Oh, hot diggity. Another one of these. I challenge anybody to offer some new observation about the Scream franchise. I think I’d question how Neve Campbell still looks wonderful while Courteney Cox looks like a trainwreck, but we all know why this is the case. As for the franchise itself; it features a core of actors who really don’t seem to appear in other films, which is almost never a good sign. How many more times can you get away with making the same movie?
Wait. We know the answer to that one, too.
The big deal this time around is that one of the original Ghostfacers, Stu (Matthew Lillard), did not die and is haunting our ever-surviving heroine, Sidney (Campbell). If this were real life, I think I’d be quite pissed off if I were Sidney. Every four or five years, some asshole into cosplay and copycat crimes shows up to eviscerate you because … all previous attempts were failures? That hardly seems right. What exactly is Sidney supposed to be learning from this? Never to go out with Billy Loomis thirty years ago? What’s up with that?
So the deal is that Stu Macher’s original house (surprisingly absent a neighborhood) has been restored for a combo Airbnb/Museum. The couple that rents it finds to their (horror?) (delight?) that they are now targets themselves to the latest Ghostface iteration. The girlfriend in this scenario has an especially dramatic death, falling from a chandelier two stories up onto the Ghostface knife. I swear if I’m gonna die anyway, I would have aimed for his head.
Meanwhile, Sidney has built a calm life in a small town. That’s gonna change. She gets a face time call from -what appears to be- Stu, risen from the grave and hot for revenge. Again, revenge for what? I swear I never understand these douchebags, fictional or otherwise. YOU KILLED PEOPLE. SOMEBODY YOU FAILED TO KILL DEFENDED HERSELF. Now you want “revenge” for that? What the Hell? It’s like the entire Trump administration in fictional form.
The worst part of this film comes next. Not necessarily because Ghostface attacks the high school that Sidney’s daughter Tatum attends, but that Ghostface immediately kills Tatum’s friend Hannah, played by McKenna Grace, easily the best talent in this lot.
Noting the talent void, Courteney Cox shows up, immediately reprising her role as Gale, the reporter who always gets too close to the action.
I think this time I felt a little more for the people getting killed. Most seemed of 
the wrong-place-wrong-time variety, which strikes me as a tad unfair. Again, what is the lesson here? If you’re following Ghostface for a story, sure, you’re fair game. If you’re tempting fate or taunting/defying killers or being unnecessarily reckless, sure, the rules say you’re fair game in the slasher frenzy. But it seemed to me that many of the victims in this film were sticking to larger groups, not necessarily tempting the slasher gods or even having pre-marital sex. What’s the rule then?
I liked Sidney and her daughter; I definitely wanted them to survive, and there was a bit of thin wall fun and “is he dead?” fun and “don’t go in there” fun? But the general impression of Scream 7 is a film where we torture Sidney for no good reason, and the conclusion is especially irritating given what I just said. Is Scream 7 a terrible film? No. It’s better than most slashers, but that’s a low bar. Was there a need for Scream 7? Not at all. Will Scream 7 entertain you? Probably.
There once was a killer, Ghostface
Wore a mask so easy to replace
This recycled psycho male
Still missed his white whale
So Sidney is ever the subject of the chase
Rated R, 114 Minutes
Director: Kevin Williamson
Writer: Kevin Williamson, Guy Busick, James Vanderbilt
Genre: Scary scary stabby stabby
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Pointy things junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Haven’t we had enough of slasher films by now?
