Film Review: ‘Scream 7’ is Another Acceptable Slasher But Finds the Franchise Running on Fumes

The Scream franchise has been, overall, one of the more well regarded in the world of horror. There are naysayers about a few installments, or maybe the series on the whole, but give or take Scream 3, all of the others have a solid reputation (Scream 4 is divisive, as are the most recent two films, but more like them than don’t). Nothing has matched the acclaim for the original Scream, but we’ve yet to ever get the sense that the movies were out of ideas. Now, we come to Scream 7, which is a decent enough slasher flick, yet running on fumes when it comes to the property it’s a part of. I’m ultimately giving this one a very mild recommendation, but the franchise may have reached the end of the line, creatively, if not financially.

Scream 7 shows all the signs of having been reworked late in the game, as whatever story initially was supposed to feature the heroines from the prior two films has been jettisoned. Instead, we’re centering on our original scream queen, which isn’t a bad pivot, though what surrounds her is very much hit or miss. As a masked killer horror movie? It works far more than it doesn’t. The thing is, this is barely Scream, which mixed humor and intelligence with gore. Here, it’s just extra gore, as this is the most brutal installment yet.

After the obligatory opening murder scene, this time taking place in the now gimmick Airbnb’d Murder House from the original, we catch back up with Sidney Prescott-Evans (Neve Campbell). She’s living her happily ever after in a small Indiana town, married to Chief of Police Mark Evans (Joel McHale). They have three kids, with their eldest daughter Tatum (Isabel May) seventeen and showing signs of rebellion with her boyfriend Ben (Sam Rechner). One day, Sidney receives a call from Ghostface (voice of Roger L. Jackson), as well as a video call from former killer Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), long thought dead. The target this time? Tatum, as well as her friends.

With Ghostface back on the scene, returning into Sidney’s life is also Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), this time with her interns, fellow survivors Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) and Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown). As Sidney and Gale try to figure out how Stu could be back, the killer continues to stalk Tatum, picking off others in the process. Ultimately, Sidney must face her past if she’s to not just survive, but end these horrors once and for all.

Neve Campbell gets a nice showcase here, though one does wish she was the center of a narratively stronger work. Campbell shows how Sidney has and hasn’t changed over the years, elevating the writing. Unfortunately, this film has so little interest in any other character, we learn almost nothing about them. The worst victims, no pun intended, are Tatum and her friends, which normally would have been a franchise strength. Isabel May has a presence to her and does what she can, but Tatum is firmly in the shadow of her mother, even if she has just as much time on the screen. Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown have their trademark patter and spunk, but removed from being a part of the Core Four, they feel shoehorned in. Courtney Cox is reliable and at her best paired with Campbell, but she gets far less to do than you’d think. Joel McHale? Wasted. Sam Rechner is bland, while Roger L. Jackson doesn’t have any particularly fun moments as the Ghostface voice. In addition to the aforementioned Matthew Lillard, the cast includes Anna Camp, Mark Consuelos, Ethan Embry, Asa Germann, Mckenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, and more, plus a few fun cameos.

Kevin Williamson takes over as director, replacing Christopher Landon, who originally was going to helm. Williamson wrote the original film and several of the sequels, so he knows the property as well as anyone. Sadly, he’s a bland filmmaker, with his direction getting the gore right, yet never having much style to display. The screenplay, credited to Guy Busick and Williamson, based on a story by Busick and James Vanderbilt, is at war with itself. Relating back to the original flick at times works decently, yet a number of shots taken at Scream VI seem confused and misguided. The mix of old and new generation scribes leads to a lack of feeling like either generation. This is, for better or worse, its own thing now. The twists are about average and the kills land, but they forgot the humor or really much in the way of the meta commentary. Then, there’s the use of AI and deepfakes in the film that I didn’t like or think worked at all. I’ll stay vague on that for now, but it’s poorly done and I’m shocked made it past an initial draft.

Scream 7 is a step or two above Scream 3, but it doesn’t come close to matching Scream VI (which I liked and reviewed here), let alone the prior Scream (which I raved about here). At this point, without a creative reset, it seems likely that an eighth installment could wind up outright bad. The flaws and limitations of stretching the property are becoming apparent. I still have a lot of affection for this series, yet this is the first of the lot I’ll probably never revisit. That’s not a good sign, so perhaps the franchise should quit while they’re still relatively ahead…

SCORE: ★★★