Ghostface is back, fellow kids… and he’s here to slash your expectations in sixth Scream sequel.
Somehow, Ghostface returned. Thirty years and seven installations later, the most iconic mask of the ’90s is back, again. And, while he doesn’t look a day older than he did in his prime (botox??), unfortunately the franchise is not aging quite as gracefully.
Let’s say this up front: for all its flaws, Scream 7 is a fun film. It’s got killings that are as absurd as they are brutal, including someone meeting their demise while strung up like a piñata and another victim who – very gruesomely – becomes a beer tap in the local bar. Nice.
It has a suitably killer soundtrack, prominently featuring K! favourites Ice Nine Kills’ Twisting The Knife and Sueco’s Rearranging Scars. It’s got as many oddball suspects as it has unwitting victims (a lot!).
And the Ghostface killer continues to take more punishment than Wile E. Coyote as he’s launched down staircases, shot, stabbed and relentlessly bonked on the head over and over again. Really fun.
It even successfully brings back the likes of Neve Campbell as Sydney Prescott (now an understandably traumatised mum, running a coffee shop), Matthew Lillard as Stu Macher (sort of) and, of course, Courteney Cox as news reporter Gale Weathers, who has an entrance so unexpected, it made the entire cinema whoop. Lovely stuff.
On paper, then, Scream 7 has all the components that made the franchise endure for the last three decades. It just… doesn’t quite know what to do with them.
In an effort to deliver fan service for those old enough to have watched the original on VHS, while also trying really hard to appeal to a focus group’s idea of ‘things Gen Z like’ (Deep fakes? AirBnB? FaceTime? ’90s vintage? Being an intern??), the film becomes so self-aware and so self-referential, it starts to undermine its own plot.
Characters attempt to meta-game the solving of the murders and wearily reference the tropes that form the DNA of the franchise (‘It’s always the weird kid, right? Hur hur’ / ‘There’s always more than one killer loool’). Meanwhile, AI is – rightly – scoffed at, before swiftly being used as a central plot device. A level of clumsy that Ghostface himself could only dream of.
Ultimately, all this semi-ironic eye-rolling achieves is to highlight that, behind the mask, Scream 7 is a collection of well-loved, well-executed but ultimately well-worn slasher cliches, idly threaded together with so many misguided attempts to reach ‘the kids’ that it would make Steve Buscemi put down his skateboard for good. Sorry, Ghostface – it’s not killer.
Verdict: 2/5
Scream 7 is out now via Paramount
