Scream 7 Review: A Decent Slasher, But Bad Scream

Scream 7, a franchise that has shied away from its nostalgia factor in the two previous installments, has returned to its original cast to a very strong opening weekend, with Deadline projecting the second-highest in the franchise behind its predecessor, Scream 6. The film was originally set and ready to shoot with the cast of the previous two films, though the unceremonious release of Melissa Barrera for her outspoken politics by production company SpyGlass, Jenna Ortega's decision to drop out after the firing of Barrera, and directors Radio Silence scheduling conflict forced rushed re-writes and re-cast to meet the distribution contracts.

Unfortunately for Scream 7, which re-unites more than what you'd think of the original Scream cast to be with original creator Kevin Williamson at the directing helm, the film leaves a lot to be desired. For a slasher film, the cool kills are plentiful and a new final girl has been introduced, and that's essential for any solid slasher, making Scream 7 passable in many ways. Despite this, that's where the complimentary portion of what the flick offers its audience ends, and a passable slasher turns into a dismal installment of Scream and what's been expected of a franchise whose output has been much stronger this decade than any horror series five or more films in had any right being. From this point forward, pivotal plot points will be revealed, thus anybody looking to avoid spoilers has their cue to close the tab and hopefully re-visit the Deatharts XIII website when they're caught up on Sidney Prescott's whereabouts.

Unlike the recent Scream movies which made Jenna Ortega a household name and landed Mikey Madison the role in Anora which won her an Academy Award for Best Actress, there aren't any cornerstones of the future of Hollywood finding their breakout in the latest movie, to put it kindly. There's some very fun outings from Courteney Cox, the only actor to have appeared in every film of the franchise, and Matt Lillard, as they try to make you believe that a character who had a TV smash his skull in survived three decades ago, but beyond that, Mckenna Grace is the only actor who finds any semblence of levity in their role, and she's in it for about a grand total of five minutes. That said, the kill where Ghostface slashes the lining of her stomach while she's flying through the air on a harness is an instant inductee into the Hall of Fame of Ghostface kills.

Poor acting is one thing, especially in a genre that doesn't always lend itself to credibility in its reality, and therefore doesn't afford allow actors who aren't playing zanier characters flex their chops. That said, the acting was poor because none of the actors are given much to work with, if anything at all. Neve Campbell isn't the greatest actor to ever live, but we've seen plenty of highs in her time as Sidney, as well as her roles in things such as House of Cards and Wild Things. Campbell is a more than capable actor, but when being directed to run a fifteen minute drive instead of going back inside to grab a set of car keys, stop in the middle of the run with no shortage of breath, and make a phone call while your daughter is being hunted by a homicidal maniac, what is there for you to do to add anything to this character?

Mind you, that character has five previous movies where the trauma has been explored. In the first Scream, the entire plot revolves around the trauma of her mothers murder. The second film focuses on the fallout, with the Ghostface being the mother of Billy Loomis. Throughout the series she writes books (which is the entire motive of this Ghostface, nonsensically), they make movies about her life, they even introduce a true crime aspect, only for her character to not pass down any skill or any stories to her daughter under the guise of protecting her, because apparently her daughter hasn't been exposed to the mass homicide that inflicts Sidney's life. Then, her character scoffs when Tatum, named after Rose McGowan's character in the original, wants to understand the danger and learn skills for the thing that's hunting her down. Furthermore, that character sees her best friend sliced up in the aforementioned kill and is entirely aloof because she gets to spend ample quality time with her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend is an interesting demise because Sidney is convinced that the killer, Stu, is a deepfake. The boyfriend is a techbro, and this techbro decides to determine himself if it is possible that Stu is a deepfake, ultimately creating a red herring that gets him killed because he decides to mimmick the message word-for-word sent to Sidney that his character in the movie had not previously seen. This implies that his character is privvy to the messages sent by the eventual three Ghostfaces, despite having no connection to them whatsoever, and them killing him, ultimately not exploring that thread. Obviously, this is a coincidental trope designed to swerve the audience, but each character except three in the entire movie were all looked at as suspects, with all three who weren't doing something suspicious openly, creating no suspense on who the killers might be. The primary culprit is Sidney's neighbor that runs the coffee shop with her which became telegraphed when Ghostface had the code to override the locks of the coffee shop. Her motive is that she liked Sidney's book. This is not a character that has any depth, interesting hook, or reason to be there, other than they needed a killer to have a movie. It is unequivocally one of the shoddiest characters ever written in a legacy franchise, even though Anna Camp of True Blood fame tried the best to do what she could with it. Anna Camp's character lived up to her surname: camp.

The most frustrating aspect of Scream 7 isn't that the movie had its poor script amidst a sudden pivot from completing its semi-unrelated trilogy. With the re-writes on a wire, that was always going to be the case. The frustrating aspect is that there's still a potentially great, all-timer Scream film in there somewhere with the return of not only Lillard, but Dewey, and even Laurie Metcalf as a cameo, all to throw Sidney off a scent she probably wasn't even close to being on anyway. Lillard has a lot to do, even through a screen, and his immense characterization shines in such a fun way that only Matthew Lillard can deliver. But there's a real scariness about the world of A.I., and it should be noted that its distributor, Paramount Skydance, is owned by the son of owner of Oracle, who is one of the largest backers in the world of generative A.I., so it's unlikely Paramount wants their movies to actually touch on the dangers of generative A.I., even if it's something everybody unanimously agrees on such as 'deep fakes are bad.' Saying a deep fake is dangerous is not a partisan political statement, in fact, it's one of the few things people agree on in 2026. There's a hard-hitting expose on using deep fakes to lean into people's trauma, and there's even a built-in motivation that in a world full of true crime and a franchise of copy-cat killers, the copy-cat actually wanted to become Stu. That's such a fresh take on the idolization of Stu and Billy that the franchise has previously explored.

The writing staff at Deatharts XIII employ no professional screenwriters. There is no experience storyboarding a narrative feature film. Why is it that a member of the staff can came up with a logical thoughtline in 90 seconds while writing this review for a movie, having put just a low effort, modicum amount of thought into a story, than the developer of the franchise?

Overall, the movie isn't terrible. It's bloody, it has very fun moments, and if a nostalgia fix for you is simply seeing characters, you will have a good time with this movie. But in terms of the Scream formula, because they're all pretty formulaic, this did not execute the formula the way audiences have become accustom to with the Scream movie. Relative to general slashers, it's alright but relative to Scream, it won't be anybody's favorite scary movie. It's at-worst, a good time popcorn flick if you can see it with a big crowd on a big screen, which realistically is what most regular moviegoers want out of it, even if it leaves longtime fans of the franchise somewhat unfulfilled.

Despite our dissatisfaction with it, and its franchise-worst Rotten Tomatoes score, the film will still be successful. Scream 7 opened to approx. $8M domestically in previews, and using the box office multiplier of Scream 6's preview performance, it should exceed its budget in its opening weekend on the domestic alone. Whether this film has good word-of-mouth to leg out long-term remains to be seen, but it should easily be profitable for the studio within a week, and justifying a Scream 8. Another big win for one of horror's most beloved franchises.

For more thoughts on all things horror, be sure to tune into all Deatharts XIII platforms to the 2:17 Horror Podcast, a bi-monthly podcast that discusses any and all things horror and horror-adjecent, hosted by Ash Rose and The Jameus.

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Photo credit: Paramount Skydance, and SpyGlass Entertainment.