Well, the world finds a way to keep life interesting. It's the start of October, probably the best month of the year and a legitimate excuse to watch all the scary movies I want free from judgment from the crowd that doesn't get it. My local area finally has access to Internet that isn't Spectrum, and it's looking good. I then sit down to do this review and my computer starts locking up, and upon a reboot can't find it's Windows OS despite seeing all it's discs. I guess sometimes you should stop while you are ahead - I wonder if tonight's movie will echo that statement as we drop once again into a familiar franchise. I apologize for typos in advance, tonight is Scream 7.

Our story picks up at a familiar house - the final house from the first movie. It's a tourist attraction now, because why wouldn't it be? The guy is nerding out about it, but his lady friend really lacks the same enthusiasm. No matter however, as it isn't long before both find themselves screaming in something other than delight as old Ghostface makes his entrance. Cut to the main section of the story, where we catch up with long time survivor girl Sydney and her new family - right before everything starts going wrong and the past once again comes back to haunt her

Actors do a good job here. There's some touching stuff now and then, some good chemistry, and plenty of people acting sus as the movie intended. Some of this we’ll come back to later, but for the vast majority the acting here is pretty well done. A time or two people can come across a little subdued, or occasionally the other direction as a little eccentric, but any complaints I have with the movie are generally far from the actors and their performances.

Characters are here, but it's also where things start to slip a little in old age. We have a bunch yes, but they very quickly feel less like characters and more like red herrings trying to distract you up until the body count escalates. The main family dynamic between our lead family is decent, and it emulated the classic “we have something to say” family relationship as you might expect, but I do feel any major depth is prevented a bit by the break neck body count.

Costumes are pretty decent, but carries with it the same disclaimer I always bring to a modern set movie. They look like what people wear, and in turn it doesn't stand out. Ghostface himself stays the same as always - not really unexpected, most main character villains do - and it makes some level of sense with the “is it isn't it Stu” angle of the plot that they'd want to be as classic as possible with it. Still, I can't help to think that with something like the skins available for games in which Ghostface exists, there's a bit of untapped potential by having him identical each and every time. Settings are modern as well, plenty of variance of inside and outside little town sets, but nothing that's going to really stick around outside the nostalgia of the opening house scene.

Where the movie really starts to set itself apart here is with the violence. I'm going to be honest, after six of these movies I think this one is where kills start feeling mean. I don't just mean that in the sense of angry stabbings or something, but straight up mean spirited. It has been a while since I watched the others, true, and I know as everything goes on it gets more intense as folks get desensitized to it, but I also don't remember having guts spilling all over on the past ones either it also feels far more rapid - by the time you are halfway through the movie in pretty sure you have more bodies stacked than the entirety of the first one. What is there largely looks good, although there's one that oddly goes the extra step to be goofy, and one at the start where there's some eye effects that look a little CG.

Music is a thing, largely going along with the scene and outside of the ending credit song by Ice Nine Kills (that I listen to regularly before even seeing this movie) nothing really sticks around with me after the credits are done. Line deliveries are mostly all good as is the balancing. The hardest part of this movie is just how many stupid decisions are made by characters who should know better by this point, and that especially will get the thinker type riled up I feel. If or when they get over that, there are some things about communication, trauma, family, trust, and I'm going to say people needing some real mental health experts because the self help obviously did them no good.

In the end, it's not my favorite Scream movie by any means. I do like the violence in horror movies, mostly because it means effects work and I love special effects, but here some of it just feels mean spirited for some reason to me. The bad decision making of characters that should know better in a franchise that's always been pretty self aware also makes it feel much more mundane - and perhaps that's a good thought line for describing the movie. It's not bad, but it feels much more like every other horror movie and less like something that set out to point out how stale they were in a satirical style fashion. It's started to feel a little less special, although it's still keeping at least Sydney kicking ass.

@IMDB

Scream 7 (2026)