Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has moved from Woodsboro to a similarly blustery and eternally autumnal town, Pine Grove, Indiana, where she married police officer Mark Evans (Joel McHale) and together they raise their teenage daughter, Tatum (Isabel May).  Content to leave her association with the Stab murders behind her, fate has other plans for the serial killer serial survivor when she receives a call from Ghostface threatening her and her family.  In typical fashion, Ghostface begins to pick off Tatum’s friends as he works his way closer and closer to Sidney. 

Kevin Williamson returns to the Scream franchise to write, with assistance from frequent collaborator Guy Busick, and for the first time, direct, Scream 7, a 114 minute elongation of the iconic meta-franchise.  After some interpersonal and political fallout among the Scream VI (2023) cast and producers at Paramount Pictures, the latest continuation of the Ghostface sage pivots away from New York City and acts almost as a retcon of the legacy sequel duology.  With its constant references back onto itself, and plenty of references to Stab, Scream 7 is still much in the tradition of the self aware franchise while also working in some more elaborate playgrounds for Ghostface to dispatch with his victims in ways that have been typical of the slasher genre for decades but have often been left out of this specific franchise. 

As is tradition, the film cold opens, this time with Scott (Jimmy Tatro) and Madison (Michelle Randolph) visiting Stu Macher’s house where the original Scream (1996)/Stab was set; the residence now pimped out into a Stab shrine and interactive Airbnb type experience.  Seven entries in, it is hard to get invested in this sequence as we know this ill-fated pair are simply there to set the mood and with the script really laying on thick the references, it sets more of a concerning precedent for the film to follow than serving as a true appetizer. 

Once in the film proper, Scream 7 sets the table competently enough to prepare audiences for what they should, this late in the franchise, already know what is coming.  Sidney quickly kicks out Ben (Sam Rechner), Tatum’s boyfriend who snuck into her room through the window, infusing the final girl – final woman? – with an overly cautious paranoia that the more mature Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) also exhibited in David Gordon Green’s Halloween re-quel trilogy (2018-2022).  With less to do than Curtis in her reprisal, Campbell finds herself in a strange limbo on screen with passion and reverence for the franchise clearly evident, but almost sleepwalking through another convoluted Ghostface murder spree for the umpteenth time. Despite being transplanted to a new town, the screenwriting pair refuses to let Sidney grow as a character in any meaningful way and Campbell, in turn, is all to happy to show up and collect the check. 

The shift does allow for the teenage cast to get dispatched with in some uniquely brutal ways, but Williamson does not even hide the fact that this film – safe for Tatum – is not really interested in the fodder.  This is a story about Sydney, Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), who, along with fellow newcomers and horror head twins Minday and Chad Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding, respectively), are first on the scene to report the attack at the Prescott-Evans’ household.  Also returning to the series, though through a series of recorded videos is Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), back from the grave to haunt Sydney and enact his revenge.  This is one of the more interesting threads that the film weaves because it incorporates the idea of deep fake technology and AI showing how it can be weaponized while still playing in the realm of a down and dirty, yet known-for-its modernity slasher series.  The plot point is ultimately played off with a confusing note; one only made confusing because, despite a lack of precision when plotting out the set pieces, the actual behavior of these characters is egregious even taking into account that they are in a horror film. 

As this way too long entry that is so entrenched in its own legacy finally begins to round the corner to its end, the final reveal has about all the impact of the unmasking of a Scooby-Doo villain revealing themselves to be the groundskeeper seen for a moment at the start of the episode and hardly – if ever – referred to again.  Another pair of killers which has become yet another franchise staple more or less, who would have gotten away with it, too!  Ditzy neighbor Jessica (Anna Camp) who was, for lack of a better word, fascinated and star struck by the Sydney Prescott saga that she moved her family next door to her teams up with Marco Davis (Ethan Embry), a doctor at the local metal institution, where Stu may or may not have spent time before he may or may not have escaped and/or died.  Marco is involved in the plot mostly through his association of a convoluted web to lay out more red herrings about Ghostface’s true identity and to smooth over – or just backfill with loose gravel – whatever plot holes are left behind by having the neighbor pick up the knife.  Beyond the hoops the narrative needs to jump through to even begin to made a modicum of sense, it is just not a satisfying conclusion to an already unsatisfying mystery. 

Stuck in the past with no sense of forward momentum, Scream is suffering from a real Sydney Prescott problem, and with just enough survivors to shape yet another sequel, this poor woman’s peace seems unlikely.  As the entries tick on, the kills get more and more elaborate meaning our defacto heroes need to withstand more and more incredible damage simply to make it to the first act of the next installment, but nothing in this franchise or more battered and bruised than its audeinces’ patience.