A Scream To A Whisper
*Author’s note: to read the pdf version of this review, click here
To say that the original Scream holds a special place in my heart would be underselling it. To this daystill it is the movie I have seen the most times in theaters. I was 9 years old when it originally released, and although the opening scene may have scarred me for life, I went back to the theater four or five more times (when I say went back, I mean snuck in) to see it during its original run. Last year I took my youngest brother and sister to see it in a theater on Halloween night. I can talk all day about Scream’s merits, and how–much like Halloween did in the late 70s–it completely changed the game and breathed new life into the horror genre!
The Scream franchise though does not hold the same level of reverie for me. I like Scream 2 a lot, but I don’t feel the need to revisit it as often. Scream 3 is a straight up POS that I have only seen maybe twice total. At the time of its release I hated Scream 4 (although I kind of feel like I owe it a second chance with renewed eyes). Scream 5 was fine–a nice return to the series’ roots (I will die on the hill that the whole Billy’s daughter story line is garbage though). Scream 6 had great carnage, and the fact that it moved the series to a whole new playground for Ghostface was kind of cool, but the killer reveal was, at the time, bottom 2 no doubt.
Lets address the elephant in the room when it comes to what appears to be pretty significant backlash working against Scream 7: I have mixed feelings regarding the studio’s decision to fire Melissa Barrera over her expressed views concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I am a strong proponent of free speech no question–but expressing your views comes with the caveat that you should be ready to accept the consequences. To her credit (and to the credit of Jenna Ortega as well, who supported her co-star by also backing out) Barrera stood on business, and took the firing in stride. With that being said, I went into Scream 7 giving it the benefit of the doubt. Hell, I was even excited after seeing the trailers.
I am saddened to report that that excitement was very misplaced, as the offering we got is a hollow shell of the franchise’s former glory.
Let’s start with the aspects of the film that I like. For starters, Barrera and Ortega’s exits left the studio with no choice but to go crawling back to Neve Campbell (and reportedly paying her huge money, which, good for her–get that bag). Sidney Prescott-Evans is, in my opinion, the second most endearing “final girl” in all of horror: she’s a smart bad ass who constantly shows a positive character evolution (unlike my ultimate “final girl” Laurie Strode, who is constantly depicted as being damaged goods). Neve Campbell is Scream’s true north, and that is painstakingly evident here again. I guess we can give Joel McHale some props too (even though every time I see him I just think Jeff Winger from Community), he is kind of a bad ass in this movie. If it weren’t for those two, as well as the appearance of the Meeks-Martin twins, who are always enjoyable comedic reliefs, there would be absolutely nothing in the way of heart to discuss.
Seriously, this film is utterly soulless and hollow aside from a decent opening sequence and two other kills. There is no positive message about the horror culture (hold that thought for the spoiler section later), no real innovation to the killings, no metaness or cool references (aside from Sidney being forced to apologize for sitting out Scream 6), nothing. The movie is very bland, and it just really feels like it’s on total life support the entire way through. Even the scenes that could have been scary are completely phoned in, and underscored by those annoying orchestral strikes that are meant to signal to the audience that they should be afraid. Scream movies at the very least should bring some sense of fourth wall acknowledgement that the series (and its fanbase) have largely been pretty intelligent and creative, and there is just absolutely none of that here. EVEN THE SOUNDTRACK IS BORING besides an acceptable usage of the series’ theme song “Red Right Hand” (true fans know how hard those soundtracks went back in the day). The hollowness is palpable. On top of that, the killer reveal is BAD! We are talking like Scream 3 is redeemed level bad! If you want to compare Scream 7 to its genre mate I Know What You Did Last Summer, I think Scream 7 is on par with the ‘25 IKWYDLS in terms of being terrible, and maybe even has a worse killer reveal!
While it was nice to see Sidney return to the series, it all amounts to nothing, as this entry is almost entirely soulless and hollow. Williamson (and apparently Campbell now as well) are going to have to go back to the drawing board if they have any hopes of reviving the series after this one… Or they could just call it a night on ol’ Ghostface as a horror icon and leave him to his new role as a dark romance, Tiktok sex icon!
Click here for a SPOILER FILLED discussion of the ending (and a little extra)
Scream is known (oftentimes) for having great killer reveals–I mean c’mon, TWO KILLERS in the original was mindblowing stuff! I don’t expect the reveals to ever reach that level, but man it needs to mean something! The killers in this movie are so inconsequential that it’s shocking for the wrong reasons: of the three killers, two legit prompted “who is that” responses from multiple people in my theater (and my theater was relatively empty). The head killer’s motivation makes zero sense: she was inspired by Sidney’s book, and now she wants to kill Sidney in front of her daughter to turn her into the new “final girl” (yes, she actually says that, which I guess is your meta moment for the movie). It’s really bad, and is no doubt destined to go down as one of the series’ two worst reveals, if not the absolute worst.
Since we are in the spoiler section, I must confess: I left out what is actually the best part of this movie–which legit blindsided me because I thought it was going to be so dumb–Matthew Lillard’s return as deepfake Stu! Lillard is fantastic and completely unhinged here! He’s so good I honestly did a full 180 on not wanting him to be the killer! In a brutal parting shot at the end, Kevin Williamson even has Killer #2 Marco (I had to even look up the character’s name) mention how stupid it was to even consider the possibility that Stu was alive. That pretty much sums up how he felt about the audience’s theories going into this one, and yet he somehow managed to make a movie where said theories would have been so much better!