The newest Scream installment answers the question “What if Sidney Prescott had a gun?” Unfortunately, that’s about all it does.
Long gone are the days where horror legend Wes Craven used the franchise as an outlet for his unique grasp of the meta conventions of horror, paving the way for a new era of self-aware slasher films. Instead, the latest installment, directed by Scream writer and Dawson’s Creek creator Kevin Williamson, is a lazy copout which hides behind a curtain of familiar faces in an attempt to flee the controversy around the movie.
The franchise garnered negative publicity in 2023 when it was announced that actress Melissa Barrera had been fired from the upcoming project for social media comments on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Burgeoning scream queen Jenna Ortega exited shortly after, leaving the impending film without its previous protagonists.
These departures left questions of what was to become of the next entry into the Ghostface saga. Now we know the result was a bastardized product built from nostalgia and the skeletons of the last two Scream movies.
Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is actively pursuing a life of normalcy after being haunted by Ghostface and the repercussions of her mother’s decisions. Sidney lives a guarded, but outwardly normal life married to police officer Mark Evans (Joel McHale). The two live in Pine Grove, Indiana, while raising their daughter Tatum (Isabel May.)
Tatum’s namesake often leads her to question her mother’s past — something Sidney is often dismissive about. The only glimpses into Sidney’s early years are through the media and the infamous, in-universe Stab franchise which exploited the Woodsboro murders. Any insight into the old life she’s trying to distance herself from often comes in the form of precaution, like when she warns Tatum to be careful with her boyfriend Ben (Sam Rechner).
Sidney’s reality is interrupted by a call from Ghostface. No stranger to the game, Sidney takes the call. However, things take a turn when the caller requests to video chat and reveals himself to be an aged Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard).
Stu informs Sidney that her daughter is his next target and that he is outside of Tatum’s high school theater, where she and her friends are rehearsing a school play.
What follows is a story banking on nostalgia (and unfortunately AI) to continue a narrative that didn’t need to be continued. Scream 7 is a symptom of Hollywood’s inability to come up with new stories, while relying on familiar faces to keep the fans coming back.
I genuinely can’t tell you anything that’s happened post-Scream 4, but the film manages to tell its story without that needed context. This is a plus for someone who couldn’t find the time for a crash course, but a disservice to those who’ve been devoted since the first time Ghostface rang.
The opening scene of a Scream movie is not just important to the plot, but should also be a nod to the series’ legacy. “Hello Sidney” has become pop culture iconography, and once signaled a whole raft of expectations. We didn’t get that though — or any thoughtfulness as to why this story was being continued in a modern era. Scream 7 opens with a poorly executed take on America’s true crime obsession, a missed opportunity to comment on society’s obsession with glamorizing trauma that Craven would have never fumbled.
I’m not 100 percent anti-revival — in fact, I think that it’s been done really well in certain spaces. But what made Scream so special was that it didn’t rely on the conventions that slasher and horror films had rested on. The characters were smart, and the series’ signature wit sprang from self-awareness. Scream 7 forgets its pedigree and instead proceeds with an air of predictability and pointless dialogue.
Still, there are glimmers of self-awareness. There’s a kill which mimics Drew Barrymore’s famous demise — a notable star left with a seemingly unnecessarily gory fate. Unlike its predecessor, though, this murder seems like the kind of pointless, cheap attempts at shock a Scream movie is supposed to make fun of. A bulk of the slayings are quite unnecessary, as I didn’t know enough about the characters to care that they’ve fallen victim to Ghostface. Even worse, the special effects at times look like scrapped Goosebumps episodes from the ’90s.
I’d liken my Scream 7 experience to watching the last and weakest season of my favorite show, like when Gilmore Girls lost the Palladinos, or when Mischa Barton left The O.C. Unfortunately, I’m not confident in saying this was the “series finale” of Scream.
Scream 7
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