Hot on the heels of 2023’s critical and financial hit, Scream VI, a seventh movie in the most consistent horror franchise of all time seemed like a no-brainer. Yet, after hitting numerous snafus along the way—the biggest being Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, and director Christopher Landon exiting the project—it came into doubt whether we would get a new entry at all. Would the next installment end up being a full-on reboot, devastating the long-running series mythology in the process? Thankfully, an announcement from franchise final girl Neve Campbell put those fears to rest completely: Sidney Prescott would be returning in a major way, recalibrating the focus, and not just that—franchise creator Kevin Williamson had been brought on board as the director! As a hardcore Scream fan, those two facts alone were enough to flame my excitement. Now, as 1996’s Scream rings in the thirty-year anniversary of this unparalleled big-budget genre flick, could Scream 7 live up to all that hype? The answer, somehow, in Dewey’s words is a resounding “YEAH!” Marking a thrilling return to form for a beloved franchise, Scream 7 cuts deep into legacy with brutal bite. Grounded by the touching mother/daughter relationship at the core, Ghostface makes things personal by targeting Sidney at her new home base. By bringing back returning franchise mainstays and building up a likable new roster of suspects, there’s a whole lot to unpack in this gory, classy slasher sequel.
As the film opens with Marco Beltrami’s now-iconic “Sidney’s Lament,” we have a very specific type of recalibration. The script from Williamson and co-writer Guy Busick has shifted focus back to Sidney Prescott as we have never seen her before. Now Sidney Evans, our scream queen thrives in a happy marriage to her goofy cop husband, Mark (Joel McHale), yet her seventeen-year-old daughter, Tatum (Isabel May) seems locked in her rebellious teen phase. Like Sidney before her, Tatum has a tight-knit group of school friends, all of whom work together on their school play. The parallels from Sidney’s story to Tatum’s own are never lost—especially early on, there’s a scene between Tatum and her boyfriend, Ben (Sam Rechner), that acts as a near replica to 1996’s first encounter between Sidney and Billy. Sidney seems to have an especially tough time navigating motherhood, forced to finally share the darker parts of herself she has been hiding from Tatum all this time.
This script graciously allows us plenty of time with both Sidney and her daughter separately, while asking the audience to buy into their relationship from the start. This Sidney gets more texture than ever before—finally, we get to see her in a place of normalcy, at least for a time. She has a job at local coffee shop, The Little Latte Coffee. She seems on great terms with Mark and her other children. Finding Sidney in the midst of her somewhat happy ending gives Campbell plenty of room to make bold, emotional acting choices from the second that peace gets called into question. Her phone calls are raw, charged with the energy of a mother fearful for her child. The film’s beating heart lies in Tatum and Sidney’s connection—it has big payoff as Tatum longs to evolve from victim to survivor. In assuming she was only named Tatum as tribute to some random friend Sidney once had in high school, Tatum grossly underestimates the witty strength Sidney’s best friend once possessed. Witnessing the parental push and pull, with Mark occasionally acting as mediator, is Scream 7 at its most compelling. This would have been the perfect film to bring back Sidney’s absent father, but that’s a small complaint given how effective Sid/Tatum stands on its own.
Ghostface makes a fiery arrival with a jaw-dropping opening sequence set at 261 Turner Lane in the Stu Macher Experience; even then, conspiracies about Stu’s own alleged death start popping up. There are some parallels to Scream 3’s magical voice changer, now that the technology has caught up. Could Stu somehow be alive, masterminding the whole thing from the sidelines? This being a Scream movie and all, the quiet small town calm of Pine Grove remains short-lived for Sidney and her family. Even though Pine Grove isn’t Woodsboro, it sure looks eerily similar, with almost Haddonfield vibes at times too. Ghostface doesn’t show up in town in any subtle way—in fact, what sets this one apart from the others is the minimal use of traditional phone calls. That means there perhaps isn’t quite as much Roger L. Jackson as fans may be used to. For 7, this feature stands out in originality, allowing us to relish perhaps more physical onscreen Ghostface instead.
