FILM REVIEW: "SCREAM 7" FINDS THE FRANCHISE GROWING HOARSE
Her hair is blonde, her sweater is white. She bites her sleeve as she peers out into the night; shadows dance where darkness prevails. A phone in her hand, the caller unknown. A question is asked, the voice icy cold: What's your favourite scary movie?
The answer is not going to be Scream 7.
When Sidney Prescott's teenage daughter becomes the target of a Ghostface killer, Sidney must once again come face to face with a masked killer.
Seven is a number of great significance. There are seven wonders of the world, seven sins, seven days in a week - and now there are seven Scream films. It may be one too many.
Moronic, generic, and poorly conceived, Scream 7 is the type of film this beloved horror franchise used to cut apart. Gone are the days of horror-based examinations and creative kills, Scream 7 trades the franchises most famous tropes for AI discourse! Needlessly too, since Ghostface has been using a voice-changer and concealing their identity since 1996!
If you watched Casey Becker fight for her life in a game of trivial pursuit and asked yourself: wouldn't this be better if they were facetiming and he didn't ask her a single question about horror movies - I HAVE THE FILM FOR YOU!
If you watched Tatum Riley get crushed to death by a garage door and asked yourself: what if Ghostface was actually a computer generated image - I HAVE THE FILM FOR YOU!
If you watched Billy Loomis reveal that the blood was fake and asked yourself: what if I didn't know who anybody was and there were no real suspects - I HAVE THE FILM FOR YOU!
Needless to say, returning writer, Kevin Williams, who penned the best of the predecessors, seemingly carved the Scream 7 screenplay in a napkin with a knife on a night out.
Niamh Campbell, Courtney Cox, and other familiar faces return - and though they occasionally have their crowd pleasing moments - the film finds nothing new for them to do. Elsewhere, new characters dot the horizon, but with little screen time, less motive, and no memorable deaths - they may as well not be there at all.
Scream 7 may as well be Stab 8: the disappointing film that sets the bloodbath in motion in Scream 5. After thirty years, this beloved franchise has finally gone hoarse.
There is still a chance for the Scream franchise if it can remember what it is. In the wise words of Randy Meeks: This is the moment when the supposedly dead killer comes back to life for one last scare.
For now, at least, this franchise is cold and dead.
