‘Scream 7’ is Caught at the Crossroads

February 26, 2026

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Here we go again (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group)

Starring: Neve Campbell, Isabel May, Joel McHale, Courteney Cox, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, McKenna Grace, Asa Germann, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Mark Consuelos, Timothy Simons, Ethan Embry, Matthew Lillard

Director: Kevin Williamson

Running Time: 114 Minutes

Rating: R for Some Rough Language and All the Usual Stabbings, Even Gorier Than Usual

Release Date: February 27, 2026 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is totally over it, you guys. She doesn’t even go by “Prescott” anymore! Instead, she’s running a coffee shop and living with her husband Mark (Joel McHale) and teenage daughter Tatum (Isabel May) in the humble town of Pine Grove, Indiana, where everybody knows her by her married name of Sidney Evans. Except of course they also know her by her maiden name as well, as her life story and the killers who follow her keep inspiring lurid movies and tabloid documentaries and copycat killers. Also, she did name her daughter after her best friend who died in the first Scream, so it’s not like she’s completely let go of Woodsboro, California either. Not like she ever could even if she tried. Especially not now, as Tatum is about the same age as her mom was when the first massacre happened, which the latest Ghostface(s) use as an opportunity to spook Sidney and her family with freakishly rendered reminders of her bloody past so as to air their grievances or become the star of their own movie or whatever the heck their motivations are this time.

What Made an Impression?: I’m Screaming Inside: Scream is my favorite horror movie franchise (and possibly my favorite franchise of every genre), but I had severe misgivings going into this seventh outing, given its tortured production history. After the success of the fifth and sixth ones, this chapter was originally going to again focus on Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega’s characters from those two chapters, but then Barrera was fired following pro-Palestine comments she made on social media, and Ortega soon dropped out in solidarity. Multiple directors left the project as well, and a retooling led to original Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson stepping in as director and Neve Campbell returning once again to play Sidney, after previously sitting out Scream VI because of a lowball salary offer. None of this backstory is acknowledged within the story of Scream 7 itself, but I can’t accurately and comprehensively review it without fully acknowledging my conflicted headspace.
(Retroactive) Welcome to New York!: While the narrative of Scream 7 may not directly address the behind-the-scenes drama, it does play around with it a bit by making one of its major messages be: “Sidney, you should have been there for the last one!” Seriously, other characters keep telling her how much she was missed in NYC when the most recent Ghostfaces decided to terrorize the Big Apple. Ultimately, this sequel is kind of like an alternate Scream 5, if it had focused primarily on Sidney instead of the new generation of victims and survivors. That makes for an uncanny status quo, and a franchise uncertain of what exactly direction it wants to be heading in.
Stuck In or Rejecting the Past: Scream 7‘s other message appears to be: “We heartily reject artificial intelligence!”, as (ostensible) deepfakes of former villains become the latest weapon in Ghostface’s repertoire. The delivery of that theme feels a little half-baked, though probably genuine, considering the existential crisis that AI is for so many creative professionals. Alas, it also feels strikingly at odds with one of the movie’s promotional pushes.
So What Else Is Going On?: Now that I’ve gotten all the major headlines out of the way, please allow me to talk for a bit about something that was totally unexpected. Before the mayhem fully kicks into gear, Tatum and her friends are just regular teenagers doing regular high school things. In their case, that means rehearsing for a play about fairies and the like. Timothy Simons wrings out some laughs in this section as the awe-inspiringly pompous drama teacher directing the whole affair. It’s quite the bizarre digression.
And Then We Finally Face the Ghost: While I spent the first half of Scream 7 feeling skeptical and tepid, the final act reminded me that this series has an unstoppable knack for delivering consistently killer climaxes. The Ghostface motivation this time around is probably the most nonsensical we’ve seen thus far, but it nevertheless made for a thrilling conclusion. It also against all odds made me excited for the next chapters to come, although I would still really like to see some apologies for the personnel who have been mistreated (though I’m not exactly holding out hope for that).

Scream 7 is Recommended If You: Feel like everything is cursed nowadays

Grade: 3 out of 5 Deepfakes

If Only ‘The Lovebirds’ Were More for the Birds

May 26, 2020

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CREDIT: Skip Bolen/Netflix

While appraising the Michael Showalter-directed, Kumail Nanjiani-and-Issa Rae-starring The Lovebirds, I feel a lot like Graham Chapman’s Colonel character from Monty Python, but like, in reverse. I want to pop in there and go, “I noticed a tendency for this movie to not get silly enough. Now let’s move it along and be more silly.” For something as outrageous as this bad-night-gone-wrong-then-worse rom-com, “not silly enough” might sound like a patently ridiculous accusation. Which is fine by me, as  I love being ridiculous and securing a patent for it. Furthermore, it’s possible to be over-the-top without being silly. The Lovebirds takes a grounded approach, wondering how a couple on the verge of a breakup would realistically react if someone jacked their car to murder someone in cold blood and then they proceeded to uncover a conspiracy connected to that fresh killing. The result is kind of funny and fairly heartfelt, which is enough to make me put a checkmark to my to-watch list and maybe add a smiley face.

As a veteran of The State, Stella, and Wet Hot American Summer, Michel Sho clearly has a transcendent amount of silliness in his funny bone. And Kumail certainly does, too, as he was so, so stupendously silly on Portlandia as a series of weirdly officious service employees. From what I know of Issa, she’s more awkward and goofy than silly, but I’m sure she could get into the silly groove with the right team. Now generally, I don’t like to review movies by taking them to task for what they could’ve been. Instead, I like to approach them on their own terms and ask if they did a good job at pulling off what they were attempting. But if The Lovebirds was attempting to show how people would really react to a bunch of life-threatening shenanigans, well, I believe there are some folks who would bulge out their eyes and cock their heads and maybe stare at the camera. Or maybe not. Perhaps this isn’t a proper review. Could it be that this is actually the introduction of my journey to become the Reverse-Colonel? … Bird is the word!

I give The Lovebirds 2.5 Bacon Strips out of Hot Bacon Grease.