If Kevin Williamson had been asked, back in 1996, if his first feature film would ultimately become a franchise at the center of a major political hot potato, he might have laughed in that person’s face. But lo and behold, the seventh installment of Scream unwittingly became one of the most political movies of the 2020s thus far. That is, at least behind the scenes (though the parading of an American flag outside the various houses of Pine Grove, Indiana reads as decidedly Republican-coded).
Fraught with drama as the movie went into production, the eventual permutation for the cast and crew of Scream 7 was, in a certain sense, kismet. After all, for Neve Campbell and Kevin Williamson to both be a part of the project in time for the thirty-year anniversary of the franchise is nothing if not “poetic.” Alas, what isn’t poetic—so much as in utterly poor taste—was the way that Scream 7’s original star, Melissa Barrera, was fired from the project merely for expressing her pro-Palestine sentiments via her Instagram Stories in November of 2023. Among the comments she shared included, “I have been actively looking for videos and information about the Palestinian side for the last two weeks or so, following accounts, etc. Why? Because Western media only shows the other side. Why they do that, I will let you deduce for yourself… Censorship is very real. Palestinians know this, they know the world has been trying to make them invisible for decades.”
In turn, Spyglass Media Group responded by firing her from Scream 7, citing that her comments were “anti-Semitic.” This being the go-to method, particularly in the early days of the Palestinian genocide (or “war in Gaza,” if one wants to be more “euphemistic”) of conditioning celebrities to understand that pro-Palestinian commentary of any kind was not welcome (something Susan Sarandon learned quickly as well). In the aftermath of Barrera’s firing, her co-star, Jenna Ortega, backed out of the project the next day, claiming there was a Wednesday scheduling conflict, but of course not really, later freely admitting, “It had nothing to do with pay or scheduling. The Melissa stuff was happening, and it was all kind of falling apart. If Scream 7 wasn’t going to be with that team of directors and those people I fell in love with, then it didn’t seem like the right move for me in my career at the time.”
Who it did seem to be the right move for was Campbell, keen to vindicate her previous decision to walk away from Scream 6 due to the low salary offer she was made. As the re-minted star of the franchise, Campbell was given, this time around, seven million dollars for her trouble of rescuing the movie from a certain death. But another caveat for her was ensuring that Williamson would also direct the movie. And while this isn’t his directorial debut, it’s been a while since he was behind the camera for the only other movie he directed, Teaching Mrs. Tingle (a late 90s offering starring his Dawson’s Creek muse, Katie Holmes). A movie that, in truth, might have more going for it than Scream 7 (though Teaching Mrs. Tingle has a lower critical ranking). Including its soundtrack and distinctive 90s-era Williamson tone for a high school narrative (and, talking of soundtracks, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand” no longer hits the same in Scream 7, seeing as how it was long ago co-opted by Peaky Blinders). As for this installment of Scream, it’s apparent that Williamson wants to bring some of that 90s panache to the present, but it doesn’t quite translate.
Take, for example, the generically-named Ben Brown (Sam Rechner), who serves as what Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) refers to as “Gen Z Billy Loomis.” In other words, he’s the Dawson-looking boyfriend of Tatum Evans (Isabel May), Sydney’s (Campbell) seventeen-year-old daughter (and the oldest of her three children, two of which are twins who sit the movie out). And he makes his grand entrance for the audience by climbing through Tatum’s window, not only like Billy Loomis, but like Joey Potter (Holmes) in Dawson’s Creek after him. In short, Williamson’s climbing-through-the-window kink hasn’t subsided, and it’s a hallmark associated with the “innocence” of small towns. That a teenager can feel safe leaving their window wide open because whoever might pop in would surely be welcome.
In this case, Ben scaring her at first by grabbing her when she peers out the window to see what she might have heard doesn’t necessarily make him welcome. Nor does it when he tells Tatum, in that meta Williamson-written way, “It occurred to me that I’ve never snuck through your picture window. I was home, bored, watching TV. Stab was on, and it just got me thinkin’ of you.” Of course a nod to one of Billy’s famous lines from Scream, the next meta moment comes when Sydney walks in the room, making the viewer realize this isn’t any random soon-to-be victim. Not like the couple in the opening sequence to the movie…making the mistake of staying at Stu Macher’s (Matthew Lillard) old Woodsboro residence as a kind of “Airbnb experience.” An opportunity that Williamson uses to make a commentary on how nothing is sacred or “respected” anymore, certainly not any of Ghostface’s victims who died their grisly deaths in that house. A house that Ghostface will burn down by the time he’s finished with the visiting couple.
