Scream 7 review (2026)
Scream 7 holds the dubious distinction of being the first bad installment of the franchise. That’s a credit to a series that started in the late 90s and shown remarkably adaptability to evolve with its audience.
The main culprit for killing off so much of the fun in Scream 7 is a disappointing lack of innovation and continuing the series’ evolution.
To a major degree, a lot of the issues with Scream 7 are due to behind-the-scenes drama, which in a lot of ways is more interesting than the movie itself. Scream V and Scream VI starred Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortiz as estranged sisters who reunite in the wake of a new series of killings.
Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and screenwriters Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt were cooking up an intriguing trilogy revolving around Barrera’s character fighting the darker impulses from her dead father.
When Barrera got cancelled, she was cut from Scream 7. Ortiz soon departed seemingly in a sign of solidarity with her co-star and Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett were passed over to get Scream 7 fast tracked.
That left Paramount Pictures in a bind requiring a make good with original series star Neve Campbell after a lowball salary offer kept her away from returning for Scream VI. The studio also turned to Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first film, to direct and co-write Scream 7 with Guy Busick, the lone creative holdover from Scream V and VI.
Sidney has put the string of murders behind her and started a new life with her husband, Mark (Joel McHale). While they’ve got two younger children away with his mother, they also have a teenage daughter, Tatum (Isabel May, I Want You Back), who wants to know more about her mother’s trauma.
The community is rocked when a new Ghostface appears and starts killing people. Worse for Sidney, this Ghostface claims to be the not so dead after all Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard, Daredevil: Born Again), who maybe didn’t die during the first incident?
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Sidney best represents the franchise’s growth as she’s gone from a plucky final girl to a woman with understandable trust issues. Without Campbell, Scream 7 couldn’t work and she delivers a nuanced compelling portrayal of a survivor who refuses to define her life as a victim.
Williamson and Busick don’t have a lot of other bullets in the narrative chamber leading to Ghostface having to be portrayed as a ninja to perpetrate their murders in Scream 7.
Bringing Sidney back also creates some logistical problems like why Sidney, who’s married to a police chief, wouldn’t have an over-the-top security system with redundancies in place or at least make sure Tatum is capable of defending herself. Just in case another masked killer tries to come after the family.
To serve as some connective tissue with the previous two films, horror movie buff twins Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding) return as interns for Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox). Cox feels more necessary this time since Gale’s connection with Sidney is genuine and she’s given far more to do.
Scream 7 is less about establishing the new guard and more about the continuing adventures of longtime favorites. Consequently, the twins feel totally unnecessary and take away time from the new characters.
Naturally there’s a list of potential suspects including Sidney’s neighbor, Jessica (Anna Camp) and her awkward teenage son Lucas (Asa Greenman, Gen V), Tatum’s boyfriend Ben (Sam Rechner) and the fun-loving Chloe (Celeste O’Connor).
At just under two hours, Scream 7 has time for stronger character development to better establish the killer’s motivation, but that’s doesn’t happen.
With the story lacking much substance, Williamson aims for gorier deaths that really come off as needlessly cruel and mean-spirited. Not that a serial killer should be polite about the slayings, but previous Ghostface didn’t act like Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger in committing their murders.
This Ghostface also benefits from all of the characters acting like idiots who’ve never heard of a masked serial killer before. That’s ironic considering Williamson wrote the characters in the original Scream as horror movie savvy enough that they didn’t fall victim to the genre’s standard tropes. Characters regularly knock Ghostface out and do the silly run around technique instead of just going for a kill shot. Williamson does craft some decent jump scares so it’s not all emotionless.
The film also suffers from an underwhelming final act/ big reveal that doesn’t make much sense, which has never been an issue with any of the other films.
Scream 7 is the highest grossing installment in the series so an eighth film seems inevitable. Hopefully it will mark the return of the full Core 4, a much tighter script and better action.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures
Scream 7 is up for pre-order on 4K and Blu-Ray on Amazon.
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