Over the course of the last thirty years, “Scream” has been the rare horror franchise that hasn’t missed a step. Wes Craven’s clever spin on the slasher genre kick-started a new wave of self-aware horror films, and the “Scream” sequels were able to find fun ways to riff on formula while building a mythology of characters. However, each previous “Scream” sequel had a larger idea in mind regarding both the motivation of cinematic villains and the culture that surrounded true crime. “Scream 7” isn’t just the first bad sequel in the series, but a film with no compelling perspective on the cliches that it has bastardized.
“Scream 7” picks up with the final girl, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), who is raising her daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), with her husband Mark (Joel McHale), a police officer. Although Sidney has shielded Tatum from the dark aspects of her past, she’s forced to confront them when a deadly new Ghostface killer begins a brutal murdering spree and threatens to tear apart her family. However, the new Ghostface shares a connection with Sidney that harkens back to the events of the original film from 1996. Sidney wants to protect her daughter, but also knows that she won’t always be able to be there.
The nature by which “Scream 7” pulls in characters and events from previous films is the worst type of nostalgia-bait. Although the previous films have built a satirical, in-universe way of making note of their derivative qualities, “Scream 7” takes the most basic approach to the notion of Sidney’s celebrity and the media that has surrounded her. What’s most glaring is that “Scream 7” seems stuck in the past in a literal sense because of how outdated its technology is.
Outside of a gimmicky acknowledgement of artificial intelligence, “Scream 7” doesn’t play into social media, livestreaming, or any other aspects of Internet culture that the most recent installments did. It’s as if “Scream 7” is so desperate to be a “back to basics” reset that it pretends that it’s still 1996. It even thinks a live news broadcast from Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) would be the primary source of information.
The most critical relationship in “Scream 7” is between Sidney and her daughter, which is intended to parallel the protagonist’s own mother and her grisly fate in the original film. Unfortunately, there’s no dimensionality to their conflict because the relationship isn’t more complex than Sidney setting boundaries and being unwilling to accept Tatum’s originality. While there was potential for some interesting commentary on generational pain, the script for “Scream 7” references “trauma” in a non-ironic way that is laughably outdated.
There’s also little interiority to Tatum’s friends, interests, or life at school. It’s easy to forget that the original “Scream” was also a great high school film, and used the perspective of willfully obtuse, temperamental teenagers to justify some of the gaps in logic. Although Tatum’s friends are played by talented actors, including McKenna Grace and Celeste O’Connor, they don’t exist for any other reason than to serve as victims. Other characters inserted are so obviously used as red herrings that there is little reason to invest in them.
The first four “Scream” films were directed by Craven, and while the directing duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett weren’t quite as sharp with their work on the fifth and sixth entries, they certainly delivered memorable setpieces. “Scream 7” is helmed by the original film’s screenwriter, Kevin Williamson, whose sensibilities are much better suited for television. The violence isn’t particularly creative, and at times it’s excessive in a way that is neither distressing nor comical, as it simply feels juvenile.
There’s little suspense, as the only way Williamson seems capable of escalating tension is to include more killings or abrupt appearances by the Ghostface killer. While all of these films have utilized fairly shaky logic, “Scream 7” doesn’t even make an effort for its antagonist to explain their appearances at different points in the story.
Given the rather tumultuous production process behind “Scream 7,” it’s fair to say that the unpolished nature of the script is evident within the final product. Mark is a bland character whose role as a police officer has no significance within the story, and McHale’s comic sensibilities make him the wrong choice for the role. Similarly, the comic genius Timothy Simons is so underutilized in the role of Tatum’s obnoxious drama school teacher that it could almost be interpreted as a meta-commentary on unrealized potential.
Returning characters from the previous films, such as the twins Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy Meeks-Marti (Jasmin Savoy Brown), only show up at convenient points and feel far more exaggerated than they were in previous installments. As for the return of Gale, the “Scream” franchise has reached the point at which there is nowhere left to go with her dynamic with Sidney. Even if Cox and Campbell work well together, there’s nothing to say about the characters’ friendship that hasn’t been done better.
Although “Scream 7” wasn’t to be held to the same artistic levels as the better films in the franchise, it’s simply not very scary and has little ingenuity within its kills. After all of the elaborate ways that different Ghostfaces have brutalized their victims, “Scream 7” offers no new ways for the knife-wielding villain to operate other than the aforementioned use of AI, which feels downright insidious on a creative level. Williamson’s direction is not strong, and the film’s pacing leaves much to be desired because of how mundane the dialogue is. After the opening scene (which nearly admits to its lack of creativity), there’s a significant gap before anything remotely intense happens.
“Scream 7” isn’t bad in the way that horror sequels like “Jason X” or “Halloween: Resurrection” are, as it doesn’t take massive creative swings that don’t pay off. It’s just a remix of better ideas that seems uninterested in engaging with any aspects of film history, as there are only a few passing mentions of the in-universe “Stab” series. The repetitiveness could have been forgiven had “Scream 7” delivered a surprising mystery or shocking death scenes, but it ultimately feels like the type of horror film that Craven had spent his late career rallying against.
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