Publication Date: 02-26-2026

Scream 7 (2026) review

Dir. Kevin Williamson

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★½

The previous two Scream sequels were so flawed and forgettable that the subsequent nuking of the original iteration of Scream 7 proved to be more compelling than either. The franchise’s new face, Melissa Barrera, was fired following comments deemed to be anti-Semitic; her costar, Jenna Ortega, bowed out shortly thereafter; Neve Campbell was still pissed for being lowballed, which resulted in her absence in Scream VI. To make matters even more chaotic, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (known collectively as Radio Silence) opted out, and so did their replacement, Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day) after getting death threats over Barrera’s firing, as if it was Johnny Come Lately’s decision.

Still desperate for more milk from their eternal cash cow, Paramount threw the bag at Scream-writing veteran Kevin Williamson, coughed up $500,000 for new material, and made-good with Campbell (to the tune of a $7 million salary). The final product is the most successful sequel since Scream 4, harboring a real “gang’s back together” vibe, which is also an obvious credit to Williamson’s pulse on the series. Besides, I’m not going to pretend: Barrera and Ortega’s sisterly dynamic just never felt strong or compelling, and with the shoehorning of the original cast, the new characters hardly had any room to breathe. The powers-that-be obviously wanted Campbell and company to play a significant role, so not only do they get their wish with Scream 7, but in turn, we get a mostly solid entry for the first time in 15 years.

Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), her police officer husband Mark (Joel McHale), and their teenage daughter, Tatum (Isabel May) have uprooted their lives to Pine Grove, Indiana. Tatum has a boyfriend, Ben (Sam Rechner), who is the right amount of “brain and brawn,” so he claims, but Sidney is not a fan. All seems peaceful, until Tatum’s friend (Mckenna Grace) gets murked in a particularly grisly manner whilst rehearsing for the school play.

Yes indeed, Ghostface is back, but his identity appears to be revealed early on when Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) phones Sidney and basically admits as much. This is perplexing, for Stu surely died in the original film. Didn’t he? He’s allegedly alive enough to video-call Sidney and make copious threats. Eventually, Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) reenters the picture, as does her aspiring TV news reporters (Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown). Brown gets the honor of monologuing about the chic trends of contemporary horror. While her, Tatum, Ben, and their many peers are gathered in a closed bar late one evening, she bloviates about how nostalgia is the new elixir in horror, and whomever is Ghostface (or Ghostfaces) this time around is trying to relight the flame of what happened 30 years ago.

The new Scream sequels have truly lost the plot in attempting to provide commentary on the current state of the genre in which they operate. Williamson, who wrote the first four films, has such a knack for having his character succinctly summarize the modern clichés and claptraps of horror that one wishes such externalities were more ingrained in the film, as opposed to being part of a one-off scene.

In some ways, however, the inspired opening sequence draws on this. A young couple (Jimmy Tatro and Michelle Randolph) visit the former home of Stu Macher, which has been turned into a slasher museum. There are outlines of him and Billy Loomis’ corpses on the floor, a life-size, motion-detecting Ghostface model, and an abundance of “Stab” photos and iconography. Two years ago, Catherine and I spent a night at the “Greasers Hideout” from The Outsiders in Tulsa, OK. There is something to be said about the thrill and absurdity of being able to set up camp inside an iconic location and experience a work of fiction, so to speak, for yourself, while being reminded of its far-reaching impact everywhere you look. Nostalgia remains one of the most powerful drugs.

Parts of Scream 7 really play like a “Stab” movie. Tatum’s ignorance to her own mother’s traumatic experience seems completely incredulous given Sidney is a published author and her experiences have been published on every conceivable medium. Her ineptitude at self-defense is also questionable. When Tatum’s friend is killed, Mark vows that the police department will exhaustively comb through evidence, run DNA diagnostics, and unmask the new Ghostface. I’m convinced that Hollywood has effectively warped the public perception of what police officers do. You’re lucky to get a follow-up on a police report you file, let alone a full-fledged investigation of a grisly murder from a local department.

I digress. For one, the mystery of Scream 7 is ripe. Sidney’s exhaustion is palpable, but her fight is no less strong, reminiscent of Laurie Strode in the recent Halloween trilogy. The aforementioned long sequence in a local bar, which is then expanded to an otherwise mouse-quiet downtown district under curfew, is also given a lot of room to breathe, as are the characters despite most being inevitable contributors to the film’s overall body-count. It’s lovely to see Lillard return as Stu, even if his comeback involves one of the most alarming and concerning technological inventions in human history. And the Ice Nine Kills collaboration with Mckenna Grace? Total banger.

At this point, this ain’t Wes Craven’s franchise any longer. It’s subtextually diluted, void of the commentary that once underscored its two-handed brilliance, and the red herrings are so ubiquitous that the experience is best enjoyed if you don’t miss the forest for the trees and go with the flow of the story. Scream 7 is a return to competence for a series that struggled mightily to find a reason to exist in a horror landscape that upped its game while it lied in dormancy.

My review of Scream (1996)
My review of Scream 2
My review of Scream 3
My review of Scream 4
My review of Scream (2022)
My review of Scream VI

Starring: Neve Campbell, Isabel May, Courteney Cox, Joel McHale, Matthew Lillard, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Anna Camp, Ethan Embry, Mckenna Grace, Jimmy Tatro, and Michelle Randolph. Voiced by: Roger L. Jackson. Directed by: Kevin Williamson.