Review: Scream 7 – A stab at the nostalgia vein
Directed by Kevin Williamson
Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Isabel May
6.5/10
Sidney (Neve Campbell) knows better than most that the past won’t stay buried, but it doesn’t stop her from trying. Moving from Woodsboro, she’s set up a life in a small town and tries to keep her family as far away from her blood-soaked past as possible. Of course this defensiveness has led to issues with her relationship with her daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), but that’s part of growing up. However, when the Ghostface killer returns, Sidney is confronted not merely with a very familiar pattern but with the frightening thought that it might be a familiar face under the mask.
This feels like a deliberate return to the franchise’s small-town slasher roots that inspired the original film. Yes, it maintains some of the metatextual elements in its callbacks to ‘70s and ‘80s horror films (and the later sequels spawned from them) and the compulsory callout of the tropes, but that’s not really the emphasis here.
Instead, Scream 7 is wrapped in a Halloween-like shroud that goes beyond the autumnal small-town setting and direct shot lifts. There’s a goryness to the kills that seems bloodier than previous iterations. At times it has almost artistic ambition reminiscent of Giallo, with a disembowelled starlet posed artistically on stage. At others, it verges almost on darkly comedic in its brutality and feats of supernatural strength.
At the end of the day though, this is a “bread and butter” franchise outing, albeit a solid one. It expands the generational legacy of the franchise while paying plenty of fan service to the Scream films that have gone before it. It doesn’t do anything to radically change the format; rather, it renews it, wallowing a little in nostalgia and adjusting for the new status quo with some legacy characters. Given the loss of two major characters from the previous film (due to real-world disputes), this was probably the best way forward.
Neve Campbell returns to the role with ease (after all, she’s only missed one outing), bringing the right combination of survivor and stoic den mother to the role. She plays well off of Isabel May, giving us both the frustration of dealing with teenage children and not wanting to pass on generational trauma. It’s a fairly surface message, but it’s enough to add a little emotional drama to proceedings.
It’s not surprising that a film directed by the writer of the original screenplay, Kevin Williamson, feels like a return to the franchise’s roots (or even to what inspired it), but that’s not entirely a bad thing. Scream 7 is playing it safe, but it’s done with competence and some style.
DAVID O’CONNELL