{"id":311567,"date":"2026-02-26T16:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T16:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/311567\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T16:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T16:55:07","slug":"neve-campbell-returns-to-no-avail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/311567\/","title":{"rendered":"Neve Campbell Returns, to No Avail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere\u2019s plenty of suspense in the seventh installment of the venerable Scream<\/a> horror movie franchise. Unfortunately, most of it involves the backstory and corporate intrigue. Did Melissa Barrera deserve to be fired<\/a>? What was the real reason<\/a> Jenna Ortega<\/a> departed? What kind of hardball did Neve Campbell<\/a> play to be enticed back to the series<\/a>? Will series creator Kevin Williamson<\/a> do a good job directing one of the films for the first time? Which veteran franchise performers, representing characters both living and dead, return for cameos? And most importantly, why did the title switch back to an Arabic numeral after they used a Roman one the last time?<\/p>\n

\n\tSorry, but you need to have something to think about during this latest edition of a franchise that is dead creatively if certainly not commercially. You can rest assured that Ghostface, sporting that perennially creepy mask and dependably voiced by Roger L. Jackson, will slash his way through most of the cast, whose survival will depend on contract negotiations. There will be fake-out scares, followed by real ones, and plenty of self-referential discussions in which the characters comment ironically on their situation. \u201cIt\u2019s always someone you know,\u201d one observes about the real identity of the killer behind the mask. \u201cThis was too easy,\u201d another comments after Ghostface is seemingly dispatched at one point. \u201cThere\u2019s always more than one.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tScream 7\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tDead creatively, if not commercially.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date: Friday, February 27
Cast: Neve Campbell, Isabel May, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, David Arquette, Roger L. Jackson, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, Mckenna Grace, Asa Germann, Celeste O\u2019Connor, Sam Rechner, Mark Consuelos, Tim Simons, Matthew Lillard, Joel McHale, Courteney Cox
Director: Kevin Williamson
Screenwriters: Kevin Williamson, Guy Busick
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated R,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 54 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tBy now the mechanics of the series have become so numbingly familiar that the films have the stale feel of Pink Floyd cover bands. The big news about Scream 7, of course, is the return of Campbell as Sidney Prescott, who was sorely missed in the last one. Not surprisingly, screenwriters Williamson and Guy Busick make sure to let us know we\u2019re in on the joke when Courteney Cox<\/a>\u2019s intrepid television reporter Gale Weathers, who was seriously injured in Scream VI <\/a>(but of course survived), tells Sidney, \u201cYou were missed in New York, it\u2019s not the same without you,\u201d adding, \u201cYou\u2019re lucky you sat that one out. It was brutal.\u201d And Sidney is naturally described as a \u201cscream queen,\u201d on par with Jamie Lee Curtis of the Halloween films.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSidney has made a new life for herself in another town: She\u2019s now happily married to local cop Mark (Joel McHale) and has a teenage daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), named after Sidney\u2019s friend, who met an untimely end in Scream. Tatum\u2019s boyfriend (Sam Rechner) has just the sort of devilish looks to make him a suspect when Ghostface returns to wreak havoc. Not that Ghostface seems to be shy about revealing his identity, since Sidney receives a series of taunting, threatening videos from Stu (Matthew Lillard), Ghostface\u2019s accomplice in the first film, who supposedly died.<\/p>\n

\n\tOr did he? Hard to tell, since the series is so fond of resurrecting former characters despite their deceased status that you practically need a spreadsheet to keep track of them all. You can rest assured that there are many more of them on display in this installment, with only Paramount\u2019s threats of sending Ghostface to my home preventing me from revealing them. But it\u2019s hopefully not too much of a spoiler to say that the series has kept up with modern technology, AI proving a key element in this go-around.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther new characters who may or may not survive include Sidney\u2019s solicitous neighbor Jessica (Anna Camp); her son Lucas (Asa Germann), who\u2019s obsessed with the previous Ghostface murders; Tatum\u2019s perky friend Hannah (Mckenna Grace); and mental institution employee Marco (Ethan Embry), who provides useful information about some of the former inhabitants. Feel free to place your bets as to which of them, or whomever else, is the person, or persons, behind the mask, but you can rest assured it\u2019s a letdown.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe overfamiliarity would be more palatable if the dialogue were as fresh and funny as it was in the early installments, or if the kills were more creatively staged. But there\u2019s a rote quality to the proceedings that makes Scream 7 feel like a slog despite its high body count and copious gore. The supporting players, particularly the younger ones, lack the flair of their predecessors, with Campbell and Cox picking up the slack to fine but unsurprising effect. Although it must be said that the latter gets to make one hell of an entrance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s plenty of suspense in the seventh installment of the venerable Scream horror movie franchise. Unfortunately, most of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[32255,146,85,46,40595,69603,50704,397,69563,35153,37114],"class_list":{"0":"post-311567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-courteney-cox","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-jenna-ortega","13":"tag-kevin-williamson","14":"tag-melissa-barrera","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-neve-campbell","17":"tag-scream","18":"tag-wes-craven"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}