When SCREAM established itself as the old guard with 2011’s fourth entry, the series effectively inverted its position in the slasher pantheon: no longer the young kid on the block with its knives out for the genre’s sacred cows, it instead took a stab at the spate of remakes and reboots that consumed horror during a decade-long layoff. Even though it still proved to be prescient, acting more as the “back-to-basics” course correction sequel that other franchises would adopt, it definitely had something to say, which is the essence of SCREAM. Without its genre commentary, it would lapse into simply being yet another long-running slasher franchise.
The lukewarm reception to Part 4 proved to be an unexpected boon: after another decade off, it returned again with plenty more to say about the era of legacy sequels, with newcomers Radio Silence effortlessly picking up Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s meta-threads and weaving them through two smart, slick sequels that proved SCREAM was still vital, its running commentary doubling back on itself, taking aim at both the series and the genre at large all at once.
As always, an obvious question lingers: where do you possibly go from here? Previous seventh entries have done a little bit of everything: meta-musings on Elm Street, a Carrie White clone trekking to Crystal Lake, Michael Myers tracking down Laurie Strode after 20 years, SAW going out in an absurd blaze of glory. Some of these reeked more of desperation than others, but even desperation is preferable to whatever’s going on in SCREAM 7, another course correction of sorts that brings Sidney Prescott out of the shadows once again to defend herself and her family from yet another Ghostface killer (or two — you know how these things go by now).
Now living comfortably with her husband, cop Mark Evans (Joel McHale, notably not Patrick Dempsey’s Mark Kincaid, the cop from SCREAM 3 — Sid definitely has a type) and three daughters, she runs a quaint coffee shop in a nondescript small town. These days, the drama in her life revolves around her tense relationship with her oldest daughter Tatum (Isabel May), now the same age her mother was during the original Woodsboro massacre 30 years ago. Predictably frustrated by her mother’s overprotectiveness, Tatum also doesn’t understand her hesitance to discuss her troubled past. Of course, if you’re Sidney Prescott, the past is never past, so Tatum gets what she asks for when the latest killer targets her friends as part of the latest elaborate murder spree.
You know the drill by now, and SCREAM 7 assumes you do, making this the most routine outing yet as the script saunters through the motions: here’s your opening stalk-and-slash sequence, here’s your new group of friends/suspects, here’s a prominent actress being dispatched unexpectedly early in the proceedings, here’s Ghostface making his signature phone calls, here’s legacy characters Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), Mindy (Jasmine Savoy Brown), and Chad (Mason Gooding) providing back-up, here’s a plot twist or two on the path towards the grand (or, in this case, disappointingly predictable) reveal.
It all feels very obligatory, with little effort given to develop characters to care about them either as victims or suspects, and any attempts at narrative intrigue are quickly snuffed out. In what initially feels like a bold move, the killer reveals himself early to be Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), impossibly returned from the grave and seeking revenge. However, he conspicuously only ever appears on a screen, and his targets quickly deduce it to be the work of AI shenanigans. A quick detour to a local mental health facility tries to throw everyone off of this scent, but you never buy for a second that SCREAM is going to jump this particular shark.
Instead, it plays things rather safe and tame by late franchise entry standards, an approach that still might have worked if SCREAM 7 had any interest in tackling the metafictional implications of it all. Inexplicably, it’s almost downright hostile to this notion, though: Mindy’s rendition of the rules (“This time, it’s all about nostalgia”) is met with a glib dismissal. “We aren’t doing the rules this time,” Chad glibly announces, confirming that the seventh SCREAM movie has very little interest in being a SCREAM movie.
This isn’t inherently a bad thing: after all, some of the most interesting sequels in horror history have benefitted from thumbing their noses at conventions and expectations (with HALLOWEEN ENDS being a notable recent example). Unfortunately, a SCREAM movie without rules is toothless when the rest of it is so conventional — there’s never any sense you’re watching a radical departure from the formula so much as you’re tasting a watered-down version of it. It’s quite frustrating that it doesn’t lean into Mindy’s brief mention of nostalgia given Stu’s “return,” not to mention other deja vu echoes, like Tatum wearing her mom’s jacket and her boyfriend (Sam Rechner) sneaking into her window just like Billy Loomis once did. But they’re just that: echoes of faded glory, mere fan-service for the sake of it without any sense of the self-awareness that made this franchise so fun in the first place.
And it turns out a SCREAM movie without its signature voice is, well, just another slasher movie. Admittedly, Williamson (returning to the franchise in the director’s chair for the first time) acquits himself well here: his dialogue in previous entries told us he was a slasher head, and his direction here shows us. He orchestrates one of the best opening SCREAM sequences yet, capturing an ill-fated couple’s (Michelle Randolph & Jimmy Tatro) stay at the Macher house, now a tourist trap Air B&B experience for STAB fanatics. Here, the deja vu is playful, as the duo receives a phone call from “Ghostface” and encounters an unsettling animatronic of the iconic killer. Deftly weaving multiple fake-outs with the franchise’s signature humor, Williamson cleverly disarms you for the carnage that awaits: yet another bloody massacre that culminates in the killer torching the Macher house, signalling that this sequel might be confrontational and subversive after all.
