‘Scream 7’ review: Returning star Neve Campbell fails to reinvigorate blunt horror franchise

Dir: Kevin Williamson. US. 2026. 114mins

Thirty years after the original film, Scream 7 reminds audiences what made this franchise so fresh — and what’s now sorely lacking. Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first two pictures, steps into the director’s chair and brings back series star Neve Campbell to reprise her role as Sidney Prescott, who this time must keep the murderous Ghostface from killing her daughter. But, despite the occasional cheeky moment and brutal slaying, a property that once satirised horror cliches has largely succumbed to them.

A property that once satirised horror cliches has largely succumbed to them

Paramount releases Scream 7 in UK and US theatres on February 27, looking to continue the franchise’s commercial comeback. After the lacklustre Scream 4 (2011) the series rebounded 11 years later with 2022’s Scream ($138 million worldwide) and 2023’s Scream VI ($167 million). Scream 7 will be without Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, the stars of the previous two pictures, but this new instalment seems poised to do strong business, especially with Campbell back in the fold.

Long ago fleeing her hometown of Woodsboro, Sidney (Campbell) wants to put the trauma of the Ghostface killings behind her. Now happily married to police chief Mark (Joel McHale) and raising three children, including teenager Tatum (Isabel May), she believes she has finally put enough distance between herself and her fraught past. But when a new assailant dressed in the Ghostface get-up tries to kill Tatum, Sidney realises she must confront her demons in order to save her daughter.

Williamson, who hasn’t written for the franchise since Scream 4, has never before directed a Scream film. (His only feature directorial credit is the mediocre 1999 thriller/dark comedy Teaching Mrs. Tingle.) But he certainly understands this franchise’s combination of scares and irreverent humour. In stretches, Scream 7 manages to recapture the series’ playful skewering of slasher conventions while Ghostface impales some hapless victim. And Williamson enjoys inserting a few meta jokes, such as acknowledging that Sidney/Campbell was conspicuously absent from Scream VI’s New York excursion.

But the original Scream’s crucial selling point was that, unlike the brain-dead horror pictures it mocked, the story resisted resorting to having the characters make foolish choices in order for the kills to unfold. Such smarts are notably missing in Scream 7. Starting with its patented opening set piece in which Ghostface makes an appearance, the new sequel relies on questionable narrative logic so that the body count can begin piling up. The screenplay by Williamson and Guy Busick occasionally crafts a clever suspense sequence, including one involving a panic room, but it’s hard to be invested when the characters keep stupidly putting themselves in danger.

Recent horror films have highlighted their characters’ past traumas to elicit viewer sympathy, often linking the current terror they’re experiencing to grief or pain they endured in childhood. A sharper Scream picture would slyly subvert that trope but Williamson plays it disappointingly straight, presenting Sidney as a glum survivor determined to protect her daughter. Campbell brings a grounded reality to Sidney’s weary warrior, but she’s trapped portraying a type we’ve seen in other horror franchise revivals — most notably, Jamie Lee Curtis in the David Gordon Green Halloween pictures.

But at least Campbell has a compelling presence. In contrast, May fails to make much of an impression as Sidney’s rebellious daughter Tatum, who resents that her mother doesn’t share anything about her past; particularly troublesome as she is Ghostface’s primary target. Whereas Barrera and Ortega were given roles with a little nuance, May’s Tatum is a fairly dull potential final girl whose only trait is that she fears she lacks her mom’s steely survival instincts. Scream 7 also strands the previous pictures’ new additions, Jasmin Savoy Brown’s Mindy and Mason Gooding’s Chad, who have less to do in this instalment.

The film has twists which should not be spoiled, although one subplot involves the possibility that a character from an earlier picture might not actually be dead. This mystery element connects to Scream 7’s generally limp satire of the shameless ways that moribund franchises try to keep audiences hooked by playing into musty old nostalgia. Beloved individuals such as Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers put in an appearance, but the familiar faces feel obligatory. Even Ghostface, whose frightening countenance and deadly blade once were the stuff of nightmares, has lost his (or her) ability to scare.