Scream 7 Review: The Slasher Franchise Has Finally Become What It Originally Parodied

When director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson first launched the Scream franchise back in the mid-1990s, the horror genre was in a bad place. While some good movies were still being made, the 1980s was a decade that was partially defined cinematically by its glut of slasher franchises that long outlived their welcome, and Scream came together as a post-modern commentary on how rote and formulaic the storytelling had become.

It was perhaps a touch hypocritical when sequels started to get quickly produced, but what set the movies apart was a continued meta awareness to go along with all of Ghostface’s nasty business. Some of the titles are stronger in this respect than others, but that element has long been viewed as a staple element as the franchise and survived two long production gaps: the 11 years between Scream 3 and Scream 4, and the 11 years between Scream 4 and 2022’s Scream. Through six films, the series dynamically set itself apart as fun and gory satire. But that era is now over.

With Scream 7, the franchise has become exactly what the original set out to parody – and the fact that the movie has Kevin Williamson at the helm comes across as a cruel irony.

The film had a controversial and complicated path through production, with the firing of Melissa Barrera causing uproar from fans, and co-star Jenna Ortega and hired director Christopher Landon departing the project in the aftermath. In retrospect, it would have been much better had Scream 7 simply be shelved instead of plowing forward. It boasts a number of returning stars from the original movie – most notably Neve Campbell, back as Sidney Prescott after being absent from Scream 6 – but it does nothing but poison a remarkable big screen legacy with its terrible and obvious plotting, contributing nothing as a fresh franchise entry beyond continuing to torture its principal scream queen.

(Out of respect for the movie-going experience, I won’t provide any spoilers in this review, but I feel compelled to say that any curiosity I may inspire in the film is involuntary, as I can’t recommend strongly enough staying away and just imagining that the horror series concluded with the previous installment.)

In Scream 7, the aforementioned Sidney Prescott is actually now Sidney Prescott-Evans, living in the small town of Pine Grove, Indiana, married the local chief of police (Joel McHale), running a coffee shop, and parenting a teenager named Tatum (Isabel May). (She has younger kids as well, but the movie awkwardly shuttles them away via expository video chat in Act I). While going about her daily business, she gets a call from somebody using the Ghostface voice changer (Roger L. Jackson), and while she initially thinks it's nothing more than a typical hoax, things take a turn for the strange when the conversation switches to video and she sees the face of an older and scarred Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) – who is supposed to be long dead.

A new rash of local Ghostface killings follow with Sidney and her daughter at the epicenter of the chaos, and when Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) arrives in town with Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) in tow, an investigation begins into whether or not Stu could possibly still be alive.

The writing and construction of Scream 7 swings between obvious and baffling.

While keeping possibility that one of the original Ghostface killers has been resurrected in doubt, the movie goes through the motions establishing a collection of potential alternate suspects (mostly consisting of Tatum’s teenage friends/boyfriend); creates mother/daughter tension because of the former opting to stay mum in discussions about her past; and it broaches the subject of artificial intelligence/deepfakes as a threat. And it all feels tired and uninspired. Despite the presence of talented actors, there are zero interesting personalities within the ensemble of suspects; the “closed off parent” angle feels like the least creative way to yet again explore Sidney’s trauma; and the inclusion of A.I. in the plot is essentially just the next step after the use of ridiculous magic voice changer in Scream 3 that could imitate anyone in the world.

The only thing even vaguely resembling a meta reference is an off-handed line from Mindy about “nostalgia,” and it isn’t explored in any way beyond a bunch of purely fan service cameos that fans already know are coming because of leaks during production.

It also needs to be bluntly said: while the Scream movies haven’t always featured the most intricate mysteries in cinema, Scream 7 is the first title in the franchise that had me solving half of the plot in the second act – and the only reason I didn’t put the pieces together for the second half of the mystery is because it is complete nonsense.

The upped gore factor is one of the few things enjoyable about Scream 7.

The one credit that I’m willing to give Scream 7 is its functionality when it comes to scares – but even this is praise that comes with reservations. Without saying too much, there is one sequence that I would consider an all-timer Ghostface kill, and I’ll even go as far as to give Williamson credit for willing to incorporate some legitimate splatter. And there are a couple of clever misdirects, including one in the opening scene with a classic “What’s your favorite scary movie?” phone call.

But those are fleeting bits surrounded by bad choices and questions ultimately left unanswered, like “Why do Sidney and Tatum at one point flee into a panic room only to immediately leave it two seconds later?” and “Why doesn’t the opening kill have any correlation with anything else going on in the plot?” This is the kind of bad writing and sequencing that one expects from a typical late-in-a-series slasher sequel, but not in Scream.

And that’s apparently where we are now. After decades of standing apart within the pool of horror franchises, Scream 7 sees the series become what the original was designed to parody. It’s not the first bad movie in the canon, as that credit goes to Scream 3, but it is the first to betray its purpose and play as little more than a cash grab taking advantage of beloved a intellectual property.