Oh Wow, ‘Scream 7’ Sucks

Gizmodo · Feb 27, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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Scream 7 is so bad it’s hard to know where to start. It’s a flat, lifeless film that fundamentally ignores the rules of a franchise that was literally made famous for its rules. But, before we get to that, it’s probably best to start with the obvious. This is a film that, after the production company fired Scream 5 and 6 star Melissa Barrera over her real-world comments, started with two strikes already against it. It was going to have to be really, really special and unique to make us think beyond that for even a second. Well, Scream 7 not only swings at the next pitch and strikes out, but it also demands three more swings, strikes out again, and then strikes out again, retiring the side and maybe the franchise itself. It’s terrible even when you don’t factor in everything that happened behind the scenes. When you do that? Oof. There might not be any coming back from this one. The Scream series, at its core, has always been about culture. Mainly movies, but pop culture in general. Each film took the issues of the time in which it was released and played with them a bit. The original knows it’s a horror movie. The sequels acknowledged they were sequels. Others tackled movies within the movie, online celebrity, toxic fandom, or the nature of reboots themselves. So you’d expect that, at the most basic level, Scream 7 would be about something. Have some kind of take that fits into this pattern. It does not. It pretends like it does, haphazardly throwing around some general notion of “nostalgia” and even having a semi-decent opening that teases that. But later in the film, it gets all but forgotten save for a few passing mentions. It’s a film that has nothing to say and actively shuts down any discussion of it. Ghostface in Scream 7. – Paramount For example, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding, who starred in the past two films, return here. Their presence makes little to no sense; they serve little to no purpose, and being there at all is a borderline offensive attempt to link with the previous installments, especially since there’s no acknowledgment of any other characters. But, at least, in the past two films, Savoy Brown’s character, Mindy, is the one who delivers those iconic, must-have Scream speeches about what’s happening in this installment. Surely, that’s why she’s in this one, right? No. She starts to do that here but is quickly cut off by Gooding’s character, who says something about “What did I say about speeches?” It’s cute in the moment, but as the film goes on, it feels less like a joke and more like a strong argument that the film doesn’t have a point. Which, in theory, could have been okay. After all, by the seventh installment of a horror franchise, most of them are played out. They do wild, stupid things like inexplicably bringing dead characters back to life to pump some juice into a stale story. Scream 7 actually tries that in a few ways that at first seem promising but never quite deliver. Worst yet, it’s barely done with any sense of meta-acknowledgement, which is a core component of the series itself. Instead, it comes off as another in a long list of desperate attempts at substance. Instead, Scream 7 simply brings back Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), who, along with her husband (Joel McHale) and her daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), lives in a quiet town along with a laundry list of characters who are there just to be treated as suspects. There’s no bigger story. Ghostface is back; everyone is scared, and from the film’s second scene, we look at actors like McKenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor, Mark Consuelos, Anna Camp, Timothy Simons, and a bunch of fresh-faced teenagers as nothing but question marks. Could you be Ghostface? Why would you be Ghostface? Each is boiled down to a stereotype and nothing more. Sidney is back in Scream 7. – Paramount Luckily, because the only plot is “Who is Ghostface?”, there is a whole lot more Ghostface in Scream 7. The killer is in the movie way, way more than in previous installments. And, as a result, the kills are a little more disgusting and a little more elaborate than usual. It’s a welcome change, but ultimately, it’s just a way to give the audience something to react to since so much of what’s happening on screen is so lifeless. The film, co-written and directed by franchise co-creator Kevin Williamson, does have a few moments where you think things will get better. Most of them are a little too spoilery to say, but one that isn’t is this notion of a teenage daughter growing up with a mom who is famous for all these killings. Sidney keeps that part of her life shut off from Tatum, and Tatum is frustrated that the most she knows about her mom comes from books or movies based on her life. Sidney never wants to talk about it truthfully. And just when that starts to become an interesting character dynamic, it gets thrown out the window. That mother and daughter relationship, and how each grew up with trauma, is what Scream 7 actually wants to be about. Every few scenes, either Sidney or Tatum tells someone (who is probably Ghostface) about how they are having issues. But it never goes beyond that. It’s all just surface chatter between scenes when Ghostface is running around town killing people. In a film of wasted potential, this might be the worst case. Oh, right, Courteney Cox is back too. – Paramount With most Scream movies, though, that’s usually okay because of the ending. The big moment when it’s revealed who the killer, or killers, are, and they explain why they are doing this in the first place. This is when all those big ideas get brought to the forefront and, in the best entries, make the rest of the film come together. We won’t say exactly how that plays out in this review, of course, but suffice to say the same does not happen here. The reveal is uninspired and incredibly confusing. It does more to muddle the film you’ve been watching than help bring it all together. The reveal, like the film itself, is comfortably the worst one in the franchise. I’ve been watching Scream movies in theaters since I was a kid. I grew up with them and actually like the previous two installments quite a bit. They’re not the Wes Craven originals, but they’re flashy, fun, and ambitious in ways that make them stand out. One would have hoped, after everything that happened behind the scenes and the return of Kevin Williamson, that Scream 7 would have tried something new. Taken things to the next level. Reinvented the notion of a Scream movie itself as a way to keep itself relevant in a changing world. Or, at least, been an actual Scream movie. It does none of that. Instead, Scream 7 is a play-it-safe skeleton of the franchise that barely touches upon the things that made Scream popular and relevant in the first place. It’s Scream without a voice. We couldn’t be more disappointed by it on every single level. Scream 7 is now in theaters. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.