by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $9.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Isabel May, Mason Gooding, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Joel McHale, Mckenna Grace, Jimmy Tatro, Sam Rechner, Asa Germann, Anna Camp, Timothy Simons
Intro:
Do you like scary movies? Maybe give this one a miss, then.
The slasher genre is no stranger to controversy, and the Scream franchise has been copping its fair share since its inception. It really says something when its latest installment is arguably the most controversial thus far. After Scream (2022) and Scream VI star Melissa Barrera was fired over political comments, and co-star Jenna Ortega and even director Christopher Landon made their solidary exits, this has become a film that has had to claw and scrape its way out of the shadow of its own behind-the-scenes drama. That this exists at all, given its production background, is damn-near miraculous.
Shame that the same can’t be said about the film proper.
While this isn’t the first time that writer Kevin Williamson has had to bat clean-up for the series that he helped create, like when the Scream 2 script was leaked, it is the first time that he’s stepped into the director’s chair on the series. And throughout this nostalgia-coated haunted house tour (almost literally, given the film’s cold open), it is quite clear that Williamson is stronger at the pen than behind the camera.
The attempts to create and sustain tension during the Ghostface scenes largely amount to showing the mask slightly out of view, and just repeating that trick over and over. The set pieces themselves show real creativity, allowing for some striking images, and even make for solid gore spectacle… but only in the abstract. The wonky, at-least-a-generation-behind digital effects, especially for the blood and guts, really cuts into the fun of what could have been cool moments, giving an unfortunate inkling of things looking better on the page than on the screen.
Then there’s the more humorous and satirical side of things, one of the hallmarks of this franchise… which are also lacking. The minor gags throughout cause a few eyerolls, but the attempts to juggle them along with the more serious moments gives the film an odd vibe. It shows a similar issue with tonal control that greatly hindered Williamson’s only previous directing effort in Teaching Mrs. Tingle, along with a reliance on licensed music that comes across as very 1990s, and not in the tributary way that the film keeps reaching for. To say nothing of the horror satire which, aside from a returning Mindy Meeks-Martin and her requisite (and rather parapraxic) Rules monologue, there’s not a whole lot being said here. It has more to say on the prevalence of AI than it does anything about its own genre, and for a film series that’s been consistently forward-thinking and made by those who don’t just love horror, but study horror, it’s quite the letdown.
Of course, Scream VI ran into issues with this too, actively straining against the expectations of its forebears and how clever-clever their treatment of genre tropes were. Maybe sticking more to characters (the other reason these films are so bloody good) could have sufficed, especially with the long-awaited return of Neve Campbell as Sidney (after pay disputes kept her away from Scream VI). Maybe it could even help the “it all leads to this” tagline be less hilarious in context.
But instead, a lot of the film just retreads the other films. Not in a way that comments on or even reappraises those classic moments; just… doing them all over again. From squeezing Sidney’s daughter Tatum (Isabel May) into her mother’s old position (and even her old clothes), to rehashes of character dynamics without any sense of growth or momentum from years past, right down to a cameo cavalcade during the finale that is embarrassing to the point of hilarity. We can only guess it was an attempt to distract from how Ghostface’s motives here (which we will not spoil because, creative disagreements or not, spoiling movies for others is just bad form) make little-to-no-sense, even by the franchise’s psycho-logic standards.
Scream 7 is a messy whimper. The flatness of the presentation combined with desperate grabs for the fondness of the good ol’ days, not only keep bringing up questions about what fans might’ve missed out on with the original vision for the film under Landon, but also what was missed between the writing and the actual filming and post-production. It snatches the title of weakest entry in the series away from Scream 3, as while that film also dealt with hefty production hurdles and tonal wonk, it’s also aged surprisingly well post-2017, whereas this film seemingly grew mould before it even officially released.
Put simply, this is a cautionary tale of what happens when you prioritise nostalgia and virtue signalling over audience engagement. Do you like scary movies? Maybe give this one a miss, then.
