Scream 7 (SPOILERS!!!)

Three years after the last film, SCREAM has released its 7th installment of the franchise in the year of its 30th anniversary. SCREAM 7 had VERY rocky beginnings. Melissa Barrera (The star of the last two films) was fired for social media posts about the Israel-Palestine conflict, which led her co-star, Jenna Ortega, to quit the project. Then, on top of that, Director Christopher Landon left due to the absence of Barrera and Ortega, and for the next four months, SCREAM 7 was stuck in limbo. But in March of 2024, Kevin Williamson, the writer of SCREAM 1, 2, and 4, was announced as the new director, and with him, returning star Neve Campbell reprised her role as Sidney Prescott after sitting out of SCREAM 6 due to a payment dispute. Yet some fans still proposed a boycott of the film due to the firing of Melissa Barrera. Even so, with its February 27th release date, SCREAM 7 has made 97 million dollars globally, and 64.1 million in just its opening weekend, setting new records for the franchise. Not only that, but the film has officially made SCREAM into a billion-dollar franchise. But did SCREAM 7 live up to expectations? Let’s find out. 

We start the film with a couple, Madison and Scott, arriving at Stu Macher’s house, now turned to Airbnb after the events of SCREAM 5. The inside of the house is filled with memorabilia of the STAB films and facts about the real killings that occurred in the house. We take a 4th wall-breaking walk down memory lane, seeing chalk outlines of the killers from past films. There’s even a Ghostface animatronic with a motion sensor, giving the audience a false jump scare. The scene quickly turns grim as Madison receives a phone call from returning actor Roger L. Jackson, reprising his role as the voice of Ghostface. When returning to the living room with Scott, the once animatronic Ghostface is replaced with a real killer in the costume, as he lunges out and kills Scott with a knife through the head. Our first chase scene of the movie begins as the killer chases Madison through the house and up the stairs. The struggle ensues as Madison tumbles them both off the banister down to the floor below, falling directly onto Ghostface’s knife. While Madison writhes in pain on the floor, the killer starts setting the house ablaze, and eventually Madison is ablaze, walking out the door towards the camera, giving us our 7th title card of the franchise. While an awesome way to kick off the film, we will soon find out it has absolutely no correlation to the plot or the killer’s motive. 

We then cut to a bedroom where we meet Sidney Prescott’s daughter, Tatum, named after her best friend who was killed in the original SCREAM, and is played by Isabel May. Her boyfriend Ben crawls through her window in a DIRECT re-enactment of the scene Sidney shared with Billy in the first movie, even down to the same cover of “Don’t Fear The Reaper” in the background. Sindey walks in on them as she escorts Ben out of the house. She locks her door in multiple sections and sets her alarm system. We see how Sidney is still careful and aware of her past, but has chosen not to let it rule her life. Yet the lack of communication about her past has put a wedge between her and Tatum’s relationship. After an argument about how Sidney doesn’t trust Ben, we are introduced to Sidney’s husband, Mark Evans, played by Joel McHale, who has wonderful chemistry with Neve Campbell. Continuing our introduction to Sidney’s new life, we see that she is running a coffee shop in town. A montage between Sid walking to her job and Tatum walking to school ensues as we meet Sid and Tatum’s friends. Hannah and Chloe are Tatum’s high school best friends, played by McKenna Grace and Celeste O’Connor, and Jessica is Sidney’s neighbor and fellow mom, played by Anna Camp. Jessica’s son Lucas, played by Asa Germann, is a crime junky love interest for Tatum’s friend Chloe. As Tatum and her friends are at their theatre rehearsal, Sidney gets a call at work from none other than Woodsboro, California. Of course, Ghostface is on the other line speaking to an unimpressed Sidney, who believes it’s yet another prank call. But the killer makes clear, “I’m not hiding this time, Sidney,” and in a FULL change of formula, facetimes Sidney… and when she picks up, it’s STU MACHER, reprised by Matthew Lillard. A dolly pull on Sidney’s face represents what we are all feeling as this reveal happens. He shows Sidney that he is outside of Tatum’s school theatre, as Sidney immediately calls her husband. Inside the theatre, Hannah and a tech student are rehearsing the play’s harness rig section, where she flies around the stage. Her tech helper suddenly stops responding as she’s suspended mid-air, the lights go out, and she’s hit with a spotlight. A door flies open, and out walks Ghostface. As Hannah is swinging, Ghostface reaches up and starts slicing and dicing, eventually gutting her completely. By the time Sidney and the police arrive, the only thing left is a hanging body in one of the most beautiful and artistic shots of the franchise. 

