1 of 5 | Neve Campbell returns as Sydney in “Scream 7,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Scream 7, in theaters Friday, is the best Scream movie since the ’90s. That’s become an increasingly lower bar, but the return of original writer Kevin Williams refocuses the sequel on the original characters and themes, more so than movie references.
Sydney (Neve Campbell) is now married to police officer Mark Evans (Joel McHale). They have a teenage daughter, Tatum (Isabelle May), named after Rose McGowan’s character from the 1996 Scream.
Williamson, sharing screenplay credit with Guy Busick, explores the tension between Sydney and Tatum. Sydney is pretty measured when she catches Tatum’s boyfriend, Ben (Sam Rechner), sneaking in, but opening up about five previous murder sprees is less natural.
Tatum is aware of multiple Stab movies based on Sydney’s experiences, two books written by survivors including Sydney’s, and true crime shows still exploit them. Tatum wants to understand and the script navigates trauma, protectiveness, defensiveness, secrecy and other emotions with maturity.
As such, Scream 7 is much more about the legacy of survival than it is about its place amongst other horror movies. Horror franchises still get name checked, but to a much smaller degree than even the original Scream.
When Sydney addresses franchise tropes she doesn’t even necessarily call attention to them. She keeps insisting on shooting Ghostface in the head, because the killer always survives body shots, but that’s just common sense during her sixth murder spree.
Just by the nature of addressing Sydney’s trauma, Scream 7 joins the recent Halloween trilogy and other legacy sequels in interrogating its final girl. Sydney puts on a pleasant face when customers in her coffee shop mention her past, but that’s also easier than her own daughter digging deeper.
The relationships between Tatum and her friends also feel honest. As the creator of Dawson’s Creek, Williamson still gets young voices right without making them too precocious.
Other dialogue is rushed to speed the plot along. Sydney’s neighbor, Jessica (Anna Camp) very awkwardly mentions her son, Lucas’s (Asa Germann) abusive father far too casually.
Sydney also repeats information when reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) shows up, which feels more like a TV show catching viewers back up after a commercial break.
Scream 7 addresses the evolution of communication since the ’90s as the new Ghostface uses video calls to threaten Sydney along with voice calls. But video calls have evolved so far by 2026 that she can’t even trust what she’s seeing because AI deepfakes are so prolific.
But the only time Ghostface asks about scary movies is when the film satirizes the mass marketing of grizzly crimes. That is more perceptive about society than cinema, although even Scream 7 can’t escape acknowledging that true crime podcasts exist.
The film repeatedly throws shade on Scream VI, going so far as to say it doesn’t even count if Sydney wasn’t there. Considering the reason Campbell wasn’t there was because they lowballed her in her own franchise, that shade is well deserved.
Gale returns with Scream (2022) and Scream VI characters Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jessic Savoy Brown) in tow to support Sydney. There’s less attention devoted to Gale’s coping mechanisms, so that it feels more like an afterthought, but it is proportionate to a supporting character.
As directed by Williamson, the kill scenes are elegantly constructed and brutal. It’s still not Terrifier but this is more graphic than the garage door or TV set kills in Scream.
Scream 7 stages scenarios that make dynamic use of spaces. Ghostface steps in and out of frame behind unsuspecting victims.
Stalking scenes also utilize confined spaces akin to the crashed car scene in Scream 2. By comparison, scenes set in a bar and coffee shop feel more mundane but still make unexpected uses of potential implements of death.
By avoiding the labored meta-commentary of the last two sequels, Scream 7 actually feels more like a Scream movie. It is a worthwhile exploration of where Sydney is 30 years later but still acknowledges all the movies in between.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
