Scream 7 (2026) is directed by Kevin Williamson, who also wrote the film alongside Guy Busick. It stars Neve Campbell, Isabel May, Courteney Cox, Joel McHale, Matthew Lillard, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Asa Germann, McKenna Grace, Ethan Embry, Mark Consuelos, Kraig Dane, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, and Timothy Simons. Approximately two years following the events of Scream 6 (2023), Sidney Prescott (Campbell) and her teenage daughter, Tatum (May), are targeted by a new Ghostface who seemingly has connections to one of the original killers, Stu Macher (Lillard). In order to protect their daughter, Sidney and her husband, Mark (McHale), join forces with their good friend Gale Weathers (Cox) in order to catch the culprit before he can destroy everything they hold dear.

Both the new and legacy actors bring a good amount of vigor to their characters. Unfortunately, this is easily the weakest script in the franchise. As a result, the characters feel extremely underwritten, a good chunk of the dialogue coming across as unnatural and/or awkward. Tatum’s teenage friends are some of the most unoriginal characters this franchise has to offer, with most of them just being, at best, meaningless variations on archetypes we’ve already seen in Scream, Scream 4, and Scream (2022). 

Gale is probably the best-written of the bunch, but it ultimately feels as if her inclusion is pointless. She isn’t integral to any portion of the film, eventually disappearing for the entirety of the third act. Honestly, they should’ve killed her off two movies ago, because she’s basically treated like a ghost anyway. 

The biggest issue with the script, however, is its characterization of Sidney Prescott. This is the first and only installment in the franchise that feels like a terrible stain on the character’s legacy as the best final girl in slasher movie history. Unlike previous films, she hilariously makes one hair-brained decision after another. For example, I can’t for the life of me think of a reason why she never uses a damn car? She’s constantly running around town on foot to reach her next destination, as if it’s a total of 4 blocks. Not to mention, she never seems to learn her lesson when Ghostface tells her where he is, only for him to be lying (shocker). After the third time this happens, she still falls for it. How dumb do you have to be, seriously? 

Look, it’s wild enough that Sidney is so anti-motor vehicle, but what’s crazier is that despite traveling everywhere on foot, she always reaches her destination long before the police. In fact, the police are so inexplicably absent, it’s hilarious once you’re aware of it. Seriously, it’s like they don’t exist in this film. It’s not even like there’s a lazy excuse, such as bad traffic. For God’s sake, these murders are so popular that Sidney goes on Gale’s televised talk show to discuss them, yet I’m supposed to believe the cops don’t take this seriously? 

The film’s pacing is also a gigantic mess. Besides one predictable stalk & kill sequence, nearly all of the thrills are relegated to the climax. Characters are killed in one fell swoop, as if the writers forgot this was a slasher movie until the last 20 pages. By the time you reach the Ghostface reveal, which should be the most exciting portion of any Scream film, there’s a feeling of desperation for it all to end. It goes on to have a boring Sidney vs Killer showdown that feels more like a Marvel movie than anything else. She’s dumber than ever, but who needs a brain when you have plot armor this thick?

That said, the plot armor champion of the franchise remains Chad. At the very least, you could argue that characters like Sidney and Gale have earned their plot armor, but Chad has it simply because it seems to be what the studio wants. After defying all acceptable logic in order to survive being stabbed 16 different times in Scream 6, he once again survives after a close call with the killer. I can’t for the life of me understand why both he and Mindy are still alive. It’s like the studio doesn’t want any stakes for any of this, as if they’re trying to market it exclusively to 13-year-olds. It’s not cute to do the exact same thing with these characters for the third time; It’s extremely frustrating and creatively bankrupt. This is now two films in a row that feel devoid of stakes, which stinks considering how easy they’d be to establish. By the end of the film, it feels like a pointless story once you realize that it concludes with the exact same survivors, the only difference being that Tatum is brought into the fold. 

Although Isabel May is fine as Tatum, it feels like a missed opportunity not to give her a distinct personality. She’s basically just Sidney Prescott 2.0, even voicing at multiple points how she wants to be just like her mother. It’s so egregious, in fact, that they even give her and her boyfriend the exact same dynamic as Sidney and Billy, even using the same visual cues. The creepy boyfriend archetype is a staple of the franchise, but this is easily the laziest version yet.

Thankfully, the film does have a small collection of things that I appreciate. The kills are among the most brutal and creative in the franchise. Ghostface feels more like Jason Voorhees this time around, finally delivering for the gore hounds in the audience. That said, the grounded nature of the franchise’s horror is all but eliminated. In a sense, this makes the film feel more in line with the franchise’s in-universe equivalent: Stab. Still, it adds more to the experience than it takes away. 

Although overall poorly executed, the killer’s motivation (on paper) is the strongest since Scream 4. This isn’t a surprise, considering that Kevin Williamson returned to write the film. Unfortunately, he fails to implement/communicate these ideas in a way that makes sense. The killer is upset that Sidney wasn’t involved in the NYC murders because, as a fan of the book, they look up to her as someone who faces her demons head-on. This motivates them to dismantle Sidney’s newfound quiet life in the hopes that she will once again become a victim who fights back–the Sidney they know and love. This is fantastic commentary on fans upset by Neve Campbell’s absence in Scream 6, but it unfortunately doesn’t make sense given the killer’s actions throughout the movie. So their goal is to bring Sidney back, but then also kill her in the end? It’s a clear contradiction, one of the many confirmations of the film’s reported $500,000 rewrite. If this is worth $500,000, then the turd I took this morning is worth at least 10 grand. I have to start writing scripts soon, because this tells me the bar is pretty damn low nowadays. 

Overall, this is easily the worst entry in the Scream franchise, and the only one I consider to be an outright bad movie. Although I found myself excited for Kevin Williamson’s return to the franchise that he created, he failed me on nearly every level. I could’ve forgiven the shoddy writing and uninspired characters, but the same can’t be said for the way it consistently treats its fans, the people to whom this series has always been a love letter, as if they’re stupid keyboard warriors who couldn’t possibly know what they want even if it bit them in the ass. This is best exemplified by the film’s handling of Stu Macher (Lillard), a fan favorite killer who has been rumored to be alive since it was revealed that he was originally meant to return in the initial script for Scream 3. They tease fans with his return, only to reveal it was just AI (I can’t believe this isn’t a parody), with one of the killers outright stating, “You thought he was alive? C’mon, that’d be stupid.” You know what’s actually stupid? Explaining everything with “AI,” one of the dumbest, most overplayed tropes in all of Hollywood. Seriously, the “it was all AI” plot point is a real meme. It never works to tease audiences with something infinitely more interesting than what’s actually delivered, so why do it in the first place? It’s just cowardly, smug writing that is so convinced of its own cleverness, it fails to recognize even its smallest blunders. This will easily be my biggest disappointment of the year. I guarantee no other film will come close. D