‘Scream 7’ Review: A Franchise That Has Long Past Its Prime

 Ghostface and Neve Campbell return with the seventh instalment of Scream, with Kevin Williamson in the director’s chair for the first time in the entire franchise, but is Scream 7 the movie that people were hoping for, or is it about time we close the curtains on this franchise for good?

Where do I begin with this review? I’ve not been a lifelong Scream fan because I only recently watched the franchise in 2022, but when I first watched Scream (1996), I quickly found a horror movie that I had fallen in love with. I continued watching the franchise with Scream (2022) and Scream VI having been released and was just impressed with how a franchise could still feel so refreshing after existing for so long. With Scream 7 being helmed by Kevin Williamson, the man who created the franchise, you’d think there would be some potential, but this film is proof that some writers shouldn’t tap into the directing scene and should stick in their lane.

It goes without saying, usually when you find a film having troubles during its production, it leads to these issues coming through in the final product. There has been over a year of backlash ever since Melissa Barrera, the lead of the last two Scream movies, got fired for her stance on human rights, and after discovering it cost them $500K when she got fired and Jenna Ortega backed out, it starts to make sense why this movie is unfortunately not as good as I’d hoped.

Scream 7 follows Sidney Prescott, who has been living a peaceful life in Pine Grove with her husband, Mark Evans (Joel McHale), and her daughter, Tatum Evans (Isabel May), until one day her past comes back to haunt her and Ghostface (Roger L. Jackson) returns from the dead… or has he?

Neve Campbell has returned as the iconic Sydney Prescott, who now goes by the name Sidney Riley. There are two main pulls when it comes to the Scream franchise: Ghostface and its meta cinema-horror commentary. Unlike all the other slasher horror films out there like Halloween, characters such as Sydney Prescott, Sam Carpenter and Tara Carpenter aren’t the reason, truthfully, why people kept coming back for these films. Ghostface is always the selling point, and people came for the brutal kills, clumsy falls and shocking killer reveals.

Scream has always followed a formula with a brutal opening kill and a shocking final reveal. Usually an opening kill features an actor that holds some sort of relevance in pop culture or someone that’s just recognisable, but Scream 7 breaks this with Jimmy Tatro and Michelle Randolph, but that doesn’t stop this opening kill from being fun and entertaining. It doesn’t have the surprise factor of either Scream (2022), which evidently lacks the opening kill, or Scream VI, which has a false opening. It’s not anything magnificent, but Williamson’s direction at least allows for some of the action and chases to still feel brutal and thrilling.

Credit: Paramount Pictures

It’s unfortunate that the first kill that takes place involves an actor who a lot of people are very fond of seeing in their films, but fortunately for us Scream fans, it’s genuinely one of the best kills that this entire franchise has offered us. Scream hasn’t always been an insanely brutal franchise, but with Ghostface taking it up a notch from the last two instalments, it’s the kind of standard that’s expected from future kills. The kill wasn’t only just gruesome; it was extravagant, and how Kevin Williamson chose to shoot it shows that he has somewhat of the capability to direct a Scream movie but, for whatever reason, chooses to not stick with this same attitude throughout.

There is about one other kill that takes place in a tavern during the second act of the movie. It’s quite easily one of the greatest locations for a brutal Ghostface attack to take place, but yet… there isn’t one. All the deaths that take place here are tame except for one, which uses the location to great effect, but you’re just left unsatisfied, as when there’s one great thing about Scream 7 to talk about, there are 10 baffling and horrendous decisions that follow.

A lot of Scream 7 relies on nostalgia baiting, and I’ll be honest, I’m sometimes one to fall completely for that tactic, but that approach fails with this movie due to one of its previous entries. Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown return as both Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin respectively and a part of me sometimes wishes they were the leads. They remain a lot of fun to watch with their snarky remarks, and Mindy essentially tells the audience that the killer’s motives and also the film’s gimmick are nostalgia. Unfortunately, this scene isn’t fleshed out like you’d usually find it with the previous Scream movies, as Kevin Williamson opts to step away from the meta commentary.

At three, possibly even four, separate points, there are references made to Neve Campbell not having appeared in New York, with one of those mentions being egregious and my personal last straw. Scream 7 completely disregards the events of the last two movies, and this leads to the final killer reveal being the most disappointing one yet in the entire franchise. The decision to kill off literally almost every character, leaving the actual culprits left, was possibly the worst thing they could’ve done, and it doesn’t help that from one scene, you can guess one of the killers without fail due to their dialogue just giving everything away to the audience. If you were to take the names of every character that makes an appearance in Scream 7 and put them into a randomiser, you’d likely get a better group of killers than what we were subjected to.

Scream 7’s defining trait is gone, but what social commentary does it have to say if there’s no meta cinema dialogue? Its attempt at saying something worthwhile about AI and generational trauma/abuse is barely achieved, and by the time you reach the credits, it starts to feel like a movie that they just had to push out despite everything that had occurred behind the scenes. There’s no deep conversation regarding either topic, leaving not much to take away from the movie. It can’t stick to its brutality, fails to engage with the audience and is lacklustre even when it comes to the humour.

Credit: Paramount Pictures

When it comes to the performances, there are moments where Neve Campbell can feel stiff, but that’s just a Scream habit at this point, as even Melissa Barrera and Neve in the past have had their issues regarding their performances. It’s hard to critique the new cast that gets introduced, as we don’t get to spend much time with them, which leads into their inevitable deaths not having much impact on the overall story. The only aspect of the friend group that felt nearly captivating enough was Tatum’s boyfriend, Ben Brown (Sam Rechner), who is believed to be the number 1 suspect throughout the movie, and this might be the only small thing that makes it feel like a Scream movie because, as we know, the boyfriend is always the main suspect.

There are so many things wrong with Scream 7, and it’s hard to avoid them when watching. We discovered in Scream (2022) that Sidney was married to Mark and had kids with him, but before this movie, we were led to believe it was Mark Kincaid from Scream 3 and not this random man, Mark Evans, that Joel McHale happens to be playing. That one minor thing would’ve elevated every scene with Mark and Tatum’s relationship with her parents, as it would’ve been both of them that were involved in Ghostface killings. The idea that Tatum Riley, who her daughter is named after, is suddenly such a character of importance to Sidney is just hard to believe and feels like a storyline that’s come out of thin air, just like most of this movie.

Scream 7’s theme of nostalgia doesn’t work for it when they’ve already created an almost perfect legacy sequel that pays homage to the original film and does so in such an effective, entertaining and hilarious manner. This is a movie that ran into countless issues doing pre-production, which has evidently led to its apparent failure. Despite Kevin Williamson returning to direct the characters he once created, it feels like there was some drawback with the studios that stopped this movie from having any sort of potential. There’s a chance that Scream 8 could be better, but if they’re expecting to lead future movies with Tatum Evans, then unfortunately, I don’t think it’s worth their time, and maybe they should think about finally putting Scream to rest, and I say that as a massive fan of the franchise.