‘Scream 7’ Review: A Slasher Series Runs Out of Targets to Skewer

One of the nice parts about the Scream franchise is you never have to work too hard to discover what they’re about. The characters come right out and say it. At one point in Scream 7, someone stands up and helpfully declares: This time it’s about nostalgia.

That’s slightly uncomfortable territory for a Scream sequel. True, with seven films spread over 30 years, this series has plenty of material to look back upon. But Scream was once the ultra-modern, ultra-meta horror franchise. Now it’s so old it has two totally different legacy casts; a handful of survivors from its original ’90s trilogy, and the ones from a pair of legacyquels released in the last few years.

In Scream 7, both casts run into trouble with a new Ghostface — and with six movies worth of plot baggage and recycled tropes, some of which has been trotted out so many times they threaten to ossify into precisely the sort of clichés Scream movies used to mock.

READ MORE: Every Scream Movie Ranked, From Worst to Best

There’s no clearer indication of the time that’s passed since the original Scream than the fact that its first final girl, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) now has three kids — including a daughter named Tatum (Isabel May) who is Sidney’s age during the events of the first movie. Tatum, Sidney, and Sidney’s police chief husband Mark (Joel McHale) live in a quiet little Midwestern town; the only details Tatum knows about her mother’s horrific past are the ones she’s gleaned from movies and documentaries about the old Ghostface killings. Sidney refuses to talk about what she went through in a misguided effort to shield Tatum from all the trauma she’s endured.

Ah, but hanging out with Sidney Prescott is like going swimming at Amity Island on the 4th of July. Eventually, someone’s gonna get attacked. And wouldn’t you know it? A new Ghostface (still voiced by Roger L. Jackson after all these years) shows up at Sidney’s front door, and begins the cycle of violence all over again — albeit with far less emphasis on horror genre conventions than ever before. That could be because, in 2026, Scream is one of the last slasher franchises left standing; the only genre conventions still around are its own. (Gotta make sure you gather together all the suspects in a single place. Otherwise it will take to long to kill them!)

Or maybe after six movies satirizing serial killers, sequels, trilogies, YouTube videos, toxic fans, and legacyquels, Scream finally ran out of targets to skewer. It certainly feels that way watching Scream 7. Sure, the traditional cold open takes some shots at dark tourism, and later scenes vaguely allude to the fact that modern computer technology is way scarier than a dude with a butcher knife. But all of that gets treated so toothlessly. Sidney’s fear of passing her trauma on to her daughter could have become fertile territory for a Scream made in an era when it seems like every horror film is about inherited trauma. Scream 7’s script, by Guy Busick and series creator Kevin Williamson, never does anything with it.

Instead, somewhat surprisingly, the main highlights this time are the emotional scenes between Campbell and May, which convincingly capture the fraught relationship between a protective mom and her naive daughter. For a while, it’s almost as if Williamson, serving as his own director for the first time in the franchise, decided to combine his two signature creations — Scream and Dawson’s Creek. And it ... kind of works?

But then the stabbing and mutilating starts (this Scream’s got a lot of blood), and most of the character development goes down the drain like Janet Leigh’s guts in the Bates Motel shower. To Williamson and Busick’s credit, they do upend some of Ghostface’s more formulaic tactics, and they make clever use of the legacy cast members, including scoop-chasing reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), whose frenemy relationship with Sidney now spans three decades. It’s nice to see Campbell and Cox back together — Campbell sat out Scream VI following a pay dispute with producers — and Williamson deploys Sidney and Gale’s long history to bring some genuine emotion to their scenes together.

Still, Scream 7’s kills are bloody without being particularly memorable or scary, and the solution of the Ghostface mystery here, despite some promising early twists, is maybe the least satisfying in the entire franchise — which is really saying something. Parts of this movie are actually smart; I would have loved more scenes about Sidney the intense mom trying to relate to her sheltered daughter. But the parts about an unstoppable killer in a ghost mask are often so stupid, it’s hard to remain invested in that central relationship. Let me put it this way: When I look back at this franchise in another 30 years, Scream 7 is not going to be one of the installments I’m nostalgic about.

Additional Thoughts:

-Someday, someone will give Joel McHale a film role worthy of his talents. I’ve liked McHale ever since I used to watch him every week on The Soup. I’ve seen him wasted in movies before, but man, I’m not sure he’s ever been more wasted in anything than he is Scream 7. Why hire Joel McHale to play Sidney’s bland cop husband?

-The Scream 7 press screening in New York was held in the city’s one true IMAX theater, and the promo art projected on the giant screen beforehand announced that viewers will “Scream for the first time in IMAX.” Alas, the whole film played with huge black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and generally looked dim and grainy throughout. That last part could be the fault of the particular projector and not the print itself, but regardless, this is one film where I would not spring for the IMAX upcharge.

RATING: 5/10