Scream 7 Review: Neve Campbell Returns to a Franchise With No Gas in the Tank

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There's no hiding it: Scream 7 feels like a movie hastily written to make up for scrapping an entire storyline that was trying to reach its conclusion. After the firing of actress Melissa Barrera, the already in pre-production Scream 7 quickly saw the loss of her co-star Jenna Ortega and director Christopher Landon. This posed a problem as the actresses were already mired in a plot that was ramping up to a crescendo and might have closed out a pretty decent franchise reboot. Sadly, we'll never know.

Instead, production company Spyglass and Paramount decided to go back to the well, in this case the first Scream's screenwriter Kevin Williamson for a reboot that hopes you're a millennial whose blind love of the past will make you jump at seeing this.

There's a moment in the movie 22 Jump Sequel, a sequel to the big-screen TV adaptation of the same name, wherein Deputy Chief Hardy (Ice Cube) explains to the intrepid young detectives what the point of their new assignment is: "Do the same thing as last time. Everyone's happy." In the case of Scream 7, the belief is to do the exact same thing as the original feature, 1996's Scream. That's far from the case as this retread not only reminds you of a time when this franchise was great, but also falls into some of the sloppiest screenwriting out there.

This is a movie where neither the rules nor the characters matter. Where the story seems to be making things up as it goes along. And the central elements of what made this franchise good are dead and buried.

We return to the world of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) who has started a new life in the sleepy town of Pine Grove with her husband, Mark (Joel McHale) and three children. But the Ghostface Killer is back once again, and this time he's dropping videos claiming to be from the first Scream co-killer Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). Could Stu be back from the dead? As Sidney tries to figure it out, her teenage daughter Tatum (Isabel May) will have to fight to survive after Ghostface decides to make a new franchise with her as the new Sidney.

By this point, the Scream franchise is so well-established the snake has already circled back to eat its own tail, a moment evident in this movie from its opening scene involving a couple returning to Stu Macher's house – now an AirBnB for crime junkies – for a romantic getaway. Of course, things go sour leading to one of the few things in Scream 7 to recommend it: its inventive kills. The gore level is pumped up significantly in this one, with all manner of sharp implements going into people's heads and a midair disembowlment being the few times you'll be engaged with the movie.

Scream 7 inhabits a weird threshold between the original, Sidney-led series, and the newer installments led by Barrera and Ortega. There's a desire to simultaneously make you forget those movies exist, yet an awareness that they have to deal with some things. Williamson's script is one where you can see the pencil eraser marks throughout. The reveal that Sidney has twins from the previous movies? The kids are still there, but spend the entirety of the movie at grandma's (during the school year, presumably).

Outside of two fleeting references no one could care less if Ghostface came for them. The Meeks twins (Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy-Brown), the two fan favorites from the newer franchise, are also back but are relegated to the latter half of the movie and spend the majority of the time literally fighting for screentime as part of Gayle Weathers' (Courteney Cox) news crew.

There's a mean-spiritedness about the previous movies, outside of wasting characters people actually liked from the movies, that Williamson hits on again and again with all the subtlety of a beer tap going into your head. As this script sees it, the reboot movies sucked and no one liked them. Characters comment regularly on how lucky Sidney was to sit out the previous film. (Campbell didn't return because of a pay dispute.)

But people in glass houses shouldn't through stones because following Sidney this time around doesn't yield much of anything. After seeing Sidney presumably heal her traumas in Scream 3, 4, and 5, this movie says: Actually, she's still really screwed up. Her daughter Tatum (Isabel May) is the same age Sidney was when this franchise started and apparently it's undone any therapy she's gone through. Sidney refuses to talk about her past, saying there's a bevy of movies and books that lay that out which Tatum either knows or has no memory of when the plot dictates.

Sidney Prescott in this movie holds far too much in common with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) from the Halloween franchise, specifically the latter ones from David Gordon Green and Danny McBride. Like those films, especially 2022's Halloween Ends, Scream 7 wants to examine what happens to a final girl/scream queen when things have gotten a bit long in the tooth. Campbell knows this character like a second skin, and when the movie is about her it's at least manageable to watch. You see her internal struggle as she tries to believe she's okay but is still unpacking so much. Her desire for her kids to avoid her trauma is understandable, yet it's a bit odd that Sidney would choose to have her kids live in blissful ignorance than actually prepare them to protect themselves.

Campbell drags the plot of this movie like a dead goose behind her, and while she's great anytime she's off-screen becomes painful because the rest of the characters are underwritten cannon fodder. Cox, reportedly paid $2 million to come back for this movie, is as wasted as Savoy-Brown and Gooding. The trio roll into town in the most ridiculously convenient way that the script wants to say was intentional but feels like the most overwrought deus ex machina ever. Cox is just there to be another familiar face and that's it, popping up in the climax as if to say, "I was here" and collect her check.

It's remarkable to think the same man who wrote this film wrote the first Scream, or Dawson's Creek, another series with great teen characters. Watch that first movie and within minutes you understood the history and personalities of Sidney's friend group, like the original Tatum (Rose McGowan). May's new Tatum is a stock teen, smiling wide when she isn't sobbing. This is a movie where she runs around an empty town screaming for help instead of pulling out a cell phone and calling 911. Said cellphone shows up a little later to talk to her mom because, again, reality doesn't matter in Pine Grove!

Where Sidney Prescott was a fighter, Tatum is just rolling desks in front of doors, lacking the ingenuity of her mother. It's hilarious how this movie constantly tells Tatum she isn't like her mother....and then never gives her a moment to either be like Sidney or do something different yet equally cool. Her friends are just as bland, the only one standing out being McKenna Grace, memorable because she's McKenna Grace.

By this point, it's hard to make any mystery compelling. The first three Screams, adhering to horror movie rules, had what felt like organic killers. The reveal at the end feels like an elongated episode of Scooby-Doo. Seriously, the reveal here will make you think for about 30 seconds, "Wait, WHO is that character again?"

This movie, especially, doesn't care about the rules and has nothing to say about the nature of horror franchises. What it does care about is people online, with a villain that spouts out things you probably remember reading when it was announced that Campbell wasn't in Scream 6. How dare Sidney Prescott not be in New York, the killer cries! It ruined everything. Yep, Williamson's most pointed critique is lobbed at those he also wants to see this movie!

Scream 7 is certainly the worst in the franchise and while an eighth installment seems like a foregone conclusion everything about this is sloppy, inconsistent and tired. By this point this is a zombie that just wants to be put to rest. If we're meant to follow Tatum and her friends, someone might want to make them interesting next time because Ghostface is gonna make a meal of them in 30 seconds.

Grade: D

Scream 7 is in theaters Friday.

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