Scream 7 Review – Nostalgic slasher sequel settles solid on seminal | Horror movies

WWhether you love or hate the Scream series, at this point it’s hard not to at least respect it. Even without the subterranean bar set by other slasher series (chase, stab, repeat, yawn) it’s a series that has now been around for thirty years and has tasked itself with expanding the ongoing narrative of the insanely twisted soap, finding new ways to comment on the horror genre and attracting a more savvy generation of young fans (the sixth film managed to be the highest grossing in the US). If there’s nothing to rival the 1996 original, it’s still hard to say there’s been a thematic change bad Scream, even in the series’ least effective moments, was a buzz of effort and energy.

The run continues, albeit with more undertones than usual, with Scream 7, a downbeat and somewhat entertaining new chapter that appears on screen as wounds appear. The original plan was to continue the story of the Carpenter sisters, which was introduced in the 2022 relaunch, but after the shameful dismissal of star Melissa Barrera who dared to speak out about Israel and Gaza, the plan went back to the drawing board. Said canvas was then just a photo of the head of Neve Campbell, the original Scream Queen, and a bunch of dollar signs next to it, as the actress rightfully turned down the sixth film due to what she said was a low-key offer. About seven million reasons to join later (according to reports) and it’s front and center, along with many entertaining “Why weren’t you in New York?” References and with some familiar and awkward old friends.

Control of the series has been returned to Kevin Williamson, who wrote the original film along with Parts 2 and 4, and is proudly able to round out the top three films in the entire series with a lot of help from Wes Craven. He co-writes and directs here (his first film as a director since 1999’s cheesy dark comedy Teaching Mrs Tingle) and joins the pair with a returning Courteney Cox and teases some fan-service cameos from characters we assumed were dead. Even for a series that prided itself on its Scooby-Doo reveals, the movie’s supposed suspense is waiting to see how far things will develop…

After a tense and promisingly crafted cold open that sees a true-crime tourist pair making the mistake of AirBnb at Stu Macher’s infamous house from the original, we’re back with Sydney as she tries to make a new, murder-free life for herself. Her eldest daughter, Tatum (Yellowstone’s Isabelle May, who plays 17, which raises questions about the timeline given how the fourth installment was made in 2011), is curious about her mother’s past, and although, as Sydney explains, not just online but on screen in the Stab films, there is a distance between the two, a gap between what is known and what is talked about. It doesn’t take long for Sydney’s past to catch up with her again when a bloody killing spree begins, likely orchestrated by someone presumed dead. At this point, if Sydney moved to your city, you’d be forgiven for chasing her around with pitchforks…

Despite being the father of not only the franchise but also the self-referential and self-parody horror subgenre, Williamson chose not to give the film any greater meta commentary. Chapter 6 was also lighter in this regard, carrying the fifth film’s playful twist on online fan culture but mainly focusing on a simpler revenge story. We’re teased with a campaign sold in an “everything has led up to this” style reveal (marketed as Last Scream even though it clearly won’t be) but the ending is a clumsy mess made up on the spot and it doesn’t feel like this was some big plan all along. It’s hard to explain exactly what my problem is with the dysfunctional “so this is why I did this” explanation without going too deep into spoiler territory but what’s frustrating is that there is He is Something conceptually interesting about Logic speaks intelligently to larger issues than this film, but it’s not handled as deftly as one would expect from someone like Williamson, who seems a bit lost in territory he once knew so well.

The man who was once able to define the language of the big and small screen teens of an era — overly verbose but witty and, at that, truly adorable — is unable to capture the voice or verve of a new generation, the latest teen recruits all too bland to record. Obviously, the film only really begins when Cox’s fame-hungry journalist returns with the twin stabbing survivors, played by Mason Gooding and Jasmine Savoy-Brown (their entrance is one of the film’s few applause-worthy artistic strokes). They’re all capable of bringing the right tone and fast-paced energy needed for a Scream film, but Williamson, along with returning writer Guy Busiek, often struggle to reconcile the new with the old with so many spinning plates that he often forgets which ones are still spinning and why. Fortunately, Campbell and Cox have more to work with, and the film gives their complicated, trauma-bound friendship an interesting, if underwritten, arc. There are also some inventively bad kills (Williamson’s claim that this would be less violent in Scream seems like a misdirection) but for all the callbacks, the most effective nostalgia play ends with the return of original composer Marco Beltrami whose evocative, if largely reused, soundtrack has a real chill effect.

The problem with the Scream movies is that while the bar may be low outside of the series for not just the seventh installment in the series, but the seventh of anything else, the bar inside for a Scream sequel is much higher. there only About enough here to show signs of life (with tracking indicating a massive hole, a Scream 8 is inevitable) but Williamson often feels like he’s treading water when he should be drawing blood.