The Ghostface killer returns to haunt Sidney Prescott 30 years after the Woodsboro Murders in Scream 7, opening in Prague and cinemas worldwide this weekend. Despite behind-the-scenes controversies that saw the leads of Scream (2022) and Scream VI jettisoned from this sequel, the refocus on Sidney (with overt shades of David Gordon Green‘s Halloween update) is a welcome one, and Neve Campbell is thoroughly engaging in the lead. Sadly, that’s not enough to save the shockingly amateurish presentation and laughably contrived script, which serves as a throwback to slasher films from the 1980s in all the worst ways.
Scream 7 was written and directed by series veteran Kevin Williamson, the scribe behind the first two films in the franchise who famously wrote a script for Scream 3 that was far more inventive than what ended up on the screen. Returning to a creative role behind the camera for the first time since Scream 4, he’s an inspired choice to bring back, but maybe he should have brought that old screenplay with him, too. The Agatha Christie mystery angle of figuring out who’s behind the mask is half of the fun of these movies, but this one lays an egg in that department.
Beyond that, and potentially related to behind-the-scenes drama that resulted in a rushed production, there’s a soul-sucking lack of creative vision here. Compared to the stylish work from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett in the previous two films—and, of course, Wes Craven‘s flair in the first four—Scream 7 looks drab and dull, with a flat visual presentation that keeps at arm’s length from the bloody mayhem. Brightness levels seem to have been artificially boosted in post-production, sacrificing style so the audience can at least see what’s going on.
We take basic filmmaking acumen for granted in these big studio releases, but that’s exactly where Scream 7 struggles to keep up. Right from the beginning, we notice the film’s near-complete lack of ambient sound. That (successfully) ratchets up the tension in scare sequences, but turns innocuous scenes of dialogue into confoundingly hollow readings suspended in a vacuum. It’s a conscious choice—every time we hear the hum of a fridge or the howl of the wind, the sound design calls attention to itself—but feels more like a technical gaffe that should have been fixed in editing.
Like most of these movies, Scream 7 opens with a bravura slasher set piece: here, the masked Ghostface killer stalks dedicated Stab movie fans Scott (Jimmy Tatro) and Madison (Michelle Randolph) at a Woodsboro Airbnb designed after the Prescott home from the original film. It’s a genuinely effective scare sequence that makes great use of an animatronic Ghostface, and hints what’s to come: some effective horror scenes amidst a sea of huh… what?
Who were those young people targeted by the killer? Never mind, the film never mentions them again. Instead, it moves across the country to suburban Indiana, where Sidney Prescott (Campbell)—now Sidney Evans—lives with her police chief husband Mark (Joel McHale) and daughter Tatum (Isabel May). Tatum is now at the age Sidney was during the events of the original films, and clashes with Mom over her mysterious past, and you can probably guess where things are headed as Ghostface shows up in Pine Grove.
Tatum’s friend group includes boyfriend Ben (Sam Rechner), besties Hannah (Mckenna Grace) and Chloe (Celeste O’Connor), and creepy neighbor Lucas (Asa Germann). They’re all targeted by the killer—but also, as previous films in the franchise have taught us, suspects themselves. Series vet Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and twins Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), who return from the past two films after the killings start, are probably safe.
But there’s another return here: Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), one of the killers from the original movie, who begins to taunt Sidney via FaceTime. The movie wants to pass this off as potentially being an elaborate deepfake, an idea quickly adopted by the characters. But there’s a disconnect for us in the audience: we know that’s really Lillard on screen, and even a major Hollywood studio would opt to just re-hire the actor rather than create a convincingly accurate deepfake of this long-dead character (something that, apparently, multiple characters independently whip up in a matter of minutes here).
Ghostface is actually unmasked at the end of the first act, and it’s a wonderfully subversive reveal that reflects a sense of reality unexplored by previous films; Williamson based his original script on a real-life killer, and Scream would go on to inspire real-life killers itself. Had the mask come off at the end of the movie to follow through on this line of thinking—heck, if there was any kind of satisfying resolution—it could have been enough to forgive the second-rate presentation and give this one a pass.
But the ultimate reveal in Scream 7 is both telegraphed by casting choices and so completely underdeveloped that even the killer’s five-minute monologue fails to explain their motivation to any degree of satisfaction. These films tend to lean more towards Scooby-Doo than Agatha Christie, but even Hanna-Barbera had better quality control.
The blame for it all, most unfortunately, must fall to Williamson: for the first time in the history of the series, a single creative force led Scream‘s full creative vision (though he shares writing credit with James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, who collaborated on the past two films). That he was able to churn out something coherent despite the troubled production is at least admirable; despite being the worst film in the franchise, Scream 7 is poised to do big business, and one hopes the writer-director can redeem himself next time around.
