A One Mann’s Movies review of “Scream 7”. (2026, 2*, 18).
Just like “The Fast and the Furious” and “Police Academy”, by the time you reach number 7 in the franchise you should know you are on borrowed time. So “Scream 7” tries to lean on nostalgia by bringing Neve Campbell back into the cast. But to little benefit. In between the kills, the story of mother/daughter trauma-management trudged along tediously to the point that I was rolling my eyes multiple times.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Sidney Prescott-Evans (Neve Campbell) is trying her best to bring up her daughter Tatum (Isabel May) with her police-chief husband Mark (Joel McHale) in the sleepy town of Pine Grove, Indiana. But her past trauma leads to her being overly protective and suffocating, preventing her daughter from having sex for the first time (yeah… right!) with her stud of a boyfriend Ben (Sam Rechner). But that protection proves to be well-justified as Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) appears to rise from the dead to come after her.
Certification:
UK: 18; US: R. (From the BBFC website: “Strong bloody violence.)
Talent:
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Isabel May, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, Joel McHale, , Mckenna Grace, Michelle Randolph, Asa Germann, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Timothy Simons, Matthew Lillard.
Directed by: Kevin Williamson.
Written by: Kevin Williamson & Guy Busick. (Based on a story by James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick. Based on characters created by Kevin Williamson.)
Running Time: 1h 54m.
Summary:
Positives:
- Some of the kills were entertainingly gory.
Negatives:
- Some of the other kills were gratuitously icky and gross.
- The dialogue sequences between the action elements are long and dull.
- As always the punishment taken by Ghostface is hospital-admittance quality,
- The final reveal is laughably ridiculous.
Full Review of “Scream 7”:
When horror becomes icky.
This will vary by viewer, but I prefer my horror to be of the tense, scary variety rather than the icky variety. And this film manages to deliver a modicum of both. There are lots of requisite elements of creeping around in the dark, where the image of Ghostface suddenly becomes faintly visible through some plastic sheeting or in a reflection. But generally, the jump scares when they happen are too well-signposted and accompanied by a most repetitive “BAM!” from the score, such that they were not in the least bit scary.
Then we have the kills themselves, which varied from the ‘traditional’ (knife to the stomach or throat) to “Pit and the Pendulum”-like absurdity to others that are plain unpleasant: a topper to a beer pump being particularly ghoulish and icky. Depending on where you sit on your level of violence and ickyness, you will either enjoy these or not.
As always, there were characters in there that I thought thoroughly deserved to get dispatched and others that you were rooting for that I went “oh!” to when they bought it.
Talky-talky, bory-bory.
In between all of the Ghostface action we are subjected to large tracts of talky-talky dialogue, with either Sidney (Neve Campbell) trying to get past her trauma to better engage with Tatum (Isabel May), or else Sidney bemoaning the fact that she can’t seem to communicate with her to her neighbourly cup-cake mum Jessica (Anna Camp). I’m afraid I rolled my eyes a few times during these sequences, which a better director would have greatly shortened or excised to bring the running time down a bit. (I’d had enough after 90 minutes.)
Acting
It was good to see Neve Campbell back on the big screen, as she is a good actress. Elsewhere, Isabel May and the ever-reliable Celeste O’Connor stand-out. But after saying some nice things about Courtney Cox’s acting in Scream VI, I wish to now retract that statement!
Absurdism on absurdism until a finale that breaks the absurdometer.
As always with these movies, much of the action is utterly absurd. In particular in this one, the punishment taken by some characters who survive is ridiculous. Another key potential hospital-admittee in this one is Ghostface him- (or her-) self who takes such a ridiculous amount of punishment including screwdriver stabbings, shootings and a fire extinguisher to the face but still comes back for more. It’s ludicrous.
But this is just preparing you, dear viewer, for this episode’s Scooby-Doo-caretaker mask reveal. In this case, it is so absurd that I actually vocally said “nooooo”.
Monkeys?
There is a mid-credit “monkey” of two of the characters recording a news feature, but there is nothing at the end of the credits. You’re welcome.
Summary Thoughts:
“Scream 7” tries to dredge new thrills from the very bottom of the franchise trench and ends up only being mildly diverting in places.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJrghaPJ0RY.
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