Early in "Scream 7,” in one of those blasts of the franchise's signature, self-mocking irony, Neve Campbell is taunted for sitting out "Scream VI.”
"It's not the same without you,” she is told.
It's true: Campbell's Sidney Prescott is the plucky heart of this series, the original Scream Queen, the so-called Final Girl, who bites her lip and yet leaps into action when needed. "Scream VI” tried to put defibrillator paddles on the Ghostface killer franchise without Campbell, and it felt like a stutter-step.
So it's a welcome back for Sidney Prescott in this seventh edition, which is a messy mix of horror and humor that's clearly only for "Scream” completists, those hardy folk who refuse logic or vivid filmmaking in their quest to see a dude in a cape and mask stab people.
Sidney is now a mom to a rebellious 17-year-old daughter, a wife to the town's police chief and a cafe owner in the very artificial suburban community of Pine Grove. She has pushed her traumatic past into a memory hole and thus has created a tension with her daughter, played by a very bratty Isabel May. Her calm life is upended when her past comes to find her.
Franchise creator Kevin Williamson returns to direct and co-write the screenplay with series veteran Guy Busick, but it's all very slack, a ton of B-acting joined by a plot, dialogue and editing that produces less dread than inadvertent humor, slipping over and over in its own puddle of gore.
"Scream 7” mixes old and new franchise characters, adds new horrific ways to die - like being slit open while suspended over a high school theater stage - with a desperate search for whoever is doing the killings. It's never who you think it is and you'll never figure this one out, either. "It's always someone you know” is one helpful tip.
Campbell is joined by Courteney Cox, who reprises her role as Gale Weathers, an annoying TV journalist who is the only character to appear in all seven "Scream” films. (Is that really something to boast about?)
Even Cox has some shade to share with Sidney about missing the franchise's last jaunt to New York City in "Scream VI:” "You're lucky you sat that one out. It was brutal.” Preach, sister. We watched it.
"Scream 7” is all about 2026, embracing deepfake videos, trying to absorb a messy past and deal with helicopter parents. It also embraces such interesting ways to kill people as fire extinguishers to the noggin, meat mallets and a slide across a bar into broken shot glass shards.
At one point, Sidney and her daughter make their way into a well-appointed panic room while the killer is furiously hunting them. They spend less than five minutes there, panting a lot, and then they (checks notes) inexplicably leave - the panic room.
"This isn't going to stop unless I stop it,” Sidney says.
While there are nods to other horror movies - "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is playing at the local theater and the "Halloween” franchise gets name-checked - "Scream” has always been fun for the way it deconstructs the genre while making a new one. This time, that's just flat.
There's a stab - sorry - at dealing with PTSD, but choosing the "Scream” franchise to discuss generational trauma is a weird vehicle to pick when there's a psychotic, knife-wielding serial killer dropping bodies every few minutes.
Lumbering along while fatally wounded, this is a franchise that doesn't know it is dead, staggering ever onward without an ending in sight. Perhaps Sidney is right: This isn’t going to stop unless she stops it.
"Scream 7,” a Paramount Pictures release that hits theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for strong bloody violence, gore and language. Running time: 114 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
