Directed By Kevin Williamson

Starring – Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Isabel May

The Plot – When a new Ghostface killer emerges in the quiet town where Sidney Prescott (Campbell) has built a new life, her darkest fears are realized as her daughter (May) becomes the next target. Determined to protect her family, Sidney must face the horrors of her past to put an end to the bloodshed once and for all.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, and adult language

Scream 7 | Official Trailer (2026 Movie) – Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox

POSITIVES

As hard as it is to believe, the Scream franchise turns 30, this year, and while Wes Craven’s original vision has been passed to a variety of filmmakers who have each implemented their distinct vision towards this cherished property, the series original screenwriter, Kevin Williamson, has never had the privilege until now to sit in the director’s chair, leading to some unforeseen deviations that, for better or worse, certainly make this feel unlike any other installment in the franchise. For starters, Williamson’s experience writing three of the first six movies certainly comes across in his appreciation for the lore and extended histories of these respective characters, distinctly in his fearlessness to attach memorability to each of the previous six installments, with Easter Eggs, tie-ins, and even familiar faces returning to the fold, in order to flesh out an undisturbed reality to the extensive world-building. In the case of Sydney, it proves to convey an irreplaceable value to this franchise that truly zeroes in on her as this resiliently fearless force of nature that stands against her masked adversaries, however this time while sampling some of the vanished vulnerability from that original chapter, in the form of now being a protective mother of three who finds herself at the impossible task of not only surviving to fight another day, but also protecting those she loves most in this world, and while the unfortunately disappointing drop-outs of Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega certainly leave an unfulfilled gap in the movie’s value, it’s Sydney’s return that comes the closest to filling it, supplanting bountiful elements of heart and determination that occasionally enhance the often questionable material, all the while supplanting Campbell’s most versatile performance of the entire franchise, for my money. More on that in a second. Williamson also indulges in the carnage candy that laid waste to a barrage of bodies in the previous installment, featuring some of the series most gruesomely executed kills and morbid iconography that makes this version of Ghostface feel like the most barbaric incarnation that we’ve seen yet. While the kills themselves are unfortunately articulated with far too much computer-generated blood deposits and even occasionally glaring and distracting artificial special effects, it feels like Williamson made a conscience effort to conjure devastation that meticulously takes its time and undivided attention to render imagery that feels like it belongs on a director’s cut special edition release, instead of a feature cut, and if you’re someone who openly embraces gore in these kinds of movies, ones involving a stage theater and especially one in a bar, will have you giddying with devilish delight, maintaining the vulgar evolution that this franchise has continued, regardless of its more subtle and interpretive origins. While Williamson’s return definitely stokes the fires of familial frenzy on this series’ integrity, it’s ultimately Neve Campbell’s return that leaves the most lingering lasting impression on the duration of this film, with Campbell fully realizing the grown and battle-tested veteran side of Sydney that allows her to take charge of any situation. Campbell obviously brings the stoicism to this portrayal that has been present in the previous films, but it’s her sensibilities as a parent in real life that feel like the breathe air into the candidness of Sydney’s aforementioned parental vulnerability, and considering Campbell could practically play this role in her sleep, at this point, it’s all the more meaningful that she brings legitimacy and charisma to the air of the portrayal, especially scenes alongside Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers, with the two coming to terms with their confrontational history with one another.

