Scream 7 Review: Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott Deserves a Better Script
Scream 7 Movie Review: Scream 7 brings back Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott in a familiar horror setting. The film combines legacy trauma with digital horror but falls short in narrative depth and innovation.
For many of us who grew up quoting the rule about “never say I’ll be right back” scream The saga has been much more than a slasher series. It’s been a conversation with pop culture itself. That’s why scream 7 Seems very divisive. It is more acerbic, sometimes disgusting, sometimes thrilling and yet, curiously stuck in the past.
Directed and co-written by franchise co-creator Kevin Williamson, marking his first time directing a film in the series, this installment refreshes the story of Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott. After the generational pivot of scream (2022) and scream VI, which embraced “request” culture and social media-era paranoia, the seventh film returns to legacy comfort.
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In scream 7You find Sydney living in the quiet town of Pine Grove with her husband Mark, a police officer played by Joel McHale, and their teenage daughter, the obviously named Tatum, a reminder that in this universe, history is never buried. Sydney has settled into a life away from the shadow of Woodsboro, but Ghostface, as always, has unfinished business.
The opening sequence, staged in a kitschy rental version of the infamous Stu Macher House, now repurposed as horror tourism, is a sharp commentary on commoditized trauma. A group of teenagers livestreaming their night indoors immediately become victims, leading to one of the film’s more effective and brutal beginnings. It’s a clever idea: true crime obsession and fan culture colliding with the original site of the massacre. For a moment, it feels like the franchise is ready to call nostalgia a slapstick affair.
From there, the murders move to Pine Grove and target people connected directly or peripherally to Sidney’s past. The film creates unease in the domestic sphere as suspicion falls on friends, neighbors, and even members of law enforcement. Courteney Cox returns as Gale Weathers, once again chasing the story, while the Meeks-Martin twins come up with flashes of franchise-loving humor. But unlike the previous films in the franchise (including the last two, which were pretty groundbreaking), their commentary on horror tropes feels punchy rather than sardonic.
subjectively, scream 7 An attempt to grapple with the trauma and fear of legacy in the digital age. A tech-driven subplot involving manipulated footage, AI-enhanced voice mimics, and the viral resurgence of horrors past. This establishes Ghostface as both a physical killer and a digital ghost. To be honest, it’s an interesting concept, but the execution is surface level, as if it’s just playing off trending concerns rather than fully committing to it.
For every inspired moment, there are extensions that feel oddly routine. The meta commentary is surprisingly muted and the playful dissection of the “rules” of horror, a hallmark from 1996, is barely present. Rather than subvert the genre, Scream 7 often plays like a fairly straight-faced slasher. Able, yes. Destructive, rarely.
Campbell tries her best, and she remains the emotional anchor of the franchise, but even her grounded performance struggles against writing that unintentionally veers into cheesiness. Where the film falters most dramatically is in its final stages. The Scream franchise has always flirted with outrageous villain motivations; Since Scream 2, plausibility has often taken a back seat to operatic confessionals. However, here the reveal feels less audacious and more shocking. The motivations are weak, the logic shaky, and the climactic confrontation is arguably the weakest. The tension is present, but it never tightens into that breathless, edge-of-your-seat crescendo.
Watch the trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJrghhaPJ0RY
Comparisons with previous films are inevitable. Wes Craven’s original quartet was based on an extremely keen sense of horror grammar and audience complicity. Even Scream 3, often considered the franchise’s most uneven chapter, at least builds on its Hollywood satire with conviction. The fifth and sixth films delivered a generational shock, embracing anarchy, social media paranoia, and increased bloodshed.
scream 7 Instead one feels like a retreatant, not completely misguided, but alert and engaged in others in strange ways. Yes, it is more extreme in its violence, and sometimes even crueler in its killings. But tonight, it goes backwards. And yet, this is not a disaster. This is a classic watch: slick, fast-moving, intermittently gripping. There’s an undeniable affection for the Ghostface mythology here, and franchise fans may find comfort in its familiarity. But affection is not the only novelty.
For a franchise that once skewered horror conventions with wicked glee, Scream 7 feels oddly blunt.
This film will be released in India on 27 February.
