Scream 7

Once again, I find myself reviewing a movie on the day of release, and once again, I have trouble with the review. Not because I have a hard time not spoiling it, but because I have a hard time scoring it. I know what I think the score is as I’m beginning to type this, but I don’t know if this will be the final score…

Let’s see!

I’ve decided not to write a spoiler-free version, so let this be the warning - THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

After our opening kill scene, which was a lot of fun, and saw the destruction of the Macher House, we begin with the story of Sidney EVANS (no longer Prescott) and the life she made for herself. She’s married to Mark (not that Mark) and has three kids, two of which are with their paternal grandmother, and Tatum, their oldest. Tatum has a friend group (because of course she does, and honestly, most teens do), and Sidney runs a coffee shop.

We see tensions between Sidney and Tatum. This is your typical Mother vs Teenage Daughter interaction as Tatum deals with her mother’s overprotective nature, particularly when she sees Tatum’s boyfriend has snuck through her bedroom window ala Billy Loomis. Aware of the Stab movies, Tatum ‘gets it’ but since Sidney doesn’t actually talk about her past and what she REALLY experienced as a teen, Tatum is desperate to come from underneath the ever-looming shadow of her mother’s infamous past.

Then the phone rings…

While at work and believing it to be a prank, the caller video chats Sidney, and we see Stu Macher outside Tatum’s high school.

And the killings begin.

The rest goes into the typical Scream formula, so let’s get into the scoring.

Originality: As always, it’s difficult to find the line of originality with a franchise like Scream. The opening wasn’t cut-and-paste, the kills were unique, and the story behind the killer reveal was different. All in all, the movie was original in that way, despite being otherwise formulaic.
Originality: 2 points

Ending: I’ve been trying to sit with this one since I left the theater last night. SPOILERS COMING!!
There are three Ghostfaces in Scream 7. The first is killed partway through when he’s hit by a van being driven by Gale Weathers and the Meeks-Martin twins, Mindy and Chad. The killer’s name is Karl, and the only time we saw him in the movie prior to this was a moment in the coffee shop when we see him retrieve his coffee while giving Sidney a weird stare. That’s it.

The official “Killer reveal” shows us the identity of the other two - Marco, who worked at Fallbrook Psychiatric Hospital and was so unimportant that my friend and I both forgot his name on the way back home, and Jessica, Sidney’s neighbor, mother of the “creepy kid” in Tatum’s friend group, and survivor of domestic abuse. This last part leads us into the killer’s why.

Short version: Sidney’s book, Into Darkness, which talks about Sidney’s growth from Victim to Fighter, inspired her to not only leave her abusive relationship, but to kill her husband to truly be free of him. Sidney’s lack of involvement in the NYC Ghostface Attacks saddened or disappointed Jessica to the point of stalking Sidney and following her to the little town in Indiana they live in now. She recruited a couple of guys to help, including a tech guy who could produce deep fakes of the likes of Dewey Riley, Roman Bridger, Nancy Loomis, and, of course, Stu Macher, all in an attempt to draw “the old Sidney” out; Sidney Prescott the Fighter, not Sidney Evans, barista.

I have mixed feelings about this reveal. For five movies (all, minus the first), the killers were motivated by the previous killers one way or another. In this one, the killers are inspired by Sidney as the “real life Scream Queen” and “THE Final Girl”. Of course, they really wanted to take Tatum into “The next Sidney Prescott”, but of course, the Evans women prevail.

To look at this objectively, this ending and motivation are brand new and unique, but the reveal itself fell flat because these were characters we never really got to know. Karl and Marco were in, I think, just one scene each, leading to a reaction of, “wait a minute…who the hell is that?” The best we got were a few scenes with Jessica, but she could easily be spotted as the killer.

The scoring question is, “Does the ending make sense, all things considered?” and technically, it does. I’m just not a fan.
Ending: 2 points

Story: As I mentioned already, the story fits the Scream Formula - someone, for some reason to be revealed later, dons the Ghostface mask and starts killing. In this case, they’re ultimately after Sidney and her family, particularly her daughter Tatum. Ghostface wants to maximize the impact by taking out the friend group. Then it comes down to our final girl and Ghostface. Ghostface reveals the plan and fails - not much more to the plot. It was a lot of chasing and adding doubt to this character or that. Nothing more. Was the story bad? No. Was it good? It was okay. It was fine, really. Two points are fine.
Story: 2 points

Character: Short answer: yes and no. It’s kind of a 50/50. Sidney, Tatum, Mark Evans (the husband/father), and some of the friend group made perfect sense. The inclusion of Gale, Chad, and Mindy, some of the friend group, the theater director, and the killers - I didn’t like it. Chad and Mindy, as much as I LOVE their characters and the actors that play them, they didn’t play a part in this movie. This would have been just as good without the twins or Gale. Gale played a part in the interview scene, but other than that - nothing.
Character: 1 point

Enjoyment: The movie, as a whole, was good. The opening was great, the kills are fresh and new, and introducing a new character in Tatum is a new boost to the franchise. Sadly, the movie builds to a point, and once we got to that point, it just…was. I didn’t enjoy that. The reveal was lame. The Ghostfaces weren’t meaningful to me. The finale was fun with Sidney and Tatum shooting together. One point at best.
Enjoyment: 1 point