After sitting out the sixth film in the series, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to headline the latest entry in the long-running slasher franchise. Coming 30 years after Drew Barrymore first took a stabbing in the series’ most iconic kill, and with original screenwriter Kevin Williamson directing, it should have been a full-circle moment. Stomping all over that sentiment is the sudden departure of Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega from the Scream films, creating a void that’s impossible to ignore.
Spyglass Media Group’s despicable treatment of Barrera bleeds through into the picture, which feels like a step backwards after what transpired in Scream VI. This clearly wasn’t the plan, and Sidney’s much-publicised return feels like a clumsy attempt to throw a curtain over the elephant in the room. Now Sidney Evans, she’s living in a small town with new husband Mark (Joel McHale) and teenage daughter Tatum (Isabel May). Her idyllic new life is thrown into chaos with the sudden return of (a) Ghostface, making their presence felt after a brutal murder at Stu Macher’s house.
Someone’s clearly out to get Sid, but who? Could a face from her distant past have returned to haunt her and her new family? Or is it another pretender, following in the footsteps of so many Ghostface killers before?
Campbell picks up where she left off without missing a beat, although Williamson’s screenplay (written with Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt) spends most of its time making her apologise for missing out on Scream’s New York adventure. Reducing the Core Four to a terrible twosome, siblings Chad and Mindy (Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown) are back, although neither they nor the script deign to explain where the Carpenter sisters are. And there’s Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) too, taking something of a back seat after being put through the wringer in Scream VI.
It’s not just the returning members of the cast who feel like they’re going through the motions; Scream 7 brings little to the table that we haven’t seen before. Recent developments in AI and deepfake technology are a recurring theme, but ultimately go nowhere – aside from a real-life marketing campaign with Meta. Indeed, it doesn’t have much to say about anything at all, lazily coasting on references to its own past. Some of the kill sequences are effective (there’s one involving a beer tap that might be the nastiest we’ve ever seen), but without anyone to care about, they’re a wasted opportunity.
Scream 7 could be the worst film in the franchise. At least we could see what was going on in Scream 3, which is more than we can say for the ugly, miserable cinematography here. It’s the first one to feel like a Stab film rather than Scream proper – a phoned-in, heartless and panicked sequel, made easier to ignore for all that’s gone on behind the scenes.
SCREAM 7 is out in UK cinemas now.
