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Review: ‘Scream 7’ is an Entertaining but Mostly Forgettable Sequel that Struggles to Bring the Franchise’s Focus Back to Its Original Final Girl
February 26, 2026Ben MK
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With five sequels to its name and one of the most iconic antagonists the horror genre has ever seen, the Scream franchise has proven its staying power time and time again. And over the course of the past 26 years, the masked murderer known as Ghostface has not only managed to terrorize countless victims, he's also managed to worm his way into the pop culture lexicon. From Wes Craven's 1996 original to 2023's Scream VI, the series' legacy as a staple of slasher cinema is undeniable. And now, with Scream 7, Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson is returning to the franchise for the first time since 2011's Scream 4, as he sets out to bring Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott back into the fold, pitting her against yet another knife-wielding maniac hellbent on upping the series' body count. It's been several years since the gruesome Ghostface murders in New York City, and Sidney, who's now trying her best to live a peaceful life in the quiet town of Pine Grove, has no intention of getting entangled in another killing spree. However, when a psychopath wearing a Ghost Face mask murders two innocent people in the infamous house in Woodsboro where Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) tried to slaughter her in almost three decades ago, she finds herself inevitably drawn back in to the chaos. After one of her 17-year-old daughter Tatum's (Isabel May) best friends is brutally murdered on the grounds of Pine Grove High School, the local police, led by Sidney's police chief husband, Mark (Joel McHale), immediately begins to put together a list of suspects. Could it be Tatum's smart-but-hunky boyfriend, Ben (Sam Rechner), her other friend, Chloe (Celeste O'Connor), or the neighbor's true-crime-obsessed son, Lucas (Asa Germann)? Before the authorities can barely scratch the surface of this disturbing case, though, Ghostface strikes again, forcing Sidney, and her longtime frenemy, news-reporter-turned-author Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), to take matters into their own hands. Along with Gale's ambitious new interns, siblings Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding), who both faced Ghostface in New York and lived to tell the tale, Sidney and Gale start trying to put together the pieces of this blood-soaked puzzle, following the trail of clues to Fallbrook Psychiatric Hospital, where they meet a helpful member of the facility's staff (Ethan Embry) and make the shocking discovery that their old pal Stu might not be so dead after all. However, in this age of A.I. and convincing deepfakes, even that potential revelation could prove to be nothing more than a red herring. Suffice to say, it all leads up to yet another climactic showdown between Sidney and her deranged stalker. But, in the end, will the unmasking of this newest Ghostface be a genuine surprise that viewers won't see coming? Or will the motive behind this new string of homicides just feel like another mandatory plot point — one that pales in comparison to the previous installments? Unfortunately, the answer is more or less the latter, as Williams, who both wrote and directed this sequel, struggles to retcon the events of the previous two films and bring the focus back onto Sidney. In doing so, though, everything that made 2022's Scream and its follow-up, Scream VI, so refreshing and fun for fans of the franchise sadly appears to have been lost in the process. And instead, what viewers are left with is a story that comes off as generic and rote, due in large part to a one-dimensional cast of characters and a mystery that, quite frankly, isn't very intriguing or interesting to solve. Make no mistake, Scream 7 does make good on its promise of delivering plenty of effective jump scares and ultra-gory death scenes. However, when it comes to backing them up with an equally engaging storyline worthy of Campbell's return, that's where things begin to fall apart. It all adds up to an enjoyable but ultimately uneven sequel that is neither terrible nor great, but which merely exists to keep the series going. So, if you're a die-hard Scream devotee who is expecting Scream 7 to be the be-all-end-all of the franchise — as this movie's marketing might suggest — you might want to temper your expectations. For everyone else, this latest installment is more than capable of keeping slasher fans at least entertained for a couple of hours. After that, you'll probably mostly forget about what you've just seen. Scream 7 releases February 27th, 2026 from Paramount Pictures. The film has an MPAA rating of R for strong bloody violence, gore, and language. Its runtime is 1 hr. 54 min. |
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