by Anthony O’Connor
Worth:Â $15.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Intro:
… far more engaging than any seventh film in a horror franchise has any right to be.
The Scream series essentially coasts on the genre-defining success of its brilliant first film, Scream (1996). That flick, written by newcomer Kevin Williamson and directed by the late, great Wes Craven, pumped new life into the mouldering corpse of the slasher genre and gave birth to a new generation of fright flicks.
Two sequels followed in quick succession: Scream 2 (1997), which had its moments, and Scream 3 (2000), which was a hot mess and felt terribly dated sixteen seconds after it was released (Jay and Silent Bob cameo, anyone? Two Creed songs on the soundtrack! Courteney Cox’s bewildering haircut!).
The franchise all but vanished for over a decade and returned with 2011’s Scream 4, Wes Craven’s final outing at the helm, and the result was fun albeit slight. After Craven’s passing in 2015 it seemed that the series could finally rest but, nup, in 2022 directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett dusted the old girl off and gave us the surprisingly solid, annoying titled Scream (2022). The film made oodles of money, so Scream VI (2023) swiftly followed, which was engaging enough but lacked the wit, whimsy and characters that you actually care about from the earlier films. Scream 7 was inevitable, but due to some tedious social media shenanigans, star Melissa Barrera was given the arse, which led to co-stars Jenna Ortega and then-director Christopher Landon also buggering off. The film was heavily rewritten and handed off to original Scream scribe Kevin Williamson, who has taken the series back to its roots, for good and ill. But mostly good.
Scream 7 focuses the increasingly convoluted action back on its original star Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), the woman who has survived five previous Ghostface attacks (she wasn’t in Scream VI due to a pay dispute). Sidney, now going by Sidney Evans, lives in quiet, idyllic Pine Grove, is happily married to husband Mark (Joel McHale) and has three healthy children. Her eldest, Tatum (Isabel May) is now a young woman with questions for her frequently murder-adjacent mum, questions Sidney would prefer not to answer, and the pair have friction as a result. However, when the murders start up again and the bodies start dropping, these two will need to dig deep if they expect to survive. And when Sidney starts getting video calls from none other than Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), it seems clear that something diabolical is going on. It couldn’t really be Stu. He’s dead, right?
Scream 7, particularly in its first act, makes a bunch of very wise decisions. Giving Sidney the spotlight again and making it the story of her and her daughter is a great move for veteran fans of the franchise, and also makes the emotional stakes surprisingly strong. Campell does her best work here since the original and Isabel May is a capable, likeable co-lead (who was also terrific in Taylor Sheridan’s brilliant but grim 1883). The film also eschews a lot of the horror movie banter that was starting to become wearying in more recent entries, and makes this a character-driven yarn, with people you actually care about and would prefer not to die. The action also moves along at a breakneck pace, particularly in the first half, which helps you get immersed without asking questions about the decision making faculties of the frequently directionally-challenged cast.
Williamson (who co-wrote the script with Guy Busick) does solid work directing this, his second feature after 1999’s Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and although his kill sequences are never as stylish as those in the previous two films, they’re often more impactful for their simplicity and brutality. On the downside, the second half of the film does drop off. The inclusion of Courteney Cox feels mandated rather than necessary and other than her jaw-dropping arrival, is absolutely surplus to requirements. The eventual killer reveal also is one of the series’ weakest, feeling completely out of leftfield and not believable in the slightest.
Still and all, for all its many flaws, Scream 7 is far more engaging than any seventh film in a horror franchise has any right to be. Buoyed by great performances from Neve Campbell, Joel McHale and Isabel May, and a script that actually delivers emotional heft for once, this is a solid entry in a franchise that felt like it was beginning to lose its way.
Mind you, it might be time to let the old girl rest for a while now. Just as you can only hear that Richard Gere gerbil story so many times before you have to start believing it, you can only sequelise the one truly great movie in the series so many times before the law of diminishing returns kicks you fair in the crotch.