'Scream 7' review: Neve Campbell returns in a lifeless slasher sequel stuck in its own echo chamber

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

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GhostFace is back, once again stalking clueless victims with an inventive flair for theatrical bloodshed. On the surface, “Scream 7” delivers what you’d expect: grisly kills, self-aware quips, and the promise of another twisty whodunit. But beneath the blood and guts lies a troubling reality. The franchise that once redefined horror has now become the very hollow IP machine it used to parody. It’s essentially morphed into its own movie-within-the-movie joke, the “Stab” series it once skewered. One can’t help but wonder what Wes Craven would make of where “Scream” has ended up. 

What’s perhaps most surprising is that original creator Kevin Williamson steps behind the camera here. The writer who helped etch “Scream” into the nineties zeitgeist seems to have misplaced the very elements that made the franchise durable in the first place: sharp meta-commentary, playful irreverence, and a genuine curiosity about the evolving rules of horror. “Scream 7” gestures toward those ideas but never meaningfully engages with them. The wit is thinner. The satire is timid. The commentary feels like an afterthought.

It’s impossible to discuss the film without addressing the chaos behind the scenes. The last two installments, directed by the Radio Silence duo Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, were clearly building toward a conclusion for the “core four.” That trajectory was derailed when Melissa Barrera was fired over social media comments regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict, followed by Jenna Ortega’s exit due to “scheduling conflicts.” Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savory Brown return as Chady and Mindy, but it’s immediately evident that Williamson and Guy Busick’s script has no idea what to do with them. Like the ugly stepchildren from a previous marriage that nobody wants. 

That confusion permeates the entire film. “Scream 7” awkwardly fuses legacy characters with newer faces and sprinkles in half-baked ideas about AI and deepfake videos that never develop into anything of sustenance. If you’re looking for a franchise comparison, think of the final stretch of the recent “Star Wars” trilogy. More specifically, this is “The Rise of Skywalker” all over again: a panicked retcon operation that drags back fan favorites and reverse-engineers mythology in a desperate bid for applause where nostalgia becomes the strategy and the story takes a back seat. 

Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott after sitting out “Scream 6” due to a salary dispute, and the film makes sure you remember it. Sidney’s absence is awkwardly over-explained, and her return becomes less an organic evolution than a course correction. The entire premise hinges on the idea that Sidney can never escape her past. She’s now a suburban mom in Pine Grove, Indiana, raising her 17-year-old daughter Tatum, played by Isabel May, who wants to understand her mother’s history. Cue all the familiar beats of the first “Scream,” complete with the boyfriend sneaking through the window and monologuing about watching movies edited for tv. 

Let’s be honest. Sidney has survived what, a dozen GhostFace killers at this point? At some stage, you stop calling that trauma and start calling it absurd repetition. At some point wouldn't you, I don’t know, live in an underground bunker? This is precisely why her absence in “Scream 6” felt earned. The character deserved peace. Dragging her back into the cycle doesn’t deepen anything, it only flattens her arch that much more. 

The new crop of teens surrounding Tatum are thinly drawn to the point of where, knife to my throat, I couldn’t tell you a single thing or characteristic about them. They exist to recreate the beats of the original “Scream,” complete with nostalgic needle drops and Easter eggs, particularly callbacks to “Scream 2.” But homage without perspective is just imitation. Where the 1996 original dissected horror tropes and generational trauma with razor precision, “Scream 7” devolves into a paint-by-numbers mystery that feels closer to “Scooby-Doo” than subversive satire. Characters conveniently gather in one location to debate suspects, and the killer telegraphs itself from miles away. When the inevitable monologue arrives? Well that’s a whole other story. 

To Williamson’s credit, he can still stage tension and bringing back Marco Beltrami to do the score is a major plus. And there’s one standout mid-film sequence in Sidney’s home that crackles with urgency and culminates in a crowd-pleasing legacy reveal that genuinely had my theater hollering. For a brief glimpse, you remember what this franchise can do. Then the film settles back into routine slash-and-dash mechanics, complete with nods to “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Halloween.” 

Visually, the downgrade is stark. Shown in Imax, a franchise first, “Scream 7” somehow looks smaller than its predecessors. The gritty texture and confident color grading that defined the Radio Silence entries are replaced by flat, sitcom-like framing. Even the once-sacred opening kill lacks the operatic punch that used to signal this franchise meant business.

Courteney Cox returns as Gale Weathers, and while the film teases an interesting evolution in her dynamic with Sidney, it never fully commits. There’s a spark in the scenes that explore their shared history, but the movie is too busy juggling mythology to let those quieter character beats breathe. Meanwhile, Chad and Mindy hover awkwardly in Gale’s orbit with no clear purpose (I guess they are interns now..?). The film doesn’t even bother acknowledging the Carpenter sisters despite their narrative importance to the previous installments. 

“Scream 7” repeatedly insists its theme is about facing your past. But how many times does Sidney have to face it before the franchise admits it has nothing new to add? The series once thrived because it had something sharp to say about horror culture. Now it feels like content made to preserve brand recognition rather than challenge it.

As an avid “Scream” fan, it pains me to say this, but the franchise needs to step away. Let it rest. Let it rediscover its voice. Or better yet, repair the fractured storyline and give the Carpenter sisters the proper conclusion they were building toward. Continuing for the sake of continuity is not the same as evolving.

“Scream 7” isn’t a disaster. It’s worse. It’s indifferent. A franchise that once gleefully dissected horror has become a hollow imitation of itself. At this point, the sharpest joke “Scream” could make would be knowing when to end.

Stick a knife in it.

Grade: C-

SCREAM 7 is now playing in theaters.