With an emblem of Woodsboro decimated from the start, Ghostface then materializes in Sydney’s new foil for that town, Pine Grove (for Williamson is nothing if not adept at coming up with suburb names). The place she’s chosen to settle down with her chief of police husband, Mark Evans (Joel McHale, who isn’t the greatest casting choice for any kind of onscreen chemistry with Campbell). And yes, there’s obviously a Psychology 101 reason behind her choosing to marry a police dude. Not that Mark is much help on the protection front…until things are really dire, that is. Unfortunately, there isn’t much else in the way of “insight” into Sydney’s life in the present day. Apart from the fact that she now runs a coffeehouse called The Little Latte—how 90s-inspired indeed. And yes, it certainly proves, like many a Gen Xer, she’s dabbled in quite a few careers.
This lack of “really knowing” Sydney is one of the few solid character developments of Scream 7, with it being the main tension driving the wedge between Sydney and her daughter, who has grown increasingly infuriated with her mother’s inability to speak openly about her past. Instead, Sydney only gets triggered and defensive when Tatum wants to bring it up. This includes her digging up the jacket that Sydney wore in her Windsor College era (a.k.a. Scream 2). While Sydney’s initial reaction is to lash out at her for wearing it without asking, she tries to smooth over the situation by saying that Tatum can wear it, she was just caught off guard. So it is that Tatum does decide to put it back on, soon after encountering her two best friends, Chloe (Celeste O’Connor) and Hannah (Mckenna Grace), on the street. And when they compliment her on it, she tells them, with with no trace of truly understanding what “vintage” means, “Thanks, it’s my mom’s. 90s vintage.”
Another “90s vintage” element in this movie is the repurposing of Casey Becker’s (Drew Barrymore) gruesome murder through a particular scene involving a theater rehearsal (itself a Scream 2 callback) and a system of wires and pulleys that do little to help the victim that similarly ends up with “her insides on the outside,” as Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan) phrases it in the first Scream. And yes, it’s a big to-do throughout Scream 7 that Sydney decided to name her daughter after “a girl who got her head crushed in a garage door,” as Tatum II so reductively points out. To be sure, there are numerous times throughout Scream 7 when Tatum’s lack of empathy for her mother’s lifelong ordeal does make it rather satisfying when she’s finally made to comprehend it firsthand.
Apart from that, however, there isn’t too much satisfaction to be had from Scream 7. Not even something zeitgeist-y on the “message pertaining to the current cultural landscape” front (unless one counts the “statement” on deepfaking via the use of Stu Macher, as well as a comment made by Lucas [Asa Germann], who says, “AI? I refuse, that is the death of civilization”). As is Williamson’s usual wont with Scream movies, including 2011’s still underrated Scream 4, which found Williamson making a prophetic statement through Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts), citing her motive for being the new Ghostface as, “Sick is the new sane… Look around, we all live in public now, we’re all on the internet—how do you think people become famous anymore? You don’t have to achieve anything. You just gotta have fucked-up shit happen to you.”
In which case everything about the way Scream 7 unfolded as it went into production means it makes total sense that it’s been a box office success. The morbid curiosity around it attracting an audience that either 1) wants to be proven that the firing of Barrera was a huge mistake or 2) that Campbell and Williamson together again is the only thing that ever made sense. Even if all such “rules” of that nature have gone out the window in 2026. With even Scream being confused about what it’s supposed to “be” at this juncture.
And while it’s clearly set up to make Tatum a potential new lead for the inevitable next movie, Neve Campbell isn’t one for being ousted from her hard-won “main final girl” role (now on the same level as Jamie Lee Curtis with the Halloween franchise). Even as, over the years, in each of these later Scream movies, she’s been told she’s “past her prime”—the phrase used in Scream 7 by a certain, let’s say, obsessive fan. Through it doesn’t come across as harshly as Jill telling her in Scream 4, “There’s only room for one lead, and let’s face it, your ingenue days, they’re over.” Of course, Melissa Barrera knows better than to believe that when it comes to writing Sydney Prescott off so readily.
