Scream 7

Neve Campbell brings the house down, showing the world just why she has managed to do what no other Scream Queen has done in sustaining a franchise for 30 years! Electrifyingly powerful. And Isabel May stuns as Tatum Evans, her big chase through the desolate streets of Pine Grove, seeing her truly innocent boyfriend get brutally stabbed before her own violent capture in her own mother’s cafe. Magnetic, truly.

I do feel that the teenage characters were underutilized. While both sets of kills at the theatre and tavern were tense and chaotic and beautiful all in the same breath, I just don’t think that they had enough enlightenment to create the same unique dynamic that we saw in Scream. Lucas was the only character that had more shading to him, his self-proclaimed true crime obsession putting him straight in the sights of Mindy Meeks as a Ghostface killer.

I think that a better way of introducing this new barrage of youthful characters would’ve been a party, in true Scream fashion. McKenna Grace simply should’ve had more scenes but that shot of her dangling from her wires, cooly backlit with harsh spotlight and her entrails dangling viscerally. Superb, I think Wes Craven would’ve been proud. I’ll need to rewatch this film just to narrow down my concrete feelings about it, but at this current point in time I believe that this killer’s motive to be an inversion of Scream 4.

It would make sense considering Williamson’s perchance for typical genre inversion, and that Scream 4 was the last time that he was involved in a Scream film. While I might have felt a little off, Jessica literally had nothing to do with Sidney (at face value) but once you begin to unpack her motive you begin to realise that all that personal connection that is typically seen with a Ghostface killer is all on Jessica’s side.

She has been living this parasocial, idolatrous relationship with Sidney for well over ten years now and feels deep betrayal at her disappearance from the public eye and her absence during the New York spree (which wouldn’t of made sense for Sidney to have been involved with; that wasn’t her story). I do think that with all the AI involvement, they should’ve leaned more into it, it would’ve given the franchise an interesting commentary to discuss.

It has been employed is a useful way, Williamson once again pushing forward character development; Sidney can no longer be shaken by cryptic words down the phone, no, the only thing that will shake her is an intense flash from the past. Overall, I have found this film to be a good, classic Scream fun, and once again gives the audience something new to go away and ponder. In my opinion, the third act reveal was weak in comparison to the rest of the film, and indeed the rest of the franchise, but it is still a worthwhile watch, with punchy comedic dialogue, taut pacing and the astounding cinematography.