In this latest entry, we get a Ghostface who is more violent than we’ve ever seen.
The Big Apple setting caused a lot of excitement for horror fans.
In 1989,Friday the 13thlooked to change things up.
Image via Paramount Pictures
All seven of its movies had taken place in Crystal Lake.
The possibilities seemed endless.
Outside of that, Jason could have been in any big city.
Image via Paramount
There was nothing much to make it feel like New York City.
Scream VIsuffers from that same disappointment.
The subway station where the gang encounters dozens of Halloween revelers and one very murderous Ghostface?
Image via Paramount
Yep,that’s Montreal too.
The same goes for street scenes, school scenes, and apartment scenes.
We’re being told that this is New York City without showing us New York City.
The production crew does a good job of making the filmfeellike New York in many scenes.
That bodega looks and comes across like a real New York store.
The subway feels authentic.
There were so many parameters to choose from.
Any skyscraper from the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, or the World Trade Center.
A plethora of bridges that we really only see in establishing shots.
Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Rockefeller Center.
In an interview withSlash Film,Scream VIco-directorTyler Gillettsaid, “We all want to make it different.
It’s set in New York, let’s make it have that New York energy.”
Gillett added:
“I think the city had a lot to do with the approach to the character.
It felt like with Woodsboro and Windsor College, those locations exist in a bit of a fantasy land.
I think that’s part of what’s fun about what’s heightened about those movies.
Gillett is right that the action and violence in the film is bonkers and over the top.
The setting doesn’t match that intensity.
Nothing feels bonkers or over the top about this Montreal stand-in for New York.
They were a franchise falling on hard times and had a limited budget.
They had the money to show us a love letter to film’s most famous city.
Instead, we got Canada.
What will we get when Ghostface inevitably goes to space?
