Scream 7 (2026)
Directed by Kevin Williamson
When a new Ghostface killer emerges in the quiet town where Sidney Prescott has built a new life, her darkest fears are realized as her daughter becomes the next target. Determined to protect her family, Sidney must face the horrors of her past to put an end to the bloodshed once and for all.
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28 films that influenced Scream 7
What critics say influenced Scream 7
This is Sidney Prescott in the mode of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode in Halloween (2018). Unlike Curtis’ character, however, Sidney is not portrayed as emotionally damaged or obsessive.
…this film is, as mentioned, committed straightforwardly to functioning as an uninspired riff on the Halloween reboot.
…una dinámica muy similar a la que Jamie Lee Curtis interpretó en las recientes secuelas de Halloween…
Sidney Prescott as a mother is a compelling character, even if it feels like a bit of a retread of Halloween 2018.
She's rehashing the generational trauma theme we've seen in recent horror reboots, especially in Halloween (2018), which is name-checked here to really hammer home the similarity.
For Scream 7, the unenterprising screenwriters Kevin Williamson and Guy Busick lifted the premise from the rebooted Halloween (2018), which involved the killer Michael Myers setting his sights on the next generation and attempting to slaughter a mother-daughter combo of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her estranged daughter, Karen (Judy Greer).
Williamson revisits his old texts, quoting his own lines, as well as some of Craven’s directorial ones, as at least two sequences in Scream 7 repeat similar episodes from 1996’s Scream, almost shot-for-shot.
Where Scream 7 proves most effective is in its opening sequence, continuing the franchise tradition of hitting the ground running with a sharp, well-executed set piece to launch the film.
The small town setting shifts the series back to the mode of the first, fourth, and fifth films; Scream never really felt comfortable in big city settings.
Scott's fatal mistake was chasing nostalgia. But beyond that, Williamson's first kills here are more vicious than those in Scream. They're more on par with the graphic violence seen in the torture porn trend that would follow the release of Scream 3 — a trend that is part of the reason this franchise went fallow for 11 years.
The latter, the heir apparent to Jamie Kennedy’s horror scholar Randy Meeks, can barely muster up the ritual monologue that typically plays like a state of the union address for film nerds. You know that moment where every Scream movie self-referentially lays down the intent and rules for whatever sequel, “requel” or current trend they’re supposed to be skewering.
After Ghostface’s reign of terror in New York City, the story shifts back to a small town, a welcome reset for the Scream franchise.
…it culminates in an over-the-top final act that could have been ripped from a Scary Movie (2000 to present) comedic parody of the horror genre.
…la película termina cruzando la línea hacia la autoparodia involuntaria, evocando más el espíritu de Scary Movie que el de la obra original que pretendía satirizar los clichés del terror.
…a hollow and somewhat cynical product that would be too lame for even the Scary Movie franchise to make fun of…
…it’s somehow a parody, but far less broad than Scary Movie.
In Scream, Sidney was given space to express the pain of losing her mother in a scene with Billy, recreated in Scream 2 and then mocked in Scary Movie.
Scream 7 has none of that, not even the ability to descend into navel-gazing camp like the previous weakest link in the chain, Scream 3, or the self-consuming, ouroboros that eats its own tail, a la the movie-franchise-within-a-movie-franchise, Stab.
There’s a bit more mystery solving in the vein of Scream 3 that’s interesting.
Scream 3 and Scream 4 have it beat in that department.
Yes, even more disappointing than the one seen in Scream 3, which used to top my list as the worst killer reveals.
I see no reason to spoil any of that or any of the connections to the very first Scream 30 years ago.
Sidney ended up with in Scream 3…
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Ghostface, after all, is just a psycho in a Party City costume. There's no invulnerability like Friday The 13th's Jason Voorhees, no mystical voodoo magic like Child Play's Chucky, no eldritchian horror of It's Pennywise.
…the cast feels like fodder, operating within the same hollow framework that defined many 80s slashers such as Friday the 13th.
…parodying the old movies mentioned in an opening quiz (Nightmare on Elm Street, The People Under the Stairs and Friday the 13th)…
Scream 7 strains to be as meta as its ancestors, piling on references to hallowed horror classics (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The People Under the Stairs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th) and its franchise brethren.
The opening of Scream 4, which was also written by Williamson, sharply satirized how unwieldy such-referential sarcasm can be when characters die at the beginning of a movie by watching characters die at the beginning of a movie within a movie.
Scream 3 and Scream 4 have it beat in that department.
Williamson himself put it in the Scream 4 script, "she don’t give a shit who dies, cause there is no character to fill the man."
See also Alison Brie's wickedly opportunistic PR agent in Scream 4.
In addition, the decision to bring back Marco Beltrami’s score, missing since Scream 4, wraps a warm cozy blanket of familiarity around the whole film.
No-one does stalk-’n’-slash sequences quite like Wes Craven (_Scream_s 1 to 4), but these set-pieces are none-too-shabby at whipping up suspense.
Wes Craven’s Scream 2 thoroughly engaged with the idea of living with trauma…
The ones who meet a grisly fate don’t have the emotional resonance of the OG Tatum, Randy, or even poor Halle from Scream 2.
By Scream 3, she wears her pain in the form of a necklace that her slain Scream 2 boyfriend (Jerry O'Connell) gave her.
…the 1996 original film came from an original script by Kevin Williamson, who subsequently also wrote SCREAM 2 and SCREAM 4 (aka SCRE4M).
…who better to make this movie than Kevin Williamson, the writer of Scream 1, 2, and 4? He also sits back in the director’s chair for the first time this millennium.
That line earned chuckles at the screening I attended, coming across like a backhanded jab at the Barrera and Ortega-led installment, which just happened to be the franchise’s biggest box office hit, and also its best sequel since Scream 2.
…it's worth noting that both "Halloween" (with 1998's "Halloween H20: 20 Years Later") and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1994's "Wes Craven's New Nightmare") were in better spots when it came to their seventh go-rounds.
Fans know that Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (the seventh Nightmare On Elm Street film) was essentially a Scream forerunner. A clever, meta, knowing chiller that paved the way for every scary movie made in the last 30 years.
When the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise grew stale, Wes Craven pivoted to the radical and inventive New Nightmare. That is the level of ingenuity sorely lacking here.
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It's been three years and countless controversies since "Scream VI" arrived on our screens…
…one that keeps the events of Scream VI firmly in play while clearing space for the story the series has been building toward since 1996.
After Scream VI expanded the franchise’s scale, including its ambitious New York City setting, this sequel feels noticeably pared back.
After Scream (2022) and Scream VI put a greater focus on Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) as the new leads, their departure from this series alongside formerly-attached director Christopher Landon forced a rewrite that put Sidney back as the face of this series.
As the franchise switched hands to directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett with Scream 5 and 6, the new heroine's (Melissa Barrera) brooding over being the offspring of Billy Loomis dragged the franchise into a suffocatingly grim terrain.
Following the success of 2023’s Scream VI – itself marked by the absence of franchise cornerstone Neve Campbell amid a pay dispute – the seventh entry endured director departures, cast exits, online backlash, and a very public implosion of its original creative direction.
After the Terrifier films and In a Violent Nature raised the bar on gore, the kills feel pedestrian and, because they’re also pointless, mean.
Las inconsistencias se presentan también en el tono de las muertes y las agresiones, que a veces parecen querer competir con el salvajismo del payaso Art en ‘Terrifier’…