NEGATIVES

Sadly, while Williamson mostly fills the director’s chair effectively, it’s surprisingly his writing this time around that detracts most noticeably to the film’s appeal, particularly in the foundational aspects of characterization, dialogue, and especially social commentary that continuously falls flat at every execution, leaving a soulless film that is not only difficult to invest in, but also one that frequently feels at odds with itself. While the script from Kevin and co-writers Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt definitely has some good ideas pertaining to the usage of Artificial Intelligence at the killer’s advantage, it never brings along anything freshly innovative or substantial, with regards to its tangibility with film, and considering each installment of this franchise has such a uniquely cunning and interlacing method in tying itself to their versions of the killers, here it just feels like a tediously tacky gimmick that unintentionally gives away some of the movie’s biggest mysteries, long before the script catches up with it, leaving what is undoubtedly the single flattest killer reveal of all-time, with a logic-leaping motivation that I don’t even come close to subscribing towards. As for the characterization and dialogue, it’s a bit disappointing that none of the new cast additions captured my attention in ways that allowed me to effortlessly invest in them, but when you’re working with a script that not only requires you to unload these long-winded exposition dumps that feel like they’re aimed directly at those rare audiences who have never seen any of these movies, as well as enacting some of the dumbest character decisions that you’re likely to see this year, it proves a grave detriment to the integrity of their appeal, causing spontaneous bursts of laughter to these various interactions, even when the movie didn’t call for them. While you would certainly expect this from some of the newbies who have never been involved in evading a psychopathic killer, unloading baffling moments of Sydney leaving a safe room with her daughter, leaving her daughter alone to go investigate a mental hospital, or even remaining on a phone with her daughter instead of furiously pursuing the building where she’s held captive, makes her feel like the single worst parent on the face of the Earth, with these actions and clunky plot mechanics deemed necessary in order to further a plot that never feels like it even comes close to finding a comfortable rhythm. This obviously has an adverse affect on the consistency of the pacing, particularly in its inability to attain any semblance of synergy or meaningful momentum with its sequencing, as a result of abrupt resolutions and television level editing. Seriously, there are times in this movie when it feels like a scene will drop off in order to make room for a commercial break, but even when focusing on the everlasting duration of some of the movie’s top-heavy first few scenes, it cuts directly into the urgency and danger of Ghostface’s emerging return, requiring the movie more time than necessary to move the plot forward after its cliche’d opening scene death, all the while outlining a lack of originality with the material that comes closer to derivative than meta while literally recreating scenes word for word from previous movies of the series. On top of this, Williamson’s direction is even far from perfect, particularly his inability to capably juggle tones from some of the better installments of the franchise, with this ones comedic intrusiveness feeling more like Scream 3 than anything else. Quite honestly, there are moments in this film that feel satirical for how over the top and downright silly that they feel mere moments after tragedy, such as Ethan Embry’s balding hospital worker, Gale Weathers’ Avengers-esque arrival, or even the aforementioned big reveal, which directly sucks out what little tension and suspense that this movie has going for itself, and while the Scream franchise has always sampled an element of underlining twisted humor that works cohesively alongside its horror without sacrifice, the desperation here of the movie directly stopping a scene to wink and nod towards its audience is detractingly frustrating at leaving a bitter taste in my mouth, without anything even closely related to charming or endearing that wasn’t reheated a hundred times previously in the franchise. Speaking of reheated leftovers, it pains me to say this but Courteney Cox’s most recent turn as longtime series icon, Gale Weathers, feels obligational over observational, particularly in a lifelessly lagging performance so unmemorable that the movie forgets about her around the halfway point. For our sake, it’s a good thing because Cox doesn’t bring the kind of psychological consistency to her character that Campbell does, instead going through the motions of drably lifeless line reads so impersonal that they sound like a recorded table read, and considering Scream 6 had the ability to finally do away with some of its excessive baggage, its reluctance to do so now weighs heavily on future installments, where even the character’s mention of her long gone husband can’t strike a connective chord with an adoring audience.

OVERALL
Scream 7 is a blandly generic and derivatively redundant plan B of an installment that unironically digests Artificial Intelligence throughout a movie lacking any kind of soul or consciousness effort to its creativity, instead relying on the reheated leftovers of the past that haunt this aging soul like the brighter times of yesterday. While Neve Campbell’s versatile return does inject some much-needed life into this lagging effort, the bad writing, predictably flat mystery, and rapid tonal shifts have it taking a stab at so much, and connecting with so little, spitting out the most forgettable installment of the entire franchise straight out of the machine that will inevitably produce its sequel

My Grade: 5.1 or D+