After finding Tatum, Sidney takes her home, and they immediately start packing, ready to flee. But unbeknownst to them, they have a stowaway in their attic. As Ghostface creeps through the house, he eventually holds Tatum hostage with a knife pressed to her throat. Just when everything seems hopeless, Mark lunges at the killer, and a fight ensues, until eventually he is knocked down the stairs unconscious. The killer sprints after Sidney and Tatum, but just in time, they make it to a safe room in Sidney’s closet. This kicks off one of the most well-directed and suspenseful chases of the FRANCHISE. Sidney and Tatum shuffle inside the walls of the home, and Ghostface starts stabbing through the plaster, tracking them by noise. They eventually make it, and as Ghostface runs downstairs only to be tackled by Mark, out into the front lawn. Another fight ensues as Sidney helps Mark fight off the killer, eventually pushing him into the road. And in the most unexpected scene in the franchise, the killer is run over by a car and killed. The main theme of the past movies plays as Gale Weathers steps out of the car with her camera crew, Chad, and Mindy, from the last two films. After surviving multiple films, the group immediately knows their next step… unmask the killer. For the first time, we are about to see the real killer’s identity midway through the film. As they remove the mask, it’s… a random guy we saw in the coffee shop that gave Sidney a dirty look. When Gale asked, “Who is that?” Sidney actually said, “I don’t know.” This guy LITERALLY has 11 seconds of screen time, and 4 of those seconds were his dead body. Even though we are left confused and asking ourselves if this was the real killer, this was a very smart change in formula, truly letting us know that anything is on the table in this movie. As paramedics take the killer’s corpse away, our cast goes back into the house to introduce Chad and Mindy to the rest of our legacy characters. After a background check, Mark lets Sidney and Gale know the man’s name was Karl Allan Gibbs, an escaped mental patient from Fallbrook Psychiatric Hospital. As Sidney and Gale sit and talk about their next step, Sid gets a call. They pick up, and it’s Stu. There have already been mentions of the facetimes being AI, and it’s pretty obvious that’s the direction the plot is heading. But they actually say the word AI so much, you start to think that it’s a red herring and Stu truly IS alive. As he threatens Tatum’s life, Sidney is motivated to stay and unmask the other killer rather than flee. The two head to Fallbrook to see if they can get any helpful information, and it is here that they meet Karl’s orderly, Maro Davis. After learning about Karl’s past, they show Marco a picture of Su Macher, and he indeed knows him, but as a John Doe who came in with memory loss and was a good friend to Karl. On their way out, the two get an idea… draw the killer out, MAKE him call… how? By giving Gale what she’s wanted since 1996. And Finally for the first time in the franchise Gale Weathers is getting her interview with Sidney Prescott. 