Alas, it’s all downhill from there, as SCREAM 7 never lives up to its promise outside of its slashing. Multiple sequences immediately earn their place in the franchise pantheon, including a gnarly gut-spewing and a fun homage to the original MY BLOODY VALENTINE. The gore here is genuinely nasty at times, some of it theatrical and over-the-top in a way few SCREAM deaths have been: for arguably the first time, the series indulges its genre’s most base impulse to kill off characters in spectacular fashion, making this the highlight of the picture. Previous SCREAM deaths have resonated because they were narratively shocking or because we were invested in the characters; neither is quite true here, with the latter being a major point of contention. Never have SCREAM characters been such stock, underdeveloped cliches: there’s the Boyfriend, the Weird True Crime Obsessive, the Shy Girl, The Outgoing Girl, the Mean Drama Teacher, the Weird Orderly, the Overly-Friendly Neighbor, etc. Even Gale and the twins are reduced to the Legacy Characters adopting their familiar schtick for a couple of scenes. Despite being nearly 2 hours long and boasting yet another impressive cast, the film somehow never shapes these characters beyond these disposable cliches.
Even the Prescott — er, Evans clan doesn’t fare especially well in this respect. Campbell is always a welcome sight as Sidney, returning here without missing a beat — it just feels like we’ve already done this a couple of times already, and SCREAM 7 doesn’t offer her much new to do besides partake in a cliche maternal drama that predictably leads to Sidney and Tatum bonding over this latest round of bloodshed (as one does when your family is trapped in a 30-year cycle of bloodlust). Joel McHale and Ethan Embry are among other casting coups that deserved better; the former is just your typical cop, while the latter pops up in one scene before disappearing for most of the proceedings, which unfold with a dire predictability (even an early fake-out involving the fate of a Ghostface feels like a retread of the previous film’s memorable opening). Even worse, it culminates in the most half-hearted Ghostface reveal yet, with the motivations vaguely resembling the twisted parasocial fan routine from SCREAM 5, only it feels less coherent here without a broader meta angle to tie it all together. For the first time ever, I found myself simply shrugging at it all. I mean, say what you want about the infamous Roman Bridger reveal from Part 3, but at least that was something, an unhinged howl looking to send the franchise off with a hoot and a holler.
SCREAM 7, on the other hand, feels like tepid karaoke doing all it can to uphold a franchise calcifying in the doldrum. Like previous late-franchise slasher sequels, it, too, feels desperate — just not desperate enough. The “burn it all down” mantra of the opening sequence hints at a much more daring movie that’s otherwise just content to play the hits. And to be fair, SCREAM VI suffered from this a bit, but Radio Silence at least paid lip service by musing on the nature of established series and leaning into the franchise strengths. Diminishing returns and missed opportunities haunt SCREAM 7, a film that provides itself with plenty to chew on—the growing concern of AI’s influence in art, nostalgia-infested franchises, our relationship with true crime — but is content to quickly swallow it all. What’s left is a series facing the same conundrum it’s puzzled over since its 2011 return: how does SCREAM even operate now that it’s part of the establishment it once skewered? It’s always had a love/hate relationship with the rules and conventions, often needling them and relenting to them in equal measure from a self-aware perch that’s created a paradox of sorts — a franchise that dares to be different in a genre that thrives on formula and expectations. What was once the franchise’s distinguishing feature—its insistence on weaving a long-running story centered on a central group of characters — has started to feel more like an albatross that’s backed it into a corner.
The last few sequels cleverly hacked themselves out of this corner in a way that felt vital and coherent for the franchise to maintain its place as the smart kid in class. All SCREAM 7 offers is indifference to it all—it’s become a burned-out gifted kid that knows the assignment all too well, to the point where it can sleepwalk through the motions and still be passable enough. You’re left hoping it regains its spark for the inevitable eighth installment and reminds us why it was a star pupil in the first place.
Tags: Anna Camp, Asa Germann, Celeste O'Connor, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Ethan Embry, Guy Busick, Horror, Isabel May, James Vanderbilt, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Jim Page, Jimmy Tatro, Joel McHale, Kevin Williamson, Laurie Metcalf, Marco Beltrami, Mark Consuelos, Mason Gooding, Matthew Lillard, Mckenna Grace, Michelle Randolph, Neve Campbell, Ramsey Nickell, Roger L. Jackson, Sam Rechner, Scott Foley, Sequels, Tim Simons, Wes Craven
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