Scream 7 (2026)

*/****
starring Neve Campbell, Isabel May, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Courteney Cox
screenplay by Kevin Williamson and Guy Busick
directed by Kevin Williamson

by Walter Chaw Follow me for a second: If you were of limited morality, you would make the decisions that went into Scream 7. And as a person of limited morality, it’s very possible, nay, probable, that you lack some of your factory-allotted share of human empathy. Depending on the kind of asshole you are, you may even lack empathy altogether, thus qualifying you for corporate management and elected positions. Likely, you’ve become quite wealthy on the backs of others. But without empathy, you’re incapable of creating or understanding art, and so you make the decisions that went into Scream 7. Your cultural analogue is the bad guy from The Incredibles, Syndrome. You, who pray for machines to do what others do naturally, so that others will look at you the way they look at them. You, who are arrested at the point in childhood when you watched gifted but otherwise less-privileged kids outpace you in every measurable category. Still, it’s not the same, is it? You know you weren’t born exceptional, and your jealousy makes you shrunken and vile. Now everyone else suffers for your mediocrity.

Somewhere during the pre-production period of this soulless, bullshit film, Melissa Barrera, a talented actor whose character was the foundation for future sequels to Scream, said she stood with Palestinians being fed to the Israeli genocide machine. The ratfucks in ice-cream suits told her her services would no longer be required. In a show of solidarity, co-star Jenna Ortega resigned from the project, as did Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the directors of the two previous instalments. In an attempt to stop the bleeding, Spyglass Media lured back series heroine Neve Campbell–who had bowed out of Scream VI when Spyglass refused to compensate her fairly–and franchise originator Kevin Williamson, hoping to get the hardcore fanbase back on board. They timed their announcements to drown out the hue around Berrera’s dismissal and their own statements accusing the actor of engaging in antisemitism for decrying the wholesale murder and displacement of an entire civilian population. I get it. We all have bills to pay. Judas had a mortgage, I bet. Who among us wouldn’t take blood money from corporate sociopaths? Who among us hasn’t? Scream 7 will serve as proof that being on the wrong side of history is often financially rewarded in the short term but makes for a bleak legacy. Embarrassing. Shameful.

In the middle of Scream 7, someone tells Sydney she’s lucky to have missed the last film because it was a “mess.” Another hallmark of people who would produce something like this is that every accusation is, in fact, a confession. It’s the sort of condescending, patronizing quip an elderly person, whatever their age, thinks is “hip” and sly. Williamson’s signature postmodern prologue this time around isn’t a movie theatre reflecting the film back at the audience or even a doll’s house synecdoche on a movie set, but rather a museum made out of the house from the first Scream, which a couple of meatbags are visiting after hours. The boyfriend, Scott (Jimmy Tatro), is a big fan of the meta Stab films and Sydney Prescott lore and gets his rocks off jump-scaring the shit out of young Madison (Michelle Randolph). I was reminded of the TikTok phenomenon of “scare reels,” where people film themselves leaping out unexpectedly at their loved ones to capture their shrieking for the pleasure of strangers, and wondered for a moment if this is where Williamson (co-writing and directing; if only they’d given him this long leash on the third film) was going to take a second shot at this key piece of his legacy. Is “clout” already past its sell-by date as a plot device? Anyway, what you think is going to happen happens, and Madison’s death is every bit as cruel as Drew Barrymore’s in the first film, though without the extraordinary tension and exquisite, almost unbearable irony (i.e., the parents on the phone) leading up to it. The first two Scream films approached Greek satire at points. In fact, they made it literally so by equating Sydney with Cassandra in the second and–in my humble but correct opinion–best entry. Scream 7 is just cheap exploitation garbage with a generous budget and a fading pedigree.

The scene turns to Sydney, happily domesticated with a cop hubby (Joel McHale) and a plucky “Scream: The Next Generation” daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), for Sydney to mother-hen along when shit gets lugubriously real. Instead of an insistent call on a landline, Sydney receives a threatening FaceTime from original murderer Stu (Matthew Lillard). Or mebbe Stu’s an A.I. DEEPFAKE, YOU GUYS. It’s another road this series obsessed with identity might have taken, but alas. Imagine, if you will, a “Simpsons” gag where an interminable barrel-of-monkeys of killers emerges, taking off their masks one by one to announce in which of the first six films they appeared and what character they’re related to before confessing they are Spartacus. (“No, I am Spartacus.”) Can you picture it? There, I’ve saved you some cash and time. After the Terrifier films and In a Violent Nature raised the bar on gore, the kills feel pedestrian and, because they’re also pointless, mean. Past the point of developing characters and themes, Williamson engages in late-sitcom desperation as guest stars show up (there’s Officer Dewey–OR IS IT? GENERATIVE A.I. IS THE REAL VILLAIN HERE EVERYBODY! LOOK AT HOW CURRENT I AM! There’s Debbie Salt! There’s Roman Bridger!) to be trainspotted by dorks showing off for their next ex-girlfriends. If the franchise is still self-aware, it’s only self-aware in the Ready Player One way, where it feels like a cry for absolution and tastes like the room-temperature bottom of a community can of beer. Scream fans now have their own The Rise of Skywalker, and A.I. screenwriting software has another arrow in its “Who’s gonna be able to tell?” quiver.