Tatum and her friends head to Chloe’s family bar to talk suspects with Chad and Mindy. When they get there, on the news is Sidney and Gale. In their interview, they call out and insult Stu Macher to bait him into calling, but no call occurs. Gale presses a little too hard with her questions, and Sidney walks off air. They have a rinse and repeat argument of how Gale really only cares about the story and can’t be trusted, which we’ve had in literally all 6 prior films. But when Sidney asks, “What if I asked you about Dewey on live TV?” We really see how the loss of Dewey has taken a toll on Gale’s emotional life. But the conversation is cut short as Stu finally calls. They pick up, and he tells them that he is at a random bar… with Tatum. Sidney immediately runs out to the car but doesn’t have the keys, so instead of going to get them, she decides to run all the way to Tatum. Back at the bar, Tatum, upset by the interview, decides to have Ben drive her to her mom, but in the car, she sees Ben’s open laptop. As she takes a closer look, she sees that Ben was recording videos of himself and using AI to turn them into Stu Macher. Believing he’s the killer, Tatum knocks him out with the laptop and runs out of the car. In the bar, Chloe wanders off to take pizza out of the oven, and Lucas follows her, leaving Chad and Mindy all alone in the dining area. Not being their first rodeo, Chad and Mindy immediately bolt for the door after every suspect conveniently disappears, only for it to be locked as the power goes out. In the kitchen, Chloe is on her way back but is met with a Ghostface standing at the door, they play ring around the rose around the counters until the killer ducks down out of sight. Chloe does the same and creeps around in a scene very reminiscent of the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park. She’s grabbed, and she hits the guy in the face, only to realize it’s Chad coming to rescue. But he’s then ambushed and stabbed in the shoulder. And as Mindy tries to help her brother, she’s sliced in the stomach. Chloe takes the chance to run out of the kitchen, where she bumps into Lucas. After being warned of the danger, he plays hero and runs in after the killer. Moments later, his stabbed body is thrown back into the room as Chloe dives behind the bar to hide. The killer bursts out in pursuit, only to be met with an empty room. He looks behind the bar, but Chloe is under the counter out of sight as she hears the front door slam shut. As she falls for the trick and peeks up, the killer grabs her onto the counter, sliding her across into some glasses which slice her throat open. The killer’s attention is then drawn to Lucas, who is still alive and suffering on the floor. The killer picks him up by the head, drags him over to a sharp beer keg, and impales him on the nozzle. Lucas’s head lolls, and the keg is activated as a mixture of blood and beer pours out of his mouth while the killer watches. Now, as creative as a kill as this was, this felt SO over the top and out of character for the franchise; it kind of takes you out of it. We would see a kill like this in a HALLOWEEN movie, or Friday the 13th, but it’s so out of character for the SCREAM franchise. While we have seen the kills get gorier since the first SCREAM, like when Olivia was gutted in part 4, or when Jason found Greg’s dismembered body in their fridge in part 6. But this over-the-top, almost goofy, not taking ourselves seriously kill, does not work for the tone that the SCREAM series has set. As Tatum is running back to the bar, Ghostfaces burst out of the front door,  pursuing her down the street. She knocks him down and runs into the street for the most painful 7 seconds in the whole franchise. Tatum becomes the cliche of yelling for help instead of running, but tenfold. She does a half stubble around, looking all around her, yelling for help, and only when the killer catches back up does she take off. She hides behind a sign for a store as the killer walks by looking for her. Ben pops up out of nowhere, bleeding from when Tatum hit him. He expresses to her that it’s not him, and before she gets the chance to feel safe, the killer stabs Ben straight in the neck. Tatum fights Ghostface off, pushing him through a store window as she books it down the street, ready for what I think is the best sequence of the film. Tatum makes it to her mom’s coffee shop, puts the code in, locks the door, and ducks down. The killer catches up and peeks into the shop. We see his looming shadow as Tatum fights to stay quiet. Just as the killer is leaving, Sidney, having seen a notification that the shop was unlocked, calls Tatum. The killer immediately turns back around. Tatum texts her mom informing her that the killer is outside, and Sidney replies with a message letting Tatum know there’s a gun in the office. Not hearing Ghostface, Tatum starts moving quickly to the office when there’s 4 taps on the window behind her. All three times I saw this in the theater, the crowd went crazy as Tatum turned around, and Ghostface leaned down and put the code in for the shop and opened the door. Tatum runs into the office and barricades the door. She calls Sidney, who walks her through how to use the gun, and using the cameras, lets Tatum know where to shoot through the wall. Tatum listens to her mom and shoots through the right side of the door, hitting the killer multiple times. As she leaves the office and goes to the body, Sidney tells her to shoot him in the head. But Tatum hesitates, and the killer pops up, knocking the gun out of her hand. She struggles with him, but she’s pushed to the ground, and the killer raises his knife to strike. But Tatum grabs a chair and smashes it onto Ghostface, knocking him down. And right as we are getting over the killer knowing the code, this movie drops yet another bomb on us. As Tatum turns around to leave, a THIRD Ghostface walks into the shop. The two killers grab Tatum, and the screen cuts to black. 

