‘Scream 7’ Movie Review: Neve Campbell Makes Worthy Return In Meta-Slasher Franchise
Photo from Paramount Pictures
From Jeremy Kibler
In the thirty-year-old meta slasher-whodunit franchise that really has defined a genre and the mid-‘90s, Scream 7 is here to be the violently bloody yet touching love note for the most unconditional fan. Having to pivot from anything involving the Carpenter sisters from Scream (2022) and Scream VI (you can read about the unfortunate behind-the-scenes drama elsewhere, not here), this seventh entry is the Sidney Prescott show that fans deserve, and what matters is what actually exists on that screen. While it can’t touch the airtight craft and novelty of previous installments, Scream 7 is worthy, admirably smaller in scale with a meaningful emotional core to leaven the body count.
Refusing to let her past define her, Sidney now lives in the charming small town of Pine Grove with police chief and husband Mark Evans (Joel McHale) and owns a cute little coffee shop, The Little Latte. They have three children, but while the younger two are visiting with her mother-in-law, Sidney is having a tough time connecting with teenage daughter Tatum (Isabel May), who wants to know more about Mom’s body-ridden history. Understandably, Sidney is overprotective, not liking when Tatum’s boyfriend Ben (Sam Rechner) comes through her bedroom window, which brings on the PG-13 relationship déjà vu. Then a Woodsboro number calls Sid, and then there’s an attack by a Ghostface killer who clearly wants to harm Tatum and take Sidney down. She’s Sidney Fucking Prescott, er, Evans, so of course she’s not going to let that happen.
Using nostalgia without solely coasting on it, Scream 7 feels like a homecoming. Since Scream was his brainchild, it’s a treat to see screenwriter Kevin Williamson make his first time behind the camera since his 1999 directorial debut Teaching Mrs. Tingle and allow Sidney Prescott to be front and center for the first time since 2011’s Scream 4. It’s a treat seeing Sidney get her shot at happiness, until another killer has to ruin it for her. With that, the first act of the film is the strongest, establishing Sidney’s new normal like a family drama that then snowballs into a home-invasion horror thriller. Kevin Williamson and co-writer Gary Busick never lay on the subject of trauma with a trowel since it’s already baked into the character of Sidney.
As nods to the original film go, a few early beats are very on-the-nose, particularly when we first meet Tatum, but the film does find more of a balance with the past while coming more into its own. There are also shadings of Halloween here, from three girlfriends taking an autumnal walk to school, to an investigative trip to a psychiatric hospital, that respect the horror genre without feeling like blatant rip-offs. Composer Marco Beltrami is another franchise returnee, and besides reprising his memorably sorrowful “Sidney’s Lament” over the opening logo, his score chillingly brings one back to his work on the first Scream. One recognizable song choice late in the film is also more than welcome.
The opening sequence is a wickedly fun jolt, set at Stu Macher’s old house on Turner Lane, which has now been turned into a cheesy Airbnb for Stab-loving tourists. It’s a well-staged, stunt-heavy set-piece, making creepy, dread-inducing use of Ghostface’s white mask lurking in the dark before the killer pounces. Since Scream 7 is still a slasher movie, it delivers effectively on that front, particularly with two kills that could rank as the goriest in the series. A piñata-style death scene on a high school theater stage is cleverly nasty, and a very ‘80s slasher-style kill involving a bar tap might be the gnarliest. A hide-and-seek set-piece with Sidney and Tatum in the walls of their home is classily orchestrated, relying on old-fashioned tension, and an extended chase set-piece between Tatum and Ghostface through the under-curfew town and in Sidney’s coffee shop after hours is thrilling.
While this seventh installment may be the least meta, there are several references to Sidney missing out on the Scream VI action in New York (of course, this was because of Neve Campbell’s pay dispute with the studio). There are also fewer horror trends to interrogate here, although the fad of deepfake and AI definitely make up a prominent plot point in ways that both service us fans and curdle Sidney’s pseudo-quasi happy existence. How Matthew Lillard and other Ghostfaces from the past make jarring returns is clever and surprising, putting constant online fan theories to bed.
Neve Campbell is outstanding, emanating the grace, strength and resilience to Sidney as she always has, and remains the fierce grounding force. Sidney is a true “final girl,” however, Campbell makes the character feel nothing short of lived-in and relatable as a woman just trying to live her life and raise a family. Campbell’s line delivery beautifully explaining why Sidney named her daughter after best friend Tatum (Rose McGowan) is so sweet and authentic that it had this fan holding back tears. Isabel May (known for her TV work in a Taylor Sheridan-created universe) lives up to a lot of qualities that would make up a part of Sidney Prescott’s daughter. As the reserved but intelligent and resourceful Tatum, she’s terrific and emotionally available with a lot of stealth fight in her. Altogether, Campbell, May, and a well-cast Joel McHale convincingly make up a lovable familial unit as the Evans.
As the less-selfish and less-icy Gale Weathers, Courteney Cox makes a grand deux ex machina entrance, and while she lives even more on the periphery than she did in Scream VI, the moments Cox shares with Campbell are touching in the way their complicated friendship has evolved and strengthened. Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding are still joys to watch as twice-surviving twin siblings Mindy and Chad, who have gone on to intern with Gale. Their participation feels wedged-in, however, and Mindy’s know-it-all movie-rule monologuing feels a little less endearing this time around.
A supporting cast of mostly fresh faces ably make characters who probably felt even more underwritten on the page but are each given just enough life by the performers, including Mckenna Grace and Celeste O’Connor, as Tatum’s friends Hannah and Chloe, and Anna Camp, as Sidney’s single-mother neighbor Jessica.
Let it be known, there are no bad Scream movies—leave Scream 3 alone!—just ones that are more rewatchable than others. The Ghostface(s) reveal is decidedly one of the less spectacular ones in the franchise—it’s easy to predict who’s behind the mask and a little more arbitrary—but there is still a twisted alchemy to the crazy-enough logic of the motive and the deliciously heightened places the actor (or actors) go. Scream 7 may rank on the lower rung of the franchise, but it is also the seventh film in a slasher series, so for it to be as moving and character-centric as it is, that’s an impressive feat.
Rating: 4/5
Scream 7 is currently in theaters.
