Horror Movie Review: Scream 7 (2026)

Widely panned, yet making a hilarious amount of money, Scream 7 sums up the lack of creativity within the modern Hollywood horror scene and a mainstream audience’s desire to just see the same stuff regurgitated. Truly, nostalgia rules all, yet that doesn’t mean Scream 7 is a bad film, necessarily.

Directed by Kevin Williamson from a screenplay he co-wrote with Guy Busick, Scream 7 is the latest instalment in the Scream film series. A film that has to awkwardly dance around the previous two films, and all so it can deliver the hits, or at least what it perceives are the hits. Something you might think would make me angry, but truthfully, it’s hard to care enough to get angry. The creative team behind it certainly didn’t care.

All they cared about was giving Neve Campbell enough money so she’d return to the franchise, and they can forget that Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega were ever here. Even though the continuity means they have no choice but to at least acknowledge some events, referring to the 6th instalment as that ‘New York thing’ and how Sidney had ‘sat that one out’. It is as awkward as it sounds.

It’s also really disappointing as, for all Scream VI’s faults, it felt like the overarching ideas behind it were trying to move the franchise forward. Whereas Scream 7 is all about looking backwards, sideways, upwards, downwards, basically any direction but forwards. It simply wants you to bask in the glow of the past, regardless of if it makes sense or not.

So, lets get into the story, spoiler free, as we have a new Ghostface killer who may, or may not be, Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). But didn’t he die, I hear you cry? That is a very good question and it’s something both Sidney and a returning Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) are beginning to doubt. Reunited when the body count begins to rise and this Ghost Face begins to target Sidney’s daughter, Tatum (Isabel May). This killer has a grudge, and as prepared as she can be, this time around Sidney has so much more to lose.

Delivering one of the franchise’s dullest stories that only manages to deliver a twist ending because it’s so nonsensical no-one could have seen it coming. Scream 7 isn’t just a film lacking in creativity, it’s a film lacking in style or substance, and it’s certainly not the fault of the leads (Neve Campbell and Isabel May) who certainly try to make it something more than it is. It’s simply the fault of a lifeless story obsessed with referencing the past, horrible pacing that sees the film grind to a shuddering halt at the worst possible times, and a washed out look that makes you wonder what the hell they spent $45 million (it didn’t all go on wages) on.

Scream 7’s big thing is AI, which could be an interesting conversation to have, especially from a film franchise once adept at being meta, except this story comes from people who have no actual clue how to do that. What we get is laughable, makes no sense, and in one scene, is used in such a way, it’s clear the creative team think the audience is braindead and will likely just clap like seals when old favourites appear on screen.

If you’re anything like me, you probably went temporarily blind from rolling your eyes so hard.

I get it, nostalgia rules all, and I’m not immune to it, but when so much of a film is designed to make you nudge the person next to you and say ‘remember?’, something has severely gone wrong. Just look at the trailer. Look at the introduction of Gale Weathers, which is the most obvious ‘clap and cheer’ arrival of a character I’ve ever seen in a horror film. How about the ham-fisted attempt to be ‘meta’ Scream style with the bar scene?

The fact that Sidney’s daughter is called Tatum, and the film will hammer home the reason why. The killer reveal? It all exists to remind you of a different, more fun, and less world-ending/war-torn time. Remember when Scream felt fresh and exciting? Kevin Williamson does, but fails to recapture the magic.

Is it all bad? No, there are one or two decent sequences, a solid intro, a couple of decent death scenes, and as I said before, the leads are both good, but it’s hard to remember the good when you’re being hammered so hard by the bad. I’d love to say that Scream 8 will be totally different, but let’s be honest, it won’t be. Not when the franchise continues to make this much money.