‘Scream 7’ is Caught at the Crossroads

February 26, 2026

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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

‘Scream’ is Still Nailing the Horror Zeitgeist

January 12, 2022

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Scream 2022 (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Mikey Madison, Mason Gooding, Dylan Minnette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Marley Shelton, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Kyle Gallner, Sonia Ben Ammar, Roger L. Jackson

Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Running Time: 114 Minutes

Rating: R for A Lot of Blood, and a Few Chats About Getting It On

Release Date: January 14, 2022 (Theaters)

The latest Scream movie is the fifth in the slasher series, but it’s not called “Scream 5.” Instead, it’s just called “Scream,” exactly like the very first entry. This is the latest example of an annoying trend in which sequels that also work as reboots to long-running franchises have the exact same title as the original, with 2018’s Halloween perhaps the most notorious example. I had convinced myself not to talk about the title in my review, figuring that it would be more interesting to focus on the content of the actual movie. But then I watched the movie, and it turned out that there’s a very good reason for that recycled title. Because this time around, the Woodsboro stabbing crew is aiming its knife at those franchise “requels” and all the other cinema that inspires a certain breed of toxic fandom.

More than 25 years after the first killing spree, you could be forgiven for wondering how there still could possibly be anyone connected to Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) with enough bloodlust to justify another sequel. The answer is that this time around, the motivation is less logical, and therefore more brutal and disturbing. You know the sorts of people who complain about how the likes of latter-day Star Wars and female-led Ghostbusters have destroyed their childhoods? What if they were so upset that they resorted to murder to set things right? That’s a premise that could conceivably stand on its own as an original horror flick, but it feels all too appropriate that instead it has commandeered one of the most beloved scary movie franchises of all time.

In some ways, this latest Scream is like an original effort, insofar as it focuses on the new faces ahead of the legacy characters much more so than any of the other adventures of Woodsboro. But of course, it’s still very much a part of the franchise insomuch as it follows the formula of a killer (or killers) lurking within a friend group of horny young people while terrorizing them with creepy phone calls. (Roger L. Jackson returns once again as the voice of Ghostface, and his deep cadence sounds a lot like the deep, steady tones of original Scream director Wes Craven, to the point that I wondered if Craven had before his 2015 passing recorded some dialogue to be used later.) Don’t worry too much about staleness, though, as there are some zigs when you expect zags, as characters either don’t know – or don’t care – about the rules that supposedly determine who dies and how in a horror movie. Co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have a knack for keeping audiences on their toes like this, which they demonstrated amply in their 2019 bloodbath Ready or Not.

At times, the acting may skew a little more melodramatic than is advisable, but overall, Scream remains as remarkably fun and fresh as it’s ever been. Where originally there were conversations about how blade-wielders patiently stalk their victims, now we have discussions about how the newest generation of horror tastemakers are enthralled by “elevated horror” like The Babadook and Hereditary, and how long-in-the-tooth franchises need to find that sweet spot of “not too different, not too repetitive” to succeed. Scream 2022 finds that sweet spot, and goes in for the kill.

Scream (2022) is Recommended If You Like: Defending all the Scream sequels, Ready or Not, You’re Next, Talking with your fellow movie -obsessed friends, Film Twitter, Listening to and/or hosting movie podcasts

Grade: 4 out of 5 Requels

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Skyscraper’ is at Its Best When It Keeps It Simple

July 12, 2018

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CREDIT: Kimberley French/Universal Studios

This review was originally posted on News Cult in July 2018.

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Chin Han, Richard Møller, Pablo Schreiber, Noah Taylor, Hannah Quinlivan, Matt O’Leary, Byron Mann, McKenna Roberts, Noah Cottrell

Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for A Tall Building on Fire, But Mostly the Gunfire

Release Date: July 13, 2018

One of the many revolutionary joys of Die Hard was the motivation of the villains. They presented themselves as terrorists, but they were really just simple thieves. There are several reasons why Skyscraper, which is basically “Die Hard, but in the tallest building in the world,” is not as entertaining as John McClane’s original exploits. The premise is now far from unique, obviously. Plus, any character played by Dwayne Johnson, even an amputee in this case, is already too larger-than-life for any of his heroics to be surprising. But the most fundamental mistake is that the villains’ purpose is never clear. I’m pretty sure they’re not after money, but if they are terrorizing, it is never clear what point they are trying to make, if any. It is possible this was all explained at some point while I was momentarily distracted, but if it was that hard to miss, then that’s a problem.

Thus, then, just about the only reason to check out Skyscraper is to see Johnson pull off some gravity-defying stunts. If you suffer from acrophobia or vertigo, you will definitely want to stay away, whereas if your favorite action scene ever is Ethan Hunt on the Burj Khalifa, then you will find some thrills. Johnson does not quite reach Tom Cruise’s poetic heights, but he is not far off from them. It would just be nice if the whole affair were undergirded by more of a purpose.

But there is one piece of Skyscraper that I can endorse wholeheartedly, and that is its use of the old “turn it off and turn it back on again” trick. Seriously, that is the solution that solves the day, and it is actually quite satisfying. Bringing it back to Die Hard: brilliant in its simplicity.

Skyscraper is Recommended If You Like: Die Hard “on a whatever” (minus the memorable villains), Death-Defying Stunts

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Prosthetic Legs