Joel on Film

“This will only end when I end it.” Kevin Williamson and Guy Busick really do protest too much by inserting overtly metatextual dialogue like this into their screenplay for Scream 7, which feels like a return to basics for the 30-year-old series and, well, like something of a resignation, too. Behind the scenes, this was once a very different movie, continuing a storyline from 2023’s Scream VI until some extracurricular drama meant that the studio behind it had to scramble for a new direction—or, as it turns out here, an old one.

In other words, here once again is Neve Campbell’s Sidney Evans (née Prescott), the protagonist of that part-satirical, part-dead-serious autopsy of an exhausted genre from one of its master technicians. Sidney sat out the last time the hooded Ghostface killer targeted participants of this cinematic saga, and her return feels both obligatory and slightly patronizing. Williamson, who wrote that first iconic film and two of its sequels and also returns to the franchise after some time off (this time as director in addition), definitely feels that way too about his exhausted horror heroine.

Sidney’s entire reason for existing here is to remind us of the previous installments, to be the source of gossip for other characters about her role in the story of the Woodsboro killings, and to realize that her own life has been a vessel for trauma all these years. Campbell, to be sure, plays all of this quite well, especially as the machinations of this screenplay have their way with her, but oddly, the least useful parts of the movie are the other avenues of nostalgia. Other legacy characters (as we might call them, given this is hardly a new trend anymore) appear, too, and it’s not only Courteney Cox’ investigative journalist Gail Weathers, either.

No, this movie is about the specter of the past in a fairly literal way for Sidney in this newest installment, as the culprit behind a new series of gruesome killings uses the history of the franchise to haunt her once last time (well, maybe). She’s once again married and enjoying a comfortable suburban life as the manager of a coffee shop, with her policeman husband Mark (Joel McHale), tributarily-named daughter Tatum (Isabel May), and a couple of other kids who are neither named and not seen nor relevant. Ghostface comes back conveniently just as Sidney has to make a decision about whether to come clean fully about her youth to a daughter who is now reaching the same age she was.

First, though, we must address the film’s prologue, which possesses a boldness of purpose and a sharpness of wit not displayed in a cold open for this series since the iconic and pacesetting one of the first film. In it, we learn that the house in which those original murders (as well as a few from a couple installments ago) took place is now a tourist destination for those curious about everything that happened. A couple of visitors obviously meet their demises here, but that’s not really what makes the sequence so fascinating.

It’s more the fact that, as co-screenwriter and director, Williamson seems to be torching the past as a bitter place with no genuine happy memories (the dialogue reflects this, as an annoyed girlfriend is subjected to a list of facts from her obsessed boyfriend, each one more disturbing than the last when divorced from the imagery). This doesn’t mean the sequence itself isn’t clever and well-staged, by the way. On the contrary, it even involves a magic trick of sorts involving a motion-detecting replica of Ghostface that is truly funny and actually clever.

None of that cleverness carries over to the actual plot, which barely even features a satirical angle with the exception of a technological tool being used by somebody to try to trick Sidney about the identity of the attacker. That’s probably all that should be revealed in a review like this one, but as usual, young adults are dying horribly and Ghostface is responsible. The typical rotation of suspects and offering of victims are presented to us, followed by the revelation of the culprit and motive.

The strange thing this time around, though, is that the nostalgia on display in Scream 7 is wholly obligatory (even treating the return of Jasmine Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding as a pair of Ghostface experts, given exactly the same kind of heroic entry as Gail for some reason, as an extension of that nostalgia) and, eventually, rather self-defeating. The motive, especially, just sort of gives off the energy of pulling something out of a hat without doing the work of psychological analysis, and the result is, quite easily, the nadir of a once-great series.

Rating: *½ (out of ****)