Scream 7 Review

Neve Campbell returns to the Scream series after sitting out the Ghostface massacre in New York City.

Sidney Evans, nee Prescott (Campbell), lives a quiet life in the town of Pine Grove. She is married to Mark Evans (Joel McHale), the chief of police, has three children, and owns a successful coffee shop. Sidney’s relationship with her oldest daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), has become more fraught because Sidney refuses to talk about her past. Even worse, another Ghostface killer appears and threatens to kill Tatum.

The Scream series has been enduring. It’s 30 years old and has had a successful comeback with Scream (2022) and Scream VI. However, Scream 7’s production was more tumultuous because Melissa Barrera was sacked for making pro-Palestinian statements online, Jenna Ortega was unable to return because of a ‘scheduling conflict,’ and the film’s original director, Christopher Landon, ended up leaving the project. Scream 7 ended up being retooled: Campbell returned as the lead, Kevin Williamson, the writer of Scream, Scream 2, and Scream 4, took on directing duties, and Paramount had to pay $500,000 for rewrites. There was an online campaign by Pro-Palestinian activists, and the film received the worst reviews in the series’ history. Yet Scream 7 has had the best opening weekend for a Scream movie.

The original Scream was considered revolutionary because it was a post-modernist take. It was a film that was self-aware about the rules of slasher films and played into it. All the subsequent films aimed to deconstruct horror tropes, the make-up of sequels, trilogies, and reboots, and looked at the film industry as a whole. All the films were mini-film theory classes. Scream (2022) and Scream VI even widened their scope to tackle culture war issues. Scream 7‘s attempts at commentary and self-reference were nowhere near as deep as the previous entries. Even the big speech about the theme and horror rules was half-hearted. The biggest piece of commentary in the film was Sydney’s absence from the New York incident.

Scream 7 aimed to be a more character-driven film. It was about the relationship between mother and daughter and the impact of Sydney’s on everyone around her. Sydney wanted to forget the past and move on beyond the Ghostface massacres and live her life. Even though Sydney was forced to become a strong woman who would fight to protect those she loved, the trauma still lingered over her. She had become distrustful of everyone and resists any probe into her past, even though it’s public knowledge. This trauma affected Sidney’s relationship with Tatum since Sidney was an overprotective mother, whilst Tatum was entering into a rebellious phase. The mother-daughter relationship was a major story beat in the first three films, and Sidney discovered the truth about her mother: now Tatum’s in a similar role to her mum.

The past was another major theme in the film. Sidney’s past came back to haunt her through one of the calls she received. Scream 7 was trying to tie itself back to the original film with a far-fetched story development. Sidney did try to turn one aspect of her past into a positive because she named her daughter after one of her best friends in the first film.

Scream 7’s production issues were felt with its screenwriting. It had perfectly decent ideas as a foundation, but because the film had to change direction so quickly, they felt underdeveloped. An example was Tatum’s character inconsistency. She was described as meek, but didn’t act like it because of her argumentative nature and having a good-looking boyfriend.

The area Scream 7 managed most successfully was its kills. The Scream films have always been brutal, and Scream 7 managed to match them. The kills were inventively sadistic because of their violence and cruelty. The first death of a teenager was particularly cruel since they were defenceless, and it ended up being one of the goriest kills in the series. Another impactful kill involved a beer tap. Any action involving Tatum was tense since she was a teenager, fearing for her life and playing into the idea that she could take charge of her destiny. It was mildly amusing that Tatum was scared of using a gun when May played the hero in Run Hide Fight, a film that can be described as ‘Die Hard during a school shooting.’

Scream 7 did have a lot of baggage to overcome, and it struggled at times. It was fine as a basic slasher experience, but it ranks near the bottom of a Scream ranking.