Sidney gets a call from Tatum’s phone, and it’s Roger L. Jackson as the voice of the killer for only the third time in the film. As creative as the Stu facetimes are, the movie really sidelined the voice we all know and love. But the killer tells Sidney to return to her home alone, or he will kill Tatum. As she enters her house, Sidney is drawn by Stu’s voice to her living room TV. On the screen, Stu is standing in his home, now not burnt down, and tells Sidney, “It’s not REALLY me”, fully confirming that the calls were indeed AI. The camera pans through the Macher house, into the kitchen, and in frame comes Ms. Loomis, played by Laurie Metcalf. As unneeded as the AI plot is, this was a wonderful surprise for SCREAM fans. Ms. Loomis taunts Sidney about her mother and how she ruined her life. Once again, the camera swooshes through the house to Roman Bridger again, played by Scott Foley, who taunts Sidney about how she curses anyone in her family and fails Tatum. And just when you think these surprises are over, the camera swooshes one more time, and Dewey, played by David Arquette, comes into frame. As an alternate version of his theme plays, he tells Sidney how she failed him and wasn’t there to save his life. Yet as quickly as he came, the AI Dewey turns into Stu as he tells Sidney that he’s bringing it back to the original, “With someone you care about tied to a chair in the back patio,” referring to Steve, Casey’s boyfriend in the 1996 film. Sidney runs to the back, where Tatum is indeed tied to a chair with a knife held to her throat. Sidney throws her gun down and holds her hands up, begging for the killer to let Tatum go. And unfortunately, it’s time for the WORST part of this movie. The killer reaches up… takes off his mask…, and it’s Marco Davius. The guy we met in ONE scene? Yes, the second killer is Ordily from Fallbrook Psychiatric. He tells Sidney that he has a background in AI work and knows just how to lure Sidney back into danger. But then he asks aloud, “Isn’t that right, Stu?” and the back gate swings open for the third Ghostface to walk in. This other killer takes the place of Marco, holding a knife to Tatum’s throat as Marco goes and gets a still-alive Mark Evans from an attack by Ghostface earlier in the movie. With Sidney’s family all here, the third killer removes his mask, and it’s finally time… the REAL Stu Macher is back…. Oh, wait, no, it’s Jessica, the neighbor. The woman who only had 2 scenes. These killers COMBINED had a total of only THREE scenes. This will go down in history as the absolute worst killer reveal in the franchise. And to match this reveal, a bad motive. Jessica had an abusive husband, and the book that Sidney wrote in SCREAM 4 inspired her to murder him and start a new life with her son. But during scream 6, when Sidney wasn’t there, and instead decided to live a private life, Jessica felt betrayed and abandoned. Yes, that is the motive. Makes no sense. I didn’t even fully understand it until my second watch. But during the monologue, Mark was secretly cutting Tatum’s binds, allowing her to burst up and headbutt Jessica, as Mark lunges, Sidney shoots him directly in the head. You blink, and you miss it. He died so quickly. But Jessica runs into Sidney’s garage, which is under construction, and uses the tarps to hide. But eventually she pops out and fights with Sidney, strangling her with a cord. Sid grabs a screwdriver and stabs Jessica in the thigh and stomach until Tatum eventually comes in and shoots her in the shoulder. In SCREAM fashion, her body disappears and the 2 prescotts clear the garage with their guns, and as Jessica runs at them Sidney and Tatum they go for the headshoot her in the face like 15 times. And as cool and a moment of applause as it was, it’s ruined by very noticeable CGI. Finally, with the killers dead, Sid and Tatum walk out to “First Cool Hive,” the same song used at the end of the original SCREAM. They get Mark into an ambulance, and we see the two final girls share a heartfelt moment as Sidney tells Tatum how strong and fearless her friend was, and that’s why she named Tatum after her, because she believed she’d grow up with that same fire. As they walk off, the credits roll. 

Scream 7 definitely has its ups and downs; as much good as there is to say, there is bad. I feel like this film relied too much on nostalgia and callbacks, instead of giving us something fresh. The AI Stu Macher was cool, but also felt like a robbery of a storyline that he is actually alive, which is what fans have been wanting for a while. I did indeed enjoy the cameos from Ms. Loomis, Roman, and Dewey. Yet on the flip side, SCREAM 7 has the most inventive and suspenseful chases, kills, and having Sidney back really helped this film’s lifeline. But then you remember that SCREAM 7 has the worst, and downright laziest killer motives of any installment we’ve seen. So is Scream 7 the worst movie of the franchise? I would say no, but is it the best? ABSOLUTELY not. Though even with its cons, SCREAM 7 has done numbers at the box office, and an 8th movie is already in early development. So with all things considered, SCREAM 7 will get a solid 7.5/10; it has its lows, but “It’s a scream, baby!”