Ghostface wastes no time teasing—he gets straight to the bloody point of his murder spree. Even from that opening scene, this iteration of the timeless villain in his ghost robes and chilling rubber mask seems content to play with his food. We get several series-best, absolutely brutal kills. One involves theatre wire rigging, whilst another sees a bar tap handle used to shocking effect. That the kills get more creative this time around adds an extra dash of spice to the slicing and dicing. That said, this isn’t Terrifier-level gore, so don’t expect that, either. By the time we get to the big reveal, a series known for its third act bloodbaths truly lives up to the hype. We get an unmasking that embraces the perfect amount of zany performance we have come to love from this signature series. The motive, too, just plain works.
Expect less in the way of apt genre commentary and more focus on past scars and character moments. With so many pieces on the board, Scream has an entire sandbox to play in, and the smallest of roles still matter to the endgame. The newbies here include true crime fanatic Lucas (Asa Germann) and his mother, Sidney’s kind neighbor, Jessica (Anna Camp); Tatum’s close friends, polar opposite personality types Hannah (Mckenna Grace) and Chloe (Celeste O’Connor); and others played by Ethan Embry and Mark Consuelos. Of course, what would a sequel be without Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), now chasing crime reporting infamy with her “hot interns,” twins Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy-Brown) Meeks-Martin. Gale takes a bit of a backseat to the heavy focus on Sidney and Tatum; still, she gets a major crowd-pleasing moment, and plenty of time to connect with Sidney on a level we’ve only glimpsed in the past.
The fast-paced nature of any Scream movie especially thrives in this environment, as the story unfolds almost entirely over a span of a couple days. Kevin Williamson knows this series like the back of his hand, having hatched it himself from an idea well before the movie script even came into formation. He understands that we come to be shocked, but we also need characters making logical choices amongst the terror. There are plenty of chase scenes and pulse-pounding moments, aided by the return of franchise composer Marco Beltrami. As much as Brian Tyler left his own unique spin on the past two films with Radio Silence, Beltrami’s score has seeped into the very fabric of Scream DNA. Each entry virtually without fail has a great soundtrack, and 7 again delivers on that front. This is Scream we are talking about here, the most meta-whodunnit slasher to exist. If soundtrack Easter eggs are a thing, look out for “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and of course, “Red Right Hand” to show up in loving reference to what came before.
While it may be a worry that Scream could fall victim to nostalgia bait, that hasn’t been the case before. Even through creating a movie-within-a-movie in the form of the fictional Stab franchise, revisiting the exact same act three Macher house, and, in VI, having a literal shrine dedicated to the series at large, Scream has remained ahead of the game in the way it pokes fun at itself and the audience that scoops these films up faster than Samara Weaving’s screentime. The self-reference remains sprinkled in lovingly; however, the dialogue mostly plays it straight. That means more examining of the past traumas in a mature manner rather than with a giggle or a nudge. The tonal shifts could be impossibly hard in lesser hands. Movie-nerd Mindy still sort-of unspools some rules. Will she make it to the final act this time around? Maybe we don’t get to revisit the core four, but nothing here contradicts their existence or imprint.
Even with a couple of minor flaws, Scream 7 should give fans the ferocious kills and Sidney-focused narrative of their wildest dreams. Perhaps some thought Sidney’s story should be over, and that’s fair enough. At this point, she has been through hell and back. But have we ever had as much personal time spent with Sidney as we did here? For the movies to continue indefinitely, they eventually will need to highlight others and their own journeys. For now though, the ultimate final girl is back exactly where we want her: at the center of her own franchise, with seemingly no definitive stopping point in sight. If they can keep up the consistency, why not manifest a Scream 8? Kevin Williamson’s intimate storytelling proves Ghostface is eternal… just like Stu.
Scream 7 revels in final girl greatness when it debuts exclusively in theaters on Friday, February 27th.
