Just three years ago, the Scream franchise was on top of the world. Scream 6 posted the franchise’s highest opening at the box office, even if the film itself hardly rose above being merely fine, and signaled a great deal of star power, despite franchise star Neve Campbell not returning over a pay dispute. However, in the months after that film’s release, the plans for the next installment quickly went haywire. Star Melissa Barrera was unjustly fired from the film over her statements calling out the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, which lead to co-star and quickly ascending superstar Jenna Ortega leaving the project, as did original director Christopher Landon. With the fanbase furious over Barrera’s firing and major talent subsequently leaving, the studio behind the film scrambled to salvage the property, bringing in original series screenwriter Kevin Williamson to write and direct the film, despite only one directorial credit to his name. Hoping to bring in fans who swore off the next film, star Neve Campbell was also brought back, reuniting her with co-star Courteney Cox. To say no recent major studio film has arrived with this much stink around it would be an understatement. Yet, even with all the behind-the-scenes baggage, that shouldn’t stop one from assuming the film would be a disaster. Unfortunately, disaster is the right word to describe this latest entry. The seventh Scream film showcases a desperate franchise struggling, and outright failing, to justify its existence.
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After three decades of being hunted by different copycat Ghostface killers, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is living far away from Woodsboro, attempting to leave the past behind her and build a new life. Struggling to connect with her teenage daughter Tatum (Isabel May), Sidney and her police chief husband Mark (Joel McHale) finds their quaint existence upended when yet another Ghostface killer appears in their local town. With the killer targeting Sidney’s family and her daughter’s friend circle, including boyfriend Ben (Sam Rechner) and friends Chloe (Celeste O’Connor) and Hannah (McKenna Grace), Sidney reunites with Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) who is accompanied by Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding). However, this Ghostface killer may potentially be someone from Sidney’s past long thought to be dead, forcing Sidney to face the killer and confront her past for good.
Directed by original series screenwriter Kevin Williamson, Scream 7 is a dull, repetitive and creatively bankrupt sequel that fails to do much of anything successfully. Say what you will about entries like Scream 3 and Scream 6, but those films at least offered something new and had creative directions to take the franchise in. This seventh installment falls back on regurgitated themes and cheap fan service to try and get a rise out of its audience. The result feels desperate and uninspired. Despite an intriguing development near the film’s midway point, there is a severe lack of creative spark. You can feel Williamson’s attempt to take the franchise back to the basics, but when the basics are this non-descriptive and lifeless, what’s the point?
Williamson may be an iconic screenwriter, but he’s not a very capable director. As a horror film, there is never any tangible sense of tension or build up of suspense. As a satire, the film feels toothless and lacks any bite. What is most egregious is the wealth of missed opportunities in the film’s set pieces. For a film with a sizable body count, only one death — involving an impalement on a beer tap — feels remotely inspired. An Argento-esque sequence involving a character in a stage play rehearsal getting throttled around mid-air on her harness feels like a potentially ingenious concept, but Williamson opts to construct this set piece in the most generic, unimaginative way possible.The script, written by Williamson and Guy Busick, is plagued by infuriating character decisions that seem to forget about the franchise’s meta roots; poking fun at the girl who runs upstairs from the killer instead of running out the front door. There are a handful of moments that play out in Williamson’s film that are equally insulting and the way his film goes about its fan service is largely shameful. It’s no secret that Matthew Lillard returns in some fashion here, with the film flirting with the idea of Stu Macher somehow surviving after all these years despite having his head crushed by a television in the original. No spoilers here of course, but despite Lillard’s dedication to the material, it’s a creative choice that functions merely to appease die-hards and will likely leave casual viewers scratching their heads.
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After sitting out the previous film due to a pay dispute, Neve Campbell reprises her role as Sidney Prescott and the result feels like diminishing returns. Campbell is one of the genre’s most iconic scream queens, but she’s not given any meaningful material to fully sink her teeth into. We’ve seen this take on Sidney done time and time again throughout the earlier sequels and nothing about her return here feels fresh or significant. Her transition into an overprotective mother feels redundant by the third tense exchange with her daughter, Isabel May’s capable, but mostly uninteresting angsty teen daughter. This film also has no idea what to do with Gale Weathers or building on her character, even with an always-great Courteney Cox.
Even at the franchise’s silliest, the mystery of the killer’s identity consistently remains a crucial element in the fun of these films, but Scream 7 can’t even get that right. There comes a point where the mystery of which character is secretly Ghostface becomes so convoluted and impossible to trace, the reveal itself just lands with an overwhelming groan. In hindsight, the best of the Scream films leave enough breadcrumbs of information to make the viewer look back and realize the cards were all laid out, but skillfully used misdirection to throw off their scent. Here, the misdirections aren’t particularly clever and leaves a reveal that’s completely nonsensical.
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It’s only fitting that the man who co-created the Scream franchise would be the one to ultimately put the final nail in its coffin. Scream 7 is neither scary nor funny and offers hardly any inspired creative decisions to warrant its existence. With its seventh installment, it’s clear this franchise has no more gas left in the tank, relishing in the very cliches Wes Craven’s original satirized so effectively. This is a lame and comatose slasher that fails to offer a single thrill.
Scream 7 is now playing in theaters.
Think I’ll pass.