What happens in the ‘Scream VI’ opening scene?

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Scream VI and earlier franchise entries.

Scream movies are famous for their openings. Everyone knows how the original started — the phone call to the unsuspecting lone female, an increasingly sadistic conversation before one inevitable question leads to Ghostface’s first kill: “What’s your favorite scary movie?”

The franchise has been twisting its pre-title first kills since the second movie. There were the movie theater murders at a screening of film-in-a-film “Stab” in Scream 2. Then the call to Cotton Weary’s carphone that ended badly for him and his girlfriend in the threequel. In Scream 4, there were multiple beginnings as characters watched other characters dying in the opening of a “Stab” movie, tripling the bloodshed as only this meta-slasher franchise can.

True to form, Scream VI continues the fun, but this time in a new location with some unorthodox spins on the fluid formula. 

Scream VI’s opening scene explained

Scream VI shifts the action to New York City. In a bar restaurant, we see Laura Crane waiting for a date she’d matched with on the Flirtr app, who’s running late. It turns out he’s lost, and when Laura receives a text asking if he can call, everyone except her puts a hand over their eyes. But when she answers, it’s not a familiar voice on the end of the phone. It turns out Laura’s date, like her, is new to the city (actress Samara Weaving uses her natural accent for the role, so it’s a safe bet she’s arrived from Australia). Not used to the city or poorly signed restaurants, he struggles to find the right street while Laura reveals she’s a film studies professor — an excellent addition to a franchise poached with layperson horror fanatics.

It’s about now you remember this is the first scene of a Scream movie. When her date jokingly asks about her favorite scary movie, Laura reveals she specializes in horror, teaching her students about slashers, and the “Stab” franchise is definitely not among her favorites. The awkward chat about slashers continues the “elevated horror” jokes of the previous installment’s opening until her date asks if the restaurant’s outside is red. 

Laura steps onto the street, confirming a giant red panel on the exterior before she is lured across the street when her date says he’s a block away and taking an alley as a shortcut to the restaurant. Laura’s confused when she can’t see him, and he says he can’t see her waving. She rather unwisely starts walking down the alley when he says someone’s following him with a knife until halfway down. The voice on the phone changes to a familiar tone as it points out how silly she’s been. Laura is jumped from a side alley by someone in a Ghostface mask and black costume and brutally stabbed in the body. It’s unclear if she hears the killer’s terrible joke about the color red. 

Then, most shocking of all, Ghostface lifts his mask. It’s clear this movie is taking a further departure from the Scream standard as he bundles up his costume and heads out of the alley into New York. That’s the twist on the traditional opening, as it segues into a longer sequence, and we discover Laura’s date is actually Jason (Tony Revolori). He’s not only a film student of the late professor at NYC’s Blackmore University but a fellow student of Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega). Meeting Tara on the way, Jason heads back to the flat he shares with Greg before his phone starts ringing. It ends badly for Jason as the call’s from the real Ghostface, and he learns what’s happened to Greg. The Georgia pair’s shrine to Ghostface has been discovered by the real deal, and their plans to complete the real-life “Stab” reboot started by Richie in the previous movie have been stopped in their tracks. 

It’s a long opening, with the twist turned on a killer for once. Laura has to be one of the unluckiest victims, as she’s killed by a decoy. Even her murderer, later said to be a Giallo fan, claimed his victim while she was wearing a yellow dress. But you’ll always run into trouble if you’re a film studies professor in a series that loves to poke fun at its heritage.