they inspired).

Still, this outing has a better sense of humor than the fourth installment and, much to its credit, finds some revolting new ways to dispatch victims with knives. Though not yet a convert to True Fan status, I've begun to better understand the appeal. As much as Scream VI may serve the faithful, there is enough to it for even the less-ardent to enjoy. R. 122M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.

65. While probably unavoidable, the reveal in the trailer for 65 so spoils the surprise of the movie that it cannot but taint the experience of watching it. This may be unfair of me to say — I actually like the movie and can understand the need to use whatever marketing tricks are available to sell tickets. But it makes me nostalgic (there's that word again) for a lower-stakes era in movies, when a gamble could be taken in not revealing too much, when inherent risk and the chance of unexpected reward were an assumed and accepted aspect of moviegoing.

Before I bury myself in that lamentation, I will say that someone, somewhere in the halls of power did have the temerity to back a non-franchise, science-fiction adventure about the ancient past. Whether that person still has a job remains to be seen.

Mills (Adam Driver) takes a work assignment that will keep him away from home for two years. The job, piloting an exploratory spacecraft filled with people in cryo-sleep, promises to pay enough to afford treatment for his chronically ill daughter Nevine (Chloe Coleman). Even for ancient alien races, things rarely go to plan.

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (writers of the A Quiet Place series) is humble enough in its ambitions that, tragically, it seems unlikely to succeed. Cleverly conceived, well-crafted and anchored by a customarily substantive performance from Driver with co-star Ariana Greenblatt, 65 is a movie out of its time, a work of popular entertainment that deserves a chance to be evaluated on its own merits, but may well (hopefully not) be lost among the avalanche of franchise commodities surrounding it. PG13. 93M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.

NOW PLAYING

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA. Getting small with Paul Rudd. PG13. 125M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK (3D).

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER. Catching up with the blue cat aliens 10 years later in James Cameron's sequel starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver and Kate Winslet. PG13. 192M. BROADWAY (3D).

CHAMPIONS. Woody Harrelson stars as a washed-up coach trying to get a team to the Special Olympics. PG13. 123M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

COCAINE BEAR. The late Ray Liotta and Kerri Russell dodge a black bear that's housed a brick of blow and wilding out like Don Jr. on Twitter. R. 95. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

CREED III. Michael B. Jordan directs and stars as the boxer squaring off against a rival from his past (Jonathan Majors). PG13. 116M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.

DEMON SLAYER: TO THE SWORDSMITH VILLAGE. Demon-whooping anime action, dubbed or subtitled. R. 110M. BROADWAY.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. Michelle Yeoh blows minds in the multiverse in a moving kung fu/sci-fi with Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis. R. 150M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

JESUS REVOLUTION. Kelsey Grammer and Jonathan Roumie star in a movie about a religious hippie commune in the '70s. PG13. 120M. BROADWAY.

MET OPERA: LOHENGRIN. The Metropolitan Opera performs Wagner's Medieval German romantic opera. NR. 300M. MINOR.

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH. Sequel spinoff starring the swashbuckling cat voiced by Antonio Banderas. With Salma Hayek. PG. 100M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS. Zachary Levi reprises his DC hero role with Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu. PG13. 130M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK, MINOR.

Fortuna Theatre is temporarily closed due to earthquake damage. For showtimes call: Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456; Mill Creek Cinema 839-